Welsh for All hosts intensive course

The Welsh for All programme held an Intensive Course for learners from 16 to 20 January 2017.

Held in the John Percival building, this was a voluntary course which ran for five days and was delivered by Welsh for All tutors. A number of undergraduate and postgraduate students from a wide range of degree programmes, including Architecture, Computing, Sociology, Music and Communication, attended.

During the week, the students benefited from a range of workshops designed to lay a solid foundation for them to begin using the language socially and professionally. They also had the opportunity to visit the Senedd in Cardiff Bay and learn about the building and politics in Wales as well as how Welsh is used there.

Netta Chamachau, a postgraduate student in Sociology had a great week on the course and said that she had enjoyed the opportunity to meet students from other Schools and “having the opportunity to learn some of the patterns I see around me in Cardiff was fantastic. I greatly enjoyed the course, especially the various activities.”

Polly Cunana is an international postgraduate student who took advantage of the opportunity to learn Welsh for the first time. She said: “In a short time I have come to love Cardiff and the intensive course was a wonderful opportunity for me to learn the language and become part of the Welsh culture of the city. The tutors were all full of enthusiasm and totally invested in ensuring we benefited from the experience of learning Welsh.”

Welsh for All’s Manager, Dr Angharad Naylor, said: “Welsh for All is going from strength to strength and our provision has developed significantly since we launched the programme in 2015.

“It was a pleasure to meet so many enthusiastic students on the intensive course and to see how eager they were to use their new language patterns while socialising together and with staff from the School of Welsh. We hope to hold more intensive courses in the future alongside our other courses which have proven so popular. We are now looking forward to our 9 week courses which start in February. Some of the students from the intensive course will also return to learn more Welsh at a higher level of proficiency.”

The Welsh for All programme offers Cardiff University students the opportunity to lean Welsh free of charge. Since launching the programme in the summer of 2015, more than 325 students have received tuition at various levels. Watch the video to see the 2015/16 cohort talk about their experiences.