Adult Learners Welsh Language Learners
Utopia Postponed Four Papers

Howard Gunn B.Ed.,M.Ed.,

Paper: The Teaching and Learning of the Welsh Language

Community Education: First Published 2011

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Forward

The fact that someone can speak a language does not mean they will be able to effectively teach it. The fact that Welsh is the national language of Wales does not mean that it can be learnt in an entirely different way from any other language. There are no miracle ways to teach and learn any language. The Welsh for Adult Service is provided by unqualified university academics who are practising 1950s behaviourist methods of learning. It is a historical anachronism.

The Welsh for Adult Service is providing a community education service that is inspected by Estyn, which does not inspect university life longer learning services. It has been directed and provided by Welsh-speaking university academics who have no legal teaching qualifications. It is the only community service up to A’Level that is not taught by registered Q.T.S. teachers. This appears to be xenophobic prejudice.

Professional teachers are trained in schools of education. All subject boundaries are artificial constructs. Q.T.S. teachers are required to apply the same basic principles of teaching in all subjects.

They are highly trained and registered. They are all required to apply exacting standards of practice and conduct in their public and private lives. The university academics have been making up their own D.I.Y. methods. It appears that they are allowed to do anything they like.

Q.T.S. Welsh Language teachers are the leading authority on Welsh Language teaching. They are intensively trained in schools of education where student teachers and Q.T.S. teachers are taught how to teach Welsh, and they also teach their student teachers Welsh as a language.

It appears not to be generally understood in Wales that all teaching and learning conform to the same core teaching and learning principles across the curriculum. Language teaching is a refinement of those principles. Second language teaching is a further refinement, and the learning of a specific language like Welsh is a further refinement. Welsh Language, leaning up to A’Level, has been practised in schools for generations.

It also appears not to be generally understood by Welsh for Adult tutors that teaching has professional teaching is extremely well-researched. Teachers draw on relevant psychological, cognitive and neuroresearch research. It is well practised by millions of teachers every day in a whole range of subjects across the English-speaking world. There are libraries of researched educational books in schools of education.

Professor Stephen Pinker, a brilliant American cognitive psychologist, refers to a person telling a concert pianist that if he could play the piano like him, he would give his life to do so. The concert pianist replied, “I did”. Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours of practice for a pianist to develop a concert level and 3 hours a day to retain it. This applies to all mastery.

It takes around 10,000 hours to develop native-like fluency in a new language. They cannot be effectively learnt through memorising phrases like parrots. We all apply our native language fluently and effortlessly. People do not understand how complicated languages are, how difficult they are to learn and how long it takes to learn them. Teaching a second language is as difficult to teach and challenging to learn as maths.

Teachers have been trained to teach by qualified teachers up to the present day. Keith Field (2000), who is a very distinguished second language professional teaching authority and author, stated that every second language teaching method had been tried before the introduction of the National Curriculum was introduced. Swarbrick (1996) referred to there being no such things as methods in second language teaching. In the Welsh for Adult Service, they have been making up D.I.Y. methods.

Dr Margaret Newcombe, Cardiff School of Welsh (2007) said:-

“Wales is bursting with talented shooters who could be leaders on the world stage.”

She was advocating the merits of the 1950s Wlpan Skinnerist behaviourist animal training, which professional teachers would be struck off for practising. The academics know the root of the method dates back to 1947. It is a method that any Tom, Dick and Mary can practice without having any training. School teachers have been professionally trained since the 1850s.

Professor Daniel Mujis and David Reynolds (2001), who are distinguished professors of education, called for D.I.Y. methods to be abandoned across the world. They should have been abandoned in the Welsh for Adult Service since the Autumn of 2018, but the reform was not implemented.

The first paper in this book, titled “The Future Welsh Learning for Adult Learners (2011),” which was written in anticipation of the Welsh government-financed research published by Professor Sioned Davies et al. in 2012 in Cardiff School of Welsh. The paper illustrated what they should have established. They approved 1950s behaviourist methods.

The second paper is titled “The Future Welsh Learning for Adult Learners (2023)”. It reviews the published outcome of Professor Sioned Davies et al.'s research. The research was retrospective. They found more contemporary research in Coleman and Klapper (2005), which had twenty-two university second language contributors. They were all using the same basic proven methods. There are authorities in university language fields like Pual Meara from Swansea University, who is an authority on second language vocabulary in the book.

The third paper refers to Aran Jones, who had never even practised in the Welsh for Adult Service, which professor Sioned Davies et al. approved in her research and the new National Welsh Language Learning College is actively supporting his methods. All he was doing was putting random phrases into cyberspace on his website and making ridiculous claims about what learners were achieving. He had no face to face contact with them. He is quick playing being a teacher and researcher.

The fourth paper refers to Ioan Talfryn, who was practising in the Welsh for Adult Service. He appeared to have been under the delusion that he had discovered how to teach. He was practising desuggestopedia, which is a pseudo-science method where he was blinding learners with fake sense. All he was doing was entertaining learners and letting his adults do all the work.

There a final paper on the Future of the Welsh for Adult service.

Contents

Paper 1 - The Future of Welsh Learning for Adult Learners (2011)

Paper 2 - The Future of Welsh Learning for Adult Learners (2023)

Paper 3 – Aran Jones – Say something in Welsh (S.S.I.W)

Paper 4 – Ioan Talfryn – deSuggestopedia

The Future of the Welsh for Adult Service.

Paper 1 - The Future of Welsh Learning for Adult Learners (2011)

Paper. 1.1 The Need for Change

The marketing of Welsh Language courses to adults has been very strong in recent years, but the problem with all learning courses is that it is very straightforward to encourage learners to start courses, but it is much more difficult to retain them on courses and to lead them forward to achieving the ambition that prompted them to start them. Learning a second language requires many years of learning for learners to reach a standard where they will be able to apply their second language with comfort and fluency. A great amount of the work that students will need to undertake to learn languages successfully will need to be undertaken outside their formal lessons.

The Need for Change

The fundamental principle of curriculum development theory is that the curriculum is a living thing in a changing world, and unless it adapts to change, then subjects may wither and become extinct. Learning approaches that were appropriate for learners thirty years ago will rarely be appropriate for modern-day learners' needs.

The Wlpan approach to learning the Welsh Language, which is still being actively applied to teach learners the Welsh Language in certain learning centres, had its origins in Israel in the 1940s, where it was used to teach Jewish immigrants to Israel after the Second World War.

The method was called Ulpan. It appears to date back to 1880. It was imported and adapted to tutor Welsh in the 1970s. Irrespective of how the approach has been developed since that time, the retention of the term suggests that the philosophical teaching base of the approach has remained unchanged since the middle of the last century.

There is a strong emphasis on drilling in the approach, which clearly indicates that it is based on a rote teaching, behaviourist view of learning. Wallace (2008) refers to behaviourist methods of learning as being an inhumane method of learning. Although the name Wplan is increasingly being dropped, the practice still appears to be based upon Wplan views and values.

Traditional approaches to learning throughout the curriculum were all based upon a rote teaching view of learning. This is often referred to as Skinnerism after the person in America who advocated the approach in the 1950s. It relates to a very instrumental, mechanical view of learning, which does not sufficiently consider how learners should learn what is taught to them. It had a strong emphasis on learning through memorising information through repetition, as opposed to developing understanding-based learning.

The approach is based upon instruction as opposed to real teaching. The approach is very memory-dependent. This is why the approach does not offer students, especially average and lower-than-average students, the most secure avenue to achieve ultimate learning success. Education has now moved on from this oversimplistic view of teaching and learning.

The problem that exists in Welsh Language teaching is that there is a notion that every "Tom, Dick or Mary" can effectively teach it. The fact that someone can speak a language or even possess an advanced understanding of a language does not give them the God-given right to be effective tutors.

Teaching a second language involves a great deal of formative learning, which resembles what is practised in primary education. It requires high-quality teaching skills to teach it effectively. It is important that Welsh Language learning centres adopt best practices. Newcombe (2010) admits that few Welsh Language learners achieve fluency. It must be accepted that newer generations of Welsh learners will increasingly be less acquainted with the traditional rote teaching methods of learning.

The society that learners learn in has changed dramatically over recent decades. The fact that methods such as Wplan have served students' learning needs in the past does not necessarily mean that they will continue to provide the most effective model of fostering Welsh language learning in the future.

The reason why the Wlpan approach has yielded success for students appears to be attributable to the intensity of the course because lessons are normally provided for three sessions a week of approximately three hours each. Learners will need to be highly committed to taking courses of this intensity, and it is likely that most learners taking these courses will not be in full-time employment or they are being allowed paid time to take the courses.

The frequency of the learning sessions should increase learners' potential to retain what they learn and accelerate their rates of progress, but all learners learning success will be developed outside their lessons as much as in them (Gunn, 2010). Whether the Wlpan intensity of formally taught activities is needed is less certain. The quantity of formal learning does not always equal the quality of it. There have also been less time-intensive versions of the course.

Immersion Methods of Learning

The Wplan method was originally designed as an immersion method of learning. It is based on Krashen's view of language learning. A fundamental feature of the ulpan method that it was derived from is that learners were not only immersed in the language they learnt in their lessons but also outside it. This is because immigrants to Israel needed to learn and use Jewish to live their everyday lives actively in their new country.

Learners who need to learn English as a foreign language in this or other English-speaking countries will also be immersed in the language. In these situations, learners are immersed in the language in their lessons and in their daily lives. This does not reflect the situation that most Welsh learners confront, especially those who do not live in Welsh-speaking families or who have friends who speak the language. The implications this has for Welsh Language learning is that total immersion methods, such as Wlpan and T.E.F.L approaches, are unlikely to offer a suitable model for effectively learning the Welsh Language.

Uplan is now failing in Israel because it needs to be taught to learners originating from different countries to those in 1946, and modern learners require more formal methods of language teaching. The notion that learners can learn a second language through total immersion in any language is no longer tenable. The fact that children learn naturally in this way does not mean that it is the most effective means for adults to learn a second language because second language learners need to learn the language in accelerated timescales (Gunn, 2010).

Language immersion is important in all language learning, but the opportunity to learn Welsh through total immersion is always going to be limited in Wales. This is why critical aspects of language learning, such as grammar, need to be given active attention in curriculum planning and actively taught.

The Need for Improving Standards

Unless learners' Welsh Language is developed upon secure pedagogic foundations, then the potential for learners to progress onto the higher levels of language learning will be seriously retarded. Many learners who learn the Welsh Language will not achieve the levels of fluency of native speakers, but this is not to suggest that they should not learn the language.

Students must possess and be encouraged to develop realistic ambitions of what they will be able to achieve (Gunn, 2010). Aiming to speak the language fluently should not be the sole purpose for attempting to learn to speak the Welsh Language. It should be possible for learners to gain a basic understanding and command of the language after a couple of years of study. The ability to listen and receive the language will be easier to achieve than expressing it, especially speaking it.

All students should be entitled to receive a high-quality, well-delivered curriculum, which will open the door of opportunity that will allow them to progress to ever-increasing levels of language development.

Although the Cwrs Mynediad series has been created to improve the quality of the curriculum delivered to learners, the notion that students "Do not need to learn about grammar", which Helen Meek, the author, stated in the initial book of the learning hierarchy, means that there is very little direct teaching contained in the coursebook. This view of learning relates to Krashen's theory that learners can learn grammar implicitly through immersion, which the Wlpan method relates to. He goes as far as to suggest that teaching learners' grammar explicitly will interfere with learners' successful language learning, but there is evidence he was referring to the rote teaching of formal grammar.

Krashen's theories date back to the 1980s. The approach that was applied to teaching grammar in that era is significantly different to what is currently practised. Even if grammar is learnt implicitly, it will also need to be learnt explicitly also. The Open University, which is a very respected language course provider, stated that:-

"In the early stages of language learning, it is important to define your priorities even more closely. Much of what you learn by way of basic vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure will be essential for any meaningful communication."

Swarbrick (1994) contended that an explicit and implicit approach to grammar learning is needed. Many other second language authorities have more recently recognised this need. It is now accepted that children need to be explicitly taught grammar across the language curriculum in schools and in foreign languages. It is accepted that it needs to be taught in foreign languages, also.

As Gunn (2010) concluded, grammar teaching is essential. The critical question is not whether grammar should taught but how it should be taught. Estyn (2009) review of modern foreign language in schools refers to standards of achievement being "generally good", and it reported that "learners had a thorough grasp of grammar". The fact that learners should be expected to learn grammar in schools in Wales in Welsh and English but not in Welsh to adult centres appears absurd. Both views cannot be right.

Competent tutors should be able to resolve any anxieties that learners possess about learning grammar. Even "Teach Yourself" books have published a book on how to teach English as a Second Language (Stevens, 2003). All emphasise the importance of grammar. All commercially produced Welsh learning books refer to grammar is some form. No one advises learners not to learn about grammar. If learners are not adopting accepted standard practices, then it is little wonder that there are high discontinuity rates of adults learning the Welsh Language.

Attempting to develop the capability to apply grammar without developing an awareness and understanding of it is like suggesting that chess can be played without learning the moves. The only language that can be applied without learning about grammar is that learnt parrot fashion. Humans are intelligent beings, not animals. The quality of the curriculum that is delivered to students using the Cwrs Mynediad series will remain very dependent on the quality of teaching by tutors using the scheme (Gunn, 2010). The fact that tutors are friendly, hard-working and committed does not necessarily mean that high-quality teaching is being provided to learners.

The responsibility for developing a constantly improving curriculum must be shared by all those involved in the learning process. It no longer appears appropriate for there to be any ambiguity about whether the core characteristics of learning a second language, such as grammar, should be taught or not.

The Lack of Research

The research base, the corporate intelligence, which exists about Welsh teaching and learning must always remain limited in scope in British and international terms because of the limited resources available, especially in comparison with mathematics and English teaching. The research base of second language pedagogy, in general, has been uncertain, and there have been swings in views, values and methodologies over the years.

Swarbrick (1994) contended that the communicative approach to language teaching, which underpins most second language teaching, is "A fluid and changing body of idea, not a fixed package." Gunn (2010) concluded that the underlying problem appears to be that very instrumental values are applied to it, as opposed to the learning outcomes that need to be fostered.

The problem that appears to exist in second language teaching as a whole is that there is too much rigid adherence to methodologies and dogmatic views about them, especially in the traditional Wlpan teaching of Welsh to adults.

There certainly appears to be no grounds for complacency about standards of teaching Welsh to adults. Newcombe (2010) suggests that a large proportion of learners drop out of learning Welsh. There is surely a corporate responsibility of all those involved in the process of teaching Welsh to adults to ensure that practice is based upon secure pedagogic principles.

Although teaching the Welsh Language may incur unique learning problems, it would be very narrow-minded and unacceptable not to employ what is known about learning generally and what second language learning has for teaching the Welsh Language.

The Need to Move Away from the Wlpan Teaching Values

The reasons why Wlpan has endured in Welsh teaching to adults appeared to be based upon the misguided view that the learning of the language is distinct from foreign language teaching. This cannot be the case. There is a distinction that is sometimes made between second and foreign languages. This relates to whether the language being learnt needs to be actively used by learners in the country they are learning it in to live their everyday lives or not.

If someone emigrates to France and learns French there, for instance, then the language would be a second language, but if they learn it outside of France, then it will be a foreign language. The only difference between the two would be that someone learning French in France will have more opportunities to apply and encounter the language in their everyday lives.

Strictly speaking, viewed from a learning perspective, Welsh Language learning does not precisely match either criterion for most learners. This situation will relate to other languages in the world, such in countries where more than one language is spoken. The distinction should not be viewed instrumentally. It appears more appropriate to use the term second language. There is a need to develop learning programs that will cater to students' real learning needs in the environment that they are living in. It must never be forgotten that the learning aim must be to equip learners to speak the Welsh Language!

One of the fundamental problems that I confronted in my own Welsh Language learning is that the opportunity to speak the Welsh Language in Wales is extremely limited. I visited Llanelli recently, for instance, and I did not hear a word of Welsh spoken on the streets there. If I could actively use Welsh on the streets of Cardiff, then I would most probably be a highly fluent Welsh speaker by now! This is a real problem. Immersion Welsh learning methods fail learners most who do not live in Welsh-speaking families.

If universities are providing courses that are only suited to learners who live in Welsh-speaking families, then they should have the honesty to tell their potential learners. It is reasonable to suggest that many learners who live in Welsh-speaking families will be unable to use the Welsh Language for a significant part of their daily lives depending on their occupations and what parts of Wales they live in. It is not possible to successfully learn a second language without a high degree of environmental immersion.

Wlpan is an approach that has been developed from Hebrew. It is not a method that has been directly adopted in any other major European language. In the literature research that I have undertaken, I have discovered no reference to it whatsoever. It is written from right to left as opposed to left to right in English and most European languages.

Hebrew would have undoubtedly had to be taught in the target language because there would have been people from a range of different countries needing to learn the new language at once. There is minimal information that explains the rationale for the Wlpan approach, which would have allowed it to be independently considered and evaluated. It appears to account for why the methodology appears subject to individual interpretation by service providers and tutors.

Llewellyn (2007) explained that certain learners were not even allow learners to see the written course materials and dictionaries in the Wlpan approach. According to Newcombe (2010), Cardiff University's Welsh department has only allowed their course materials to be made available to students since 2009. This is ridiculous.

It appears that the term Wlpan implies a conformity of practice, which does not actually exist. It is related to a master-apprentice approach to learning. The approaches that continue to be applied in the teaching of Welsh to adults remain too heavily based upon rote teaching principles, as opposed to more cognitive-based approaches.

The most intensive immersion language learning situation exists in children's learning of English. They will not only have naturally learned their language from birth, but they will also need to apply the English language throughout the school curriculum and in their everyday lives. Despite this, it has been deemed necessary for them to be formally taught grammar. It is well documented in the literature that the notion that grammar should not be taught, posited according to Krashen's 1980s input theory, is fundamentally flawed (Kirsch, 2008 and Coleman and Klapper, 2005).

Gordon Brown, in his election debate on the 15th of April 2010, stated that the reason high standards of learning are needed is because the United Kingdom had to compete with countries in the Far East. This appears to be why the importance of teaching foreign languages is increasingly being recognised in the school curriculum. Learning a language also has a role in supporting learners' English grammatical development (Gunn, 2010).

It appears absurd that against this background, bearing the depth of expertise that exists in pedagogy in the school curriculum, there should continue to be an over-emphasis on immersion methods of learning and a reluctance to teach grammar in Welsh to adults. It is clearly evident that it will be much easier to teach grammar in the Welsh Language in comparison with other languages, such as English, which are more complex languages.

There is evidence that the privately published Welsh learning books arbitrarily present weak and over-complicated grammatical explanations, which undoubtedly accounts for why grammar teaching may have been deemed to have failed learners' learning needs. I have personally witnessed in my learning of Welsh grammar being taught by three different tutors that learners did not experience significant difficulties in understanding what was taught to them. In my early learning, there was a wide cross-section of learners present in my classes, including pensioners. The difficulty lies in translating the grammar that has been learnt into applied usage, irrespective of whether it is learnt formally or not.

The Welsh Language curriculum is normally delivered by qualified and unqualified tutors (instructors). Although they cannot be expected to meet the exacting standards of Qualified Teaching Status (registered) teachers, it is possible for them to offer reasonable quality learning experiences provided they are suitably trained and supported by qualified educationalists who are conversant with current best practices, and when the learning frameworks are created for them. It is possible to create quality learning schemes that will provide the framework for effective learning to take place.

The fact that Wlpan may have been successfully used in the past to teach Welsh and the related Uplan Hebrew in the more distant past does not necessarily mean that it will provide the most effective means of teaching and learning the Welsh Languages' future. There are many medical remedies that were once used to improve health in different countries, but this does not suggest that they should continue to be used when more proven and effective treatments have been developed.

The future survival of the Welsh Language must surely depend on the quality of teaching and a clearly articulated intent to constantly strive for continuous curriculum improvement, and not the history of a 'vintage' method that was used to revive a language in a different country. Ulpan

There is a vast amount of research literature into the teaching of English as a foreign language dating back to the 1990s that clearly illustrates the importance of learning 'about' grammar. The only way that learners can successfully construct language without learning about grammar is to either learn it explicitly or through learning phrases by rote memorisation, parrot fashion.

The Cwrs Mynediad audio CD clearly states its purpose is "To enable learners to memorise the phrases in them". This clearly demonstrates the behaviourist view of learning because the only thing that needs to be retained from any lesson should be the worthwhile learning outcomes, the facts, skills, and understanding that should have been fostered in it, as opposed to memorising the lesson itself!

The Cwrs Mynediad series curriculum has clearly been designed from a topic perspective, which reflects the rote teaching view of learning that underpins the scheme and the lack of importance accredited to grammar learning in it. The purpose of teaching must be to equip learners to apply what they learn to a whole range of topics and contexts.

Topics only provide the means of achieving the learning end (Gunn, 2010). The approach that has been applied has led to curriculum distortion. Cwrs Mynediad, Unit 7, for instance, introduces roedd hi (She/It was) so it can be used to refer to yesterday and tomorrow in the topic of weather, but neither tense is revisited until Unit 20. Thirteen lessons later. Why learners should only be introduced to using roedd hi/e to refer to objects, which are equivalent to it in English, but not to genders, such as to he and she appears absurd, especially as the equivalent mae e/hi form is fully introduced in the present and shortened present tense verbs?

The learning aim of Meeks' lesson is clearly to equip learners to say a few phrases about the weather and not equip them to actively apply to the language conventions in their language expression and successfully receive it in their language reception.

There are other distortions, also. Two persons of the verb ni and nhw are omitted from the shortened past tense verbs of the scheme. Viewed from an applied learning perspective, it is unclear why learners should learn to apply prynais i (I bought) and not prynon nhw (They bought). There is no significant difference in how the persons of the verb function. It would not require detailed learning attention.

If the purpose of the scheme is to equip learners to actively encounter and apply the language in everyday contexts, then it is difficult to conceive why these exclusions exist because learners will encounter all the verb person form in everyday language. This clearly illustrates that the curriculum has been designed to match the set topics and not what learners will encounter and will need to apply in everyday life contexts.

There is a serious lack of overall learning structure in the Cwrs Myneddiad series publication. This is illustrated in the arbitrary presentation of the verbs in the scheme. The introduction of the present tense appears very piecemeal, and the belated introduction of mae nhw over ten lessons later appears to be an afterthought. It also appears inappropriate to introduce the shortened verb forms before the three main long forms of the verbs: the present, imperfect (past) and the future tense.

The future tense is only introduced towards the end of the manuscript, but rather mysteriously, only the first and third person of the imperfect (past) tense is introduced in the book. This is also illustrated in the lack of coherence in how the regular and irregular past tense is presented in the scheme. Most sources address them separately because they relate to different constructions, but the presentation in Cwrs Myneddiad arbitrarily mixes them together. This has the potential to cause learning interference, confusion for learners.

It is difficult to conceive how any lesson based upon the structuring of the presentation of these grammatical conventions can be meaningfully understood, either implicitly or explicitly. This also applies to the overall presentation of verbs in the scheme.

It is accepted that the Cwrs Mynediad does provide grammar sections, but Meek discourages learners from referring to them. The grammar sections have omissions to them. There is a failure to highlight the significance of the linking yn, for instance, that in needed between a verb, and verb-nouns, nouns and adjectives, which has the potential to be confused with preposition yn (in). There cannot be any convincing reason for this omission that relates to such a fundamental element of basic Welsh grammar construction.

The Cwrs Mynediad series publication clearly relates to a 'practise until you can do it' view of language learning, which is illustrated in the very strong questioning flavour to what is presented in the book, especially in the early units of Cwrs Mynediad.

The titles for the units clearly illustrate that the learning aim is to prepare learners to ask enquiring questions and to engage in discussions from their earliest lessons. The present tense is initially introduced as a question in Unit 2, Pwy dych chi?, for instance, with a dw i answer, while the demonstrative pronoun 'your' is introduced in Unit 3 to ask Beth yw'ch enw chi? This is before learners have been introduced to many core root elements of the language.

It would be absurd to expect learners to develop an awareness and understanding of the demonstrative pronoun fy....i at this stage in their learning. It is clearly only included to prepare learners to engage in the lesson task of making telephone enquiries.

The questioning theme reflects the instrumentalism of the book. Learning is most effectively developed when it develops from simple concepts to the more complex. Beth yw'ch enw chi, for instance, even includes a modification, a shortening eich enw chi. This complexity was added to what was presented before the related core concepts were introduced. This is very difficult to justify. This is equivalent to introducing learners to a word, such as the plural factories in English, before introducing them to the singular factory.

It is difficult to conceive that learners can meaningfully learn a modified form of a language convention before they have been introduced to its root form. This suggests that learners are expected to mechanically remember these terms by rote.

It is also difficult to justify the concentration upon questioning at such an early stage in learners learning. Viewed from a learning perspective, all the long- and short-term verb questions and negatives are created by adding a mutation to the first letter and adding a ddim (not) for the negative form. These are only relatively minor modifications of the long affirmative verb forms. Presenting the whole picture of how basic verb functions will allow learners to be more securely understood and actively applied in a wide range of applications.

When questioning terms, such as Ble and Beth, are placed in front of the affirmative verb forms, they do not require significant structural changes, except for their use with the third-person present tense of the verb, which requires more irregular verb constructions than the others. The learning of these should surely logically develop from introducing the basic long forms of verbs first. This once again suggests that learners are expected to memorise phrases as opposed to developing an understanding of them.

There is evidence that similar problems exist at higher levels of the Cwrs Mynediad series. The curriculum is still delivered in topics, but as these relate to a higher level of learning, the language content of the topics tends to be more coherent. The lack of teaching in the scheme remains.

The irregularity of the extra bod in dylwn i fod wedi in comparison with the other 'bod' verbs is neither pointed out nor is it explained in Cwrs Sylfaen's grammar section, for instance. This is not referred to in the tutors' notes either. The only learning issue raised is the need to apply a mutation

If a learning scheme is not going to highlight the essential features of the language conventions, which will allow learners to refer to them before and after their lessons, then there appears to be little purpose in their having a coursebook.

The significant weakness throughout the scheme is that the course does not provide a comprehensive overview of the grammatical content of the language that learners need to learn, there are insufficient examples to make explicit how the language conventions are applied, and the explanation of grammar, which learners are encouraged not to refer to, are generally weak.

Presenting the grammar sections in the target language in the higher levels of the schemes also makes the section more difficult to read. It is unclear why the monotonous play and copy CD exercises, which merely repeat the main sentence examples presented in the course books, endure up to Canolradd Level.

Rather surprisingly, there is no audio recording offered for the comprehension of texts at this level. Surely, after three years of learning, learners should have developed their pronunciation skills, and they should have developed the ability to internalise and silently read the sound of Welsh words from print.

The failure to adequately address the issue of grammar learning in the scheme means that it is merely a lesson activity guide because learning to apply grammar is at the heart of learning a second language effectively. It is unclear why learners need to be provided merely with a compendium of lesson activities.

The rationale for this approach clearly relates to Krashen's view of learning, which was popular in the 1980s. This clearly indicates that the whole series is simply a repackaged version of Wlpan. The whole structuring of the Cwrs Mynediad illustrates this because its approach is based upon the assumption that learners will learn grammatical forms incidentally when communicating in the target language. The learning needs of all learners in any class will never be identical. The scheme will not cater to all learners' needs in class because they will not be able to use it to revise what they have learned or work ahead of what they are being taught.

The approach spoon-feeds learners, which is illustrated in the 'yet to be done' Mynediad comments. It is difficult to conceive how the scheme can provide the supporting frameworks for effective Welsh Language learning to take place. It is little wonder that learners are finding the Welsh Language learning difficult to learn and that learning mortality remains high.

The Limitation of the Cwrs Mynediad series Examinations.

Assessments cannot be divorced from the views and values that are applied to the capabilities that they are intended to assess. The only valid purpose for learning a language is to develop the capability to actively apply the target language in a wide range of everyday life contexts because there is no intrinsic value, such as in teaching learners to speak exclusively about the weather.

This principle also applies to assessment because there is no intrinsic value in assessing learners' capability to speak about the weather either. The only valid purpose of assessing learners' capability in topics will be the extent to which the assessment will provide an indication of learners' overall capabilities and the extent to which they can apply it in their general language activities.

A feature of most valid assessments is that they offer a dipstick test of the overall curriculum that has been taught to learners. This is needed because it would be impossible to assess every element of what needs to be taught in a worthwhile comprehensive curriculum. This is why it is common practice to include unpredictable elements in assessments: it will encourage learners to prepare the whole curriculum for the assessments because of the threat that any aspect of it may be assessed. In history, for instance, it would be impossible for learners to be formally assessed in every historical topic in a significant examination, such as G.C.S.E.

Through assessing an unpredictable sample of a range of topics, it is assumed that learners have learnt the whole curriculum content to an equivalent standard. This can only be achieved if the curriculum that needs to be learnt is clearly defined and articulated to learners. Ways must be established to assess learners' potential to apply their Welsh Language skills to a wide range of contexts, however difficult this will be to achieve.

There is no value in creating learners who can only apply language in a narrow range of contexts or giving them a false sense of accomplishment through positively assessing such a narrow capability.

The W.J.E.C. (2010) merely refers to using the "Language forms which are familiar to you" in their Cwrs Mynediad series examination criteria. What is meant by this is ambiguous. Under the topic of 'speaking about the weather', for instance, it would be possible for a candidate to utter a few words, such as stating, "It is raining", or for them to provide a detailed university lecture on the subject.

If the assessments are intended to obtain an indication of learners' overall learning needs, then their ability to apply their skills in everyday life situations, as opposed to their ability to perform specific assessment tasks and topics, it appears reasonable to conclude that these distortions will undermine the validity of the assessments, because, in the real world of everyday language, learners will need to hear and need to say in Welsh "We walked to the town" as much as "I walked to town", for instance.

The fact the Mynediad series is presented and provides objectives in topics to which learners are encouraged to relate their progress to, means that the emphasis is not placed on the core elements of language learning. Vocabulary learning is not even mentioned. Meek's (2006) advice that you do not need to learn about grammar is adhered to then learners will not give any active attention to what they are learning grammatically. In practice, learners will need to develop an understanding of how to construct language to create grammatical forms, but they will have no means of knowing how well they are learning it because it is not given attention to in the assessment schemes.

Learning about grammar is the process of developing a tool that can be used to clearly communicate through language. Unless systematic attention is given to grammar teaching and assessment, then the sound foundations of new language learning will not be fostered.

The assessment tasks of the Cwrs Mynediad examinations are very instrumental. The tasks include assessing learners' ability to read advertisements, fill in forms and write notes. One task is titled 'gap filling'. This is the type of assessment task that is normally given to adult learners with learning difficulties. It is reasonable to conclude that mature adults should be fully capable of performing such tasks in their first language, so the only constraint will be their ability to apply them in their new language.

There does not appear to be a significant difference in filling forms in English, Welsh or any other language. There same must surely apply to reading advertisements and writing notes. If learners can comprehend and write in the target language, then they should reasonably be expected to complete such tasks. There does not appear to be a valid reason for including these assessment tasks in the examinations. It relates to the inordinately instrumental view of language learning.

Frequently applied assessments can smother the need to implement curriculum improvement because there will be no rewards for tutors to teach or learners to learn content or qualities that will not be assessed. Suppose tutors preparing for the Cwrs Myndediad assessment scheme should decide that it would be in learners' long-term learning interests to develop their basic skills more thoroughly, for instance, as opposed to covering the whole curriculum that is presented in the learning scheme. In that case, this will have a detrimental influence upon the results that their students will achieve.

The problem with all formal examinations, such as musical examinations, is that they brand learners into successes and failures, especially in early examinations before the firm foundations of learning development have been formulated. This can undermine learners' confidence in their developing capabilities. Practical assessments are unreliable because learners' apprehension can cause them to make careless mistakes.

The Curriculum Constraint

There is clear evidence that the Cwrs Mynediad series was created on the assumption that by providing a highly prescriptive scheme, the teaching standard would improve, and as a consequence, students learning success and continuity would also be improved. It was undoubtedly written to address concerns about the standard of teaching and high discontinuity rates in Welsh for adult learning.

The scheme is even supported by very detailed instructions in the tutor books, which dictate what should be practised at each stage in a lesson, but it is seriously lacking in providing a rationale of what should be practised and why. It has created a rigid curriculum that learners are expected to proceed through, irrespective of their learning needs. The scheme retards the potential to cater for learners' differentiated learning needs.

Although high-quality schemes should enable high-quality teaching to be developed through using them, which will improve standards for a large population of learners, the antithesis of this is any weakness in the scheme can have a detrimental influence on the standards of a large population of learners.

There are issues about the quality of the Crws Mynediad scheme and assessment series. Reference to the alternative private self-study learning materials indicates that all of them refer to grammatical structures of the language, some better than others, and none advise learners not to read the references to grammar. Most present the grammatical forms of the language as coherent topics in structured presentations. They do not abandon the use of the English Language as occurs in the Mynediad series. It is unlikely there would be a market for the books if they did.

The problem that existed with the National Curriculum Assessments was that it required learners to conform to a given standard and content at given stages in their learning, but the assessments allowed schools the autonomy to develop the means of achieving them over several years. The original model that was proposed for the National Curriculum Assessments was the graded music examinations, but Paul Black's Working Party rejected it because it was recognised that a great deal of teaching time needs to be devoted to preparing learners to pass them.

The graded music examinations do not sufficiently assess performers' musical understanding upon which learners applied musical capability depends. They have imposed a very rigid and inflexible control of what is practised in the subject over many generations. This reflects the situation that currently exists in Welsh Language teaching to adults. The experience of learning Welsh as an adult is now principally one of preparing and taking examinations. The tradition of publishing the adult Welsh learning schemes is that they tend to be changed every decade. The Mynediad series was initially introduced in 2006, and there has been no change to the scheme since that date.

There is no compulsion for course providers to use the Mynediad scheme or the associated examinations, but most appear to be using it. There is no compulsion for learners to take the examination, but most will be required to use the scheme because others on their course will be preparing for the assessments. There are also considerable pressures on course providers to encourage learners to take the assessments because course public funding is dependent on learners' examination success. They have created 'a perceived payments by result' approach to Welsh adult learning.

The fundamental principle of curriculum development theory is the need for continuous improvement in the quality of the curriculum that is being developed. The problem with frequently set formal assessments is that they create learning hurdles that all learners will need to jump through, irrespective of whether it is in their best short- or long-term learning interests for them to do so (Gunn, 2010). There will be a strong incentive for tutors and learners to conform to the provided curriculum and assessment requirements to obtain independent verification of their respective teaching and learning success. This is referred to as high-stakes assessments (Gipps,1994).

The whole history of second language learning in general, which is illustrated by Field (2000), relates to swings in methodologies and uncertainties about how to teach it. It is now being recognised that are problems with the communicative model of learning.

The notion that a particular approach to learning Welsh can be rigidly dictated and cast in stone no longer appears appropriate if it ever did. To insist that all learners must plough through a prescribed set of standard topics and specific tasks does not reflect learners' individuality and differing needs.

The name may have changed, but Wplan and its behaviourist, rote teaching values endure in Mynediad series system. The Limitation of the approach is that it is highly memory-dependent. This is undoubtedly the reason why the continuity of learners in adult Welsh Language learning centres remains higher than it needs to be.

Conclusion

The creation of the Mynediad series publication and the complementing Mynediad series assessments for Welsh adult learners have clearly been aimed at improving standards through offering a teaching scheme and assessments that are intended to reliably assess the desired learning outcomes that will have been achieved by learners using them.

The reality is that what has been created is a rigid straitjacket that prohibits curriculum development in terms of the subject content and progression through that content. The approach is clearly based upon rote teaching values, where insufficient attention has been given to how what needs to be learnt can be structured into a coherent overall learning program. It is merely the Wlpan method packaged in a new colourful box.

The presentation of topics in Cwrs Mynediad appears very piecemeal and does not appear to be structured into clearly defined logical component elements. The overall structure of the scheme also appears illogical. Tutors and learners have no choice but to conform to these requirements if they wish to obtain certification of their learner's developing capabilities through taking the associated assessments. The danger with rigidly prescribed learning schemes and complementing assessment schemes, especially those administered on a frequent basis, is that they have the potential to strangle curriculum improvement. Even if learners do not choose to take the assessments, they will normally be in classes where other learners are preparing to take them.

The fundamental problem with such schemes is that any weaknesses in the scheme will be experienced by a very large population of learners. Improvements in them will be difficult to facilitate. The Welsh Language curriculum is prescriptively, rigidly defined and policed by the complementing examination system. It is difficult to conceive how the curriculum can be improved.

A thorough reappraisal of the over-prescriptive Mynediad series publications and the associated series of examinations must be undertaken to make them more relevant to developing learners' applied learning needs. The stranglehold of the rigidly prescribed curriculum needs to be removed. The future of the Welsh Language is far from assured. If it is to survive, then it is important that the curriculum 'straight jacket' is removed so that the curriculum can be developed to make learning the language more accessible to learners of all capabilities.

There has been some dedactions from the original.

1.3 Learners' Applied Language Needs

Although the Welsh Language is at the heart of Welsh life and its culture, which is shared by Welsh people who do not speak the language, it must be recognised that the world has changed over the last decades. Whilst the depopulation of rural communities in Wales is a language issue, the issue exists throughout the British Isles, and there is unlikely to be a simple solution to that problem.

The world is now a much smaller place than it was in the last century. Most families in the South Wales valleys used to go to Porthcawl for their holidays, but they then started to go to Spain, and many now visit the wider world.

The same applies to the distances people need to travel to Wales to work and where they need to live to find work. The internet also allows people to communicate with others throughout the world. The changes in society will reflect the environments and society in which the Welsh Language is used in Wales.

The harsh reality that needs to be addressed by speakers of Welsh and Welsh-language course providers is that Welsh is essentially not a single language, despite the fact that fluent Welsh speakers are generally able to converse with each other. I recall speaking to a Welsh Language graduate from North Wales, for instance, who admitted to me then, when she shared a flat with speakers from Carmarthenshire, that there were times when she found it difficult to understand what they were saying to her.

I also recall one of the finalists a few years ago in the 'Welsh Learner of the Year' competition, who learnt her Welsh in Pembrokeshire but admitted that when she went back to her farm in Pembrokeshire that she found it necessary to use a different dialect of Welsh. SC4 broadcasts different dramas for South and North Wales Welsh speakers.

The speaking base of the Welsh Language is so small that common sense suggests that the language cannot survive unless, over time, it evolves into a more unified common language. Evolution is better than revolution, which may take several generations to achieve, but unless consideration is given, the future of the living Welsh Language is unlikely to be assured.

The notion that every local Welsh dialect can endure into the future appears to be an unachievable nostalgic dream. It must never be forgotten that all languages evolve over time and that local dialects, such as Wenglish, exist in different parts of the British Isles. The version of English that exists in the Rhondda and other valleys is almost a language within a language.

The older generation in the Glasgow area used to use a range of local terms in their English Language, such as wee (tiny), which is still heard, but most of them have died out now. The origin of the terms was the Scots language, which was very similar to English in form. It is probable that Wenglish will also die out over time. Although Wenglish may be the language used by children in the schoolyard, they will be required to speak 'proper' English in their classroom. The problem with the Welsh language is that there is ambiguity about what form of the spoken language is appropriate for learners to learn and what 'slang' is.

The Reluctance of Welsh Speakers to Speak with Learners

Newcombe (2010) suggests that fluent Welsh speakers are reluctant to speak to Welsh learners in Welsh. She claims that many fluent speakers quickly start changing to English when learners attempt to speak in Welsh. She also claims that they often disapprove of people who use what she refers to as Wplan Welsh.

Newcombe's proposal that people should learn to speak local dialects so that they will blend into the background so fluent speakers will accept them appears ill-conceived and ill-thought-out. One of my own frustrations in learning Welsh was that the learners' novels, which are written in the spoken form of Welsh, were not normally designated into North or South Wales versions, and they sometimes included unusual words and grammatical forms that were difficult for me to understand.

There are also inconsistencies in the dialects that are presented in learning textbooks. The learning of any language is far from an instant process. If fluent learners are reluctant to speak to learners in a given dialect, then we must assume that the dialects will need to be learnt by the learners themselves, as opposed to through actively interacting with those who speak specific dialects.

Learners will need to have a suitable range of materials to listen to learn a new dialect successfully. This will have vast resource and cost implications, and it is unlikely that it will be commercially viable for pu blishers to provide materials for such limited markets for each specific dialect.

It is unclear whether Newcombe believes that should someone move from a Welsh-speaking community to another part of Wales, they should start speaking the local dialect so that the community will be prepared to speak to them. Do fluent Welsh speakers from Cardiff who visit Bangor find the native North Wales speakers reluctant to speak to them in Welsh? This is equivalent to expecting English-speaking people who move to the Rhondda to start speaking Wenglish to be accepted in that community.

A significant number of North Walian Welsh speakers live in Cardiff. It is unclear whether they should also be expected to change their dialects. Sometimes, speakers will need to modify their accents so that they can be understood in English. People south of Hadrian's Wall do not always clearly understand certain Scottish accents, for instance, so Scottish people will need to modify their accents so that they can be understood.

All language speakers need to be able to accommodate a range of different accents to be able to understand what is being said to them. It is a vastly more difficult task for them to learn and physically apply an unfamiliar accent or dialect, especially when it includes different grammatical forms. For instance, many English speakers would find it difficult to speak with a Scottish accent.

If fluent Welsh speakers are able to accommodate a range of different dialects in their language reception, then surely it is not too demanding to expect them to be able to receive a learners' Welsh dialect. It will be far easier for fluent speakers to accommodate a learner's dialect than for learners with a more insecure grasp of the Welsh Language to change theirs.

The Need to Develop a Learners' Version of Welsh

There is a need to create a standard learners' form of the Welsh Language, which would need to be divided into North and South Wales versions so that it will declare a standard of formal language usage that will set an ideal that learners need to conform to. The notion that there is a formal form of standard English is a myth, but the enduring notion that there is a proper language to be used ensures that learners will apply a different standard of language in formal than informal situations.

Unless appropriate language forms are taught to learners in Welsh, there is a danger that the language could eventually disintegrate into confusion. Learners cannot be expected to cope with all the variations of language forms in the Welsh language. This initiative would have the advantage that learners should be able to converse with each other.

Unless this issue is addressed, many learners will not learn the language successfully, which could threaten the very future of the language itself!

The inherent problem that appears to exist in Welsh Language learning is that the learning agenda appears to be dictated by the Welsh-speaking population. All too often, the issue of language learning is clouded in passion and emotion about the need for learners to speak local dialects and the contribution that they will make to the survival of the Welsh Language.

Learning any language is not a simple process. There was an attempt to create a unified Welsh Language for learners in the 1970s, but it was rapidly abandoned because of complaints about it. Reasoning needs to prevail because it cannot be right that when it comes to learning the language, everyone is not singing from the same hymn sheet in terms of the forms of the language.

All learners will benefit from a standard curriculum, which will allow them to refer to all the learning support materials produced. There is a need for the development of a core Welsh vocabulary and a specified armoury of forms of language conventions that learners should be expected to apply at specific stages of their language development Gunn (2010). This will make them more equipped to apply the language in accelerated timescales and make it more straightforward for them to converse with each other easily.

The most secure and long-term successful development of such an initiative will be through evolution instead of revolution. Gunn (2010) concludes that when learners complete their learning, their language capabilities will either improve or degrade. They will not remain the same. A compelling reason for maintaining a learners' dialect of the language is that it will allow resources and opportunities for learners to retain their skills in the more anglicised areas of Wales.

Learners in modern society will be as likely to regularly encounter the range of different dialects on S4C as in their communities. Those learners who live in Welsh-speaking families will, over time, gradually become familiar with the dialects used in their family, and they will begin to imitate them gradually.

My own suspicion is that the problem of fluent Welsh speakers being unwilling to speak to Welsh learners is more complex than Newcombe suggests. It is well documented that learners' second language development fossilises when they are near to achieving fluency (Saville-Troike, 2006). This will arise because they will not see any scope for improvement.

The underlying problem that exists appears to lie much earlier in the learning process. It arises because of the attitudes that are communicated to learners about what they are capable of achieving, especially the rush to encourage to engage in discussion and the "Have a go" sentiment that encourages learners to attempt to apply their spoken skills before they are developmentally ready to do so with ease and comfort. This is like attempting to place decorations on a growing tree before it has sufficient strength to take its weight.

Although it is only natural that enthusiastic learners will want to apply their language with fluent Welsh speakers, the process can be rather painstaking and laborious for learners as well as those receiving it! This practice will not reinforce learners' confidence in expressing the language.

Course providers also reinforce this attitude. Meek (2004) refers to the abandoning of Welsh in Cwrs Mynediad, the entry-level; after year two, the language is abandoned completely in Canolradd. This is despite the fact that it will take around five to six years for learners to reach basic second language fluency.

The misguided belief that learners can learn through total immersion in languages results in learners being bombarded by the use of Welsh by course administrators, which does not serve a learning purpose. This communicates to learners that they are ready to use the language.

Conclusions

It is all very easy for those fluent speakers who have learned their language from birth to be unsympathetic to the difficulty of learning and attempting to communicate through an insecurely learned language. If Welsh speakers want the active use of the Welsh Language to survive, then they need to accept that learners cannot be expected to learn all the individual dialects of every community in Wales, and they must welcome the introduction of a learners' dialect and be prepared to actively communicate with those who attempt to use it.

There is a need for a Welsh learners' version of the Welsh Language, divided into North and South Wales versions, to be developed in association with the creation of a defined core vocabulary and armoury of language conventions related to learners' specific levels of development, which will make the learning of Welsh more user friendly and less confusing for learners. This will allow learners to communicate with each other more effectively and present the platform to develop ever-secure mastery of the target language.

1.4 Conclusions and Recommendations

The future of the Welsh Language is far from assured. Educational research indicates that it takes five years for low-scale curriculum development to be implemented and ten years for more significant developments. This reflects that it takes many years for learners to successfully progress through any significant learning system, such as learning a language.

The influence that the teaching of Welsh to adults will have on the survival of the language is already set for many years to come. Committed learners will continue to be lost in the learning process. There is no evidence that teaching Welsh to adults needs to be unique and significantly different from teaching it in schools and learning any other second language or learning in general. All those who are developing the curriculum of Welsh teaching to adults have a responsibility to adopt the best teaching practices.

The ambition to increase the number of Welsh speakers in Wales is a political ambition. The provision of opportunities to learn the Welsh Language should contribute to achieving that ambition, but the process of learning the language should be divorced from that ambition.

It is far from certain that all learners who embark on the process of learning the Welsh language will want to or be able to achieve the ultimate learning outcome of full language fluency. Even if they do, then this does not unquestionably mean that they will choose to use it as their future first language.

It is also not assured that those who successfully learn to speak Welsh at any given level of mastery will retain it either. Even children who have been educated through the medium of Welsh can lose the ability to use the Welsh Language after their schooling. Those who do not complete the journey of learning Welsh should not be viewed as failures or non-Welsh speakers.

The reasons why the Welsh Language is in decline are very complex, and there will never be a simple answer to the problem of saving the living Welsh Language. The problem that exists with learning Welsh is that it has become a very emotional, political issue. There has been interference by certain activists who are trying to coerce people in Wales to learn Welsh.

It must never be forgotten that it takes an inordinate amount of time and hard work to learn any language, and it is very easy for those who have acquired the Welsh Language from birth, who have never had the choice of whether to learn the language, to demand that others should learn it.

It should never be forgotten that there is a significant population in Wales who would like to learn Welsh, many of whom have attempted to learn the language but failed to learn it successfully. Most learners will have their own personal reasons for learning Welsh, and very few, if any, will choose to learn it merely to save the language.

The fundamental problem with the Welsh Language is that there is no equivalent Welsh standard to 'standard' English. The situation has undoubtedly arisen because the speaking of Welsh was actively discouraged in the school system in the early part of the Twentieth Century. Although it is accepted that there is no such thing as standard English, the popular notion in society that it exists is sufficient to suggest to people that a standard form of English should be learnt and applied in appropriate situations. It is unlikely that anyone would choose to speak Wenglish in an interview for a university placement or for a post as a receptionist, for instance.

If anyone walks into a High Street bookshop and picks up an English Language learning book, they will find a clear uniformity of the language conventions presented in them. This will reflect the type of language that learners will have received and used when they were in informal school learning situations.

Newcombe (2000) quotes Helen Prosser, University of Glamorgan said in the media that it is acceptable for learners to speak 'slang' rather than not speak the Welsh Language at all, but the real problem that exists in the language is that there is not a clearly articulated and accepted notion of what the opposite of 'slang' is. While learners are endeavouring to learn some of the complexities of the Welsh Language, many fluent Welsh speakers are voting with their feet and not using them. King (2003) suggested that the nasal and aspirate mutations are commonly not applied in spoken fluent language practice, for instance.

Fluent speakers are not always regularly applying other aspects of the Welsh Language, such as by using Mae'n as an equivalent to the English it, instead of referring to the gender of objects through the using e (he) and hi (she). Learners are often ignorant that these features exist when they learn Welsh. Many of the complexities that fluent speakers are opting out of are the barriers that make the Welsh Language difficult to learn.

The associated problem is the inconsistencies that exist in the Welsh Language. Cwrs Mynediad¸for instance, introduces the Caeth form of the shorten-past tense verb Cael, despite the other learning materials supporting materials predominantly used Cafodd at the time.

There are certain learning materials which will refer to the shortened verb form gwnes I, where it is explained that it needs to be shortened to nes i, while others will simply present it as nes i. Some materials suggest that a mutation needs to be used after neu (or), but others do not. This presents potential confusion for learners and makes the learning of the language more difficult than it needs to be. It is all too easy, especially for those who have never had to learn the Welsh Language formally, not to possess an empathy with the problem these inconsistencies create for learners.

There is a need to create a learner's form of the Welsh Language, which can be created by specifying core vocabularies and a defined armoury of language conventions that learners should be able to apply. Consideration will need to be made as to whether it is realistic to expect learners to learn and actively apply language conventions that many fluent speakers are not actively applying.

If learners learn a learner's dialect, then they will then be more equipped to adapt it to interpret local dialects and even start applying them in their language usage. The real question that needs to be addressed by all fluent Welsh speakers is whether they really want learners to learn the Welsh Language. If they do, then they should be supportive of learners learning a different dialect to the one that they speak.

Unless active consideration is given to what should be practised in the Welsh Language by fluent speakers, then there is a risk that the whole language could disintegrate into confusion. There is increasing use of English derivatives like 'drifo' as opposed to 'gyrru' (to drive) on Welsh Language television programs, such as the nightly Welsh Language soap opera (drama) Pobl y cwm, for instance. The influence of English upon Welsh is a reality, and it threatens the purity of the Welsh Language.

Language change spreads like viruses because people tend to imitate the language that they hear in the media and society. Consideration needs to be given to the structure of the Welsh language because there is a strong case for pruning some of the local dialects by declaring them non-standard forms of Welsh. This would mirror the situation that exists in the English Language.

Traditionally, language tutors in universities have not been required to undertake any quality training to enable them to teach second languages. The curriculum decision-makers have tended to be those with high academic subject qualifications, such as PhDs, as opposed to those with an advanced understanding of pedagogy.

All the contributors to the Cwrs Mynediad series possessed PhDs. There is evidence that there are tutors with no educational/teaching qualifications providing tutoring course for learners. This view of teaching is based upon the master, the subject expert, disseminating what they know to their apprentice, which relates to practice that existed in the 1970s.

Education has moved on from this view of teaching. It has now become a science. Only one book is available that addresses the issue of learning Welsh from an educational perspective. Curriculum leaders in the learning centres must have appropriate training to allow them to exercise their responsibilities.

The teaching demands of teaching level students in a university learning lifelong learning centre are very different from that needed to formally teach learners, the village postman, as opposed to the academic student. Learning a second language is also significantly different from most further education subjects because it requires formative learning.

The learning outcomes that need to be fostered are broadly equivalent to what children need to develop in the school curriculum up to A-Level, but adults are much less conducive to learning through rote, which fails all learners.

There is a legal requirement for Q.T.S. teachers to create the school curricula, and because the teaching of Welsh is broadly equivalent to what is taught in schools, it is important that suitably qualified Q.T.S teachers create the adult curriculum frameworks. This is because they will be able to design the curriculum from a learning perspective, enabling learners to learn it most effectively.

Effective teaching amounts to much more than merely providing information for learners to absorb. If adult course books are designed to effectively deliver the curriculum, then the role of the tutors will be to reinforce and discuss what has been presented to them. This is how mathematics schemes are applied to primary education, and it is what the Cwrs Mynediad series scheme should have offered learners. The Cwrs Mynediad Scheme and Cwrs Mynediad examinations need to be replaced.

There is also considerable scope for improving the quality of the curriculum that is offered to learners. It must be developed to cater to all learners' learning needs, especially those not living in Welsh-speaking families. Although Welsh tutors cannot be expected to reach the exacting standards of Q.T.S. teachers, they need to move towards embracing best-proven teaching practices.

The provision of Welsh Language learning is a very parochial activity in British and international terms. It is difficult to conceive that all the problems that Welsh Language teaching confronts can be exclusively resolved from within the fluent Welsh-speaking community because there is simply not the depth and breadth of corporate expertise that exists in that community to be able to deliver high-quality learning systems.

There is evidence that there has been a reluctance to conform to the proven practices that have been applied to modern foreign languages because of apprehension about the 'foreign' label associated with them. There must be similar characteristics in learning all second languages.

Languages such as French have been applied to very large populations of second learners throughout the world, so the validity of how they are taught should be well established. There are dangers in seeking solutions exclusively to Welsh to the problem that exists in teaching Welsh to adults.

Final Conclusions

The change that needs to be applied to teaching Welsh to adults is equivalent to that which occurred in the school curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s when it moved away from the behaviourist rote-teaching approaches. This was when the traditional behavioural reading tests were gradually replaced as a consequence of the recommendations of the Bullock Report 1975 into language development.

The curriculum that needs to be developed should be aimed at fostering learners' applied language capabilities that will cater for their individual needs. It should allow for differentiation, which has been an established entitlement in compulsory school-based learning for learners for many years. This is vitally important in community education because there will be students with a very wide range of backgrounds and learning potential. It must cater for the needs of all learners. Complementing assessment instruments will need to be developed to assess learners developing applied capabilities.

Those who are offering the opportunity to learners to learn the Welsh Language are offering a service to them, which they have to pay for, irrespective of the extent that their learning is publicly subsidised. This also applies to any public examinations that they take. Service providers must make themselves accountable to those they serve by making all information pertaining to their learning, including information for their tutor, such as examination summaries of student performance, available in the English Language.

Learners should be allowed to learn the language without political coercion. They should not be viewed as cannon fodder in the campaign to save the language because it is an oversimplification to believe that the future of the Welsh Language exclusively lies in encouraging more learners to learn it.

Those who interfere in learners' interests by offering ill-conceived and ill-informed learning advice for personal or political reasons are doing a disservice to learners and the future of the Welsh Language. Their conduct should be openly discouraged, while Welsh speakers should be encouraged to be more prepared to converse with Welsh learners.

The future of the Welsh Language is far from assured, and if it is to survive, then it is important that the curriculum 'straight jacket' is removed so that the curriculum can be developed to make learning the language more accessible to learners of all capabilities. Learners have the right to have realistic expectations of achieving learning success in what they undertake, providing they do a reasonable amount of work. They also have a right to gain access to the Welsh Language and the culture associated with it, but the learning experience of too many Welsh adult language learners is preparing for examinations and not working towards achieving longer-term learning success.

There is too much emphasis on preparing for the needs of the chosen few, who will succeed in achieving higher levels of language fluency, as opposed to the many who would like to reach them or the more basic levels of language fluency. There is considerable scope for making the Welsh Language learning experience more effective and accessible to learners of all capabilities.

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Gunn, H.J.D. (2010) Developing Effective Second Language

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Paper 2 - The Future of Teaching and Learning the Welsh Language 2023

The 2011 paper illustrated the necessary reform of the Welsh for Adult Service. This paper will review the research report that Cardiff University published titled "Welsh for Adult Teaching and Learning Approaches" by Professor Sioned Davies et al. (2012) and the lack of reform of the Welsh for Adult Service that has been undertaken since that time. The evidence is that the service practice and thinking remains fossilised in the 1950s.

The research was written by university academics who had no legal teaching qualifications. The word teaching is generally applied in society. All qualifications in the United Kingdom are legally qualified, and only those with "Q.T.S." teaching qualifications are legally qualified teachers in the teaching of academic subjects up to A'Level (Wallace, 2008)." Q.T." means qualified teacher.

Professional Q.T.S. school teachers have been trained since the 1850s. There has been a continuing master-apprentice development of teaching through the generations since that time. Professional teachers have subsequently been accepted to train to be teachers, and their competency and understanding of pedagogy have been assessed. They are now schools of education where corporate teaching intelligence exists.

The Welsh for Adult Service is inspected by Estyn, which does not inspect university lifelong learning courses. Second languages are the only academic disciplines in the university that provide a service in the school domain up to A-level. This is because intelligent undergraduate students are required to learn languages to pursue certain degree courses.

The Welsh for Adult Service is not a lifelong learning service because it caters to the needs of community learners, not intelligent academics. The institution the service is provided in is immaterial to this (Wallace, 2008). It is a further educational service. The service provides the service to two further education colleges. They are registered teaching institutions where the Welsh for Adult tutors are required to apply exacting standards of practice and conduct.

University maths academics do not teach maths up to A'Level in the community. Professor Margaret Brown (2020) has created, in her retirement, has created a maths anxiety society. She is a very distinguished mathematical educator. She is not an academic university maths. She has taught in schools and university schools of education.

There has always been a distinction between the university domain and teaching academic subjects up to A level. This reflects the fact that the expertise needed to teach any subject can be as great and greater, if not greater, than the subject knowledge and understanding that needs to be imparted to learners. When services are provided in the community, they must be tailored to cater to all learners' needs.

Community learners and adult learners generally lack self-confidence and self-esteem (Rodgers, 2022 ). The spread of children's and adult attainments is seven years. Most clustered around the mean (Gathercole and Alloway, 2007). Advanced teaching skills are needed to teach them, not academic subject expertise.

There are no significant differences in how learners, children and adults need to be taught and learn cognitively. The leading authorities on school and community teaching are the Q.T.S. Welsh Language teacher trainers in schools of education. They teach their students and practising teachers how to teach, and they visit schools to see them teach. They teach Welsh as a language to their students. Welsh language local authorities are leading authorities. They research the quality of teaching.

There are no experts in professional teaching. This is because all teachers are highly trained, and they possess common ground understanding. There are sheep and shepherds in all professions. The leading authorities in their Field are those who write researched books. This is because they make their research and corporate understanding available in the domain of their expertise. Those who train to teach need to read the literature. Professional teachers are constantly updating their advanced professional understanding from reading the literature.

The fundamental principle of pedagogy pertains to the following inverted hierarchy that:-

· all professional teachers possess an advanced common ground understanding of the basic principles of pedagogy that is practised across the curriculum in all subject boundaries, which are artificial constructs and teaching has a professional language;

· there is a vast researched literature on first language teaching and learning research;

· there is a literature of second language teaching and learning.

· there is no Welsh Language researched literature on how to teach and learn Welsh apart from Gunn (2010);

In this hierarchy, all stages are interrelated. Professional teachers are legally qualified to teach any subject in the curriculum, providing they have sufficient subject knowledge and understanding to teach it. The problem with secondary maths standards in the United Kingdom is there are non-specialist maths teachers teaching the subject.

The first principle of all scientific research is the need to research what is known. In the deep sciences like teaching, it would take thousands of hours to research everything that is known. The Cockroft Report (1982) into mathematics, which defined contemporary teaching, took five years to research, compile and write in one of the most researched subjects in the curriculum. It commissions research into what was known about the cognition of learning at the time. Professional educators refer to primary research and the literature.

The fact that the Welsh for Adult research approved the 1940s Wlpan method, including Aran Jones's delusional S.S.I.W. method and Ioan Talfryn's pseudoscience desuggestopedia method, illustrates the academics who wrote the research possessed a lamentable lack of the most elementary understanding of pedagogy, practice and processes. The evidence is the world of professional teaching was a secret garden to them.

Ioan Talfryn's method was posited by the late eccentric Bulgarian psychotherapist who was a confidence trickster. The method was blinding the public with fake science. The research he wrote was titled "Ants in the Head", and he referred to swinging bridges, termites and traffic jams in his dysfunctional references. He claimed that novice learners could subconsciously absorb a thousand words in their initial lesson (Gunn, 2023). It is a disconnect from reality. Hagan (2002) cremated the desuggestopedia method.

Aran Jones S.S.I.W. the Welsh Language campaigners website lessons. He is still practicing his perverted version of the Wlpan method under the approval of the National Welsh Language College. All he has been doing is putting random phrases into cyberspace and claiming his learners were learning Welsh and other languages. He claimed to learn Manx from scratch using the Manx Version of his S.S.I.W to a basic conversational level in ten binge learning hours. This is absolute fantasy.

The W.L.P.A.N. method has been referred to in the previous paper, but evidence has now emerged of what has been practised. Derek Brockway (2015) quoted Ioan Talfryn as saying that the Wlpan tutors were treating their learners like parrots. It is an animal training method that was derived from experiments with dogs. It is an inhumane method of learning anything.

Those who are applying the Wlpan method were misinterpreting Stephen Krashen's input theory. They believed that learners could subconsciously absorb grammar by listening to phrases they were drilling. Ioan Talfryn, who clearly believed he discovered how to teach, was expecting learners to subconsciously absorb grammar and words from live-action stories and pantomimes. He claimed novice learners could subconsciously absorb 1,000 words in their first lesson.

Coleman and Klapper (2005) and the other literature criticise the interpretation of the theory that has been applied by academics. This suggests there was no interest in researching the literature despite the fact that learning discontinuity rates in the Welsh for Adults Service were high and continuing professional development was required to be excised in the Welsh for Adult Service since 2006. This was the year the appalling Crowd Mynediad series based on behaviourist Wlpan values was introduced, which was reviewed it the previous papers

Hurd and Murphy (2006) of the Open University, in their book for second language learners, referred to the fact that language learning conforms to the common principles of all learning. Stella Hurd contributed to Coleman and Klapper (2005) researched book for university second language academics which contended that university academics teaching undergraduate students would benefit from learning from professional school teachers. Amongst the twenty-two contributors to the research was Norbett Palcher, who was a second-language educational authority a legally qualified school teacher. It is obvious that no registered Q.T.S. contributed to Welsh Language academic research.

Hunter and Turner (2007), honest Welsh-speaking tutors, stated that the authorities were concerned about the high discontinuity rates that existed in the Welsh for Adult Service. Dr Margaret Newcombe (2009), Cardiff School of Welsh, claimed that many university Welsh Language academics contributed to her book. She admitted the Wlpan method did not suit all learners' needs. This illustrates the appallingly low expectations that the Welsh for Adult academics have for their learners. It has been said that doctors bury their mistakes. The academics have deliberately failed to cater for all learners' needs.

Responsible learning course providers like the Open University constantly strive to cater to their learners' needs. It is obvious that the twenty-two contributors to the Coleman and Klapper (2005) research would not be using Wlpan-type methods in their institutions. There has been a conspiracy of complacency in the Welsh for Adult Service.

Any school that made that claim would not be put on special measures by Estyn. It would be shut down. In universities, students drop out of thief courses. There is evidence of very serious streaming through methodology in the Welsh for Adult Service.

Alexander Pope contended that "A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring". The problem of ignorance is not knowing what we do not know, and unless practitioners are not prepared to research what they do not know, they will never know what they do not know. Colin Miles (2012), a Welsh learner who is a chemist, recognised learners were being taught by rote in his very perceptive Institute of Affairs paper. His claim that children are taught by rote has no validity. It is common knowledge that rote teaching fails adult learners. Dr Margaret Newcombe admitted Wlpan was failing to serve learners' needs.

There is clear evidence that the university academics have a very narrow-minded, prejudiced view of their responsibilities. They were practising an extreme version of rote teaching. Their practice reflected the teaching that took place in schools in the early part of the 20^th century. It is a method any Tom, Dick or Mary can practice with feeble training.

Dr Margaret Newcombe (2009) stated that:-

"Wales is bursting with talented tutors who could lead upon the world stage".

The evidence is that the Welsh Language academics viewed their Wlpan method as superior to all other methods. There is no evidence this situation has changed significantly.

Plenary

There has been a requirement for the Welsh for Adult Service to apply proven methods since 2018. There has been a failure of the new National Welsh Language College to understand what proven methods are. This illustrates the lack of understanding of pedagogy in the college.

Proven methods are methods are those that are practised by a large population of practitioners and pertain to research accepted by large populations of practitioners, especially leading authorities in their fields. The fact something has been researched does not mean that it is valid.

The only proven method that exists is professional teaching. It has been practised by millions of teachers every day, and it is supported by a mountain of research. Teachers always apply proven practices. Grammar is 6 in first and second languages, for instance, which the Welsh for Adult academics have been avoiding tutoring for decades. Professional teachers teach millions of children, and they have their children's futures in their hands. They must apply proven methods and cater to the needs of all children with learning potential.

Since 1987, all Q.T.S teachers have been required to apply what is known as professional teaching. The notion in the 21^st century that anyone can teach a second language effectively without intensive training is delusional. If it were possible, then Q.T.S. teachers would not need to be trained.

Coleman and Klapper (2005) researched a book on university second language tutoring that has twenty-two contributors and over two hundred primary research references. They would not have written the manuscript unless they expected university academics not to read it. It should have provided a valuable source of information for Professor Sioned Davies et al. research (Mac-Giolla Chriost, 2012) It had over two hundred references collated by a cohort of second-language university authorities. It also has 'Sources of Information' for readers. There is no evidence these were referred to by Professor Sioned Davies et al. in their research.

The fact that Aran Jones is still practising his S.S I.W. method, which is a perverted form of the Wlpan method, under the Welsh Government brand because of the approval of the college illustrates that the academics still possess instrumental animal training behaviourist tutoring values.

It is alarming that the college is supporting Aran Jones, who is deceiving the Welsh public about how easy Welsh is to learn through applying his method on his S4C series. The public would not have known the celebrities had not become confident Welsh speakers. McAlister and Blunt (2013) in their research about the Welsh Language, referred to many learners using Aran Jones’ S.S.I.W. method. They established that many learners were too frightened to use the Welsh that they had learned because they were frightened of getting it wrong because of a lack of understanding of grammar.

The subconscious learning theories that the academics arose through their misrepresentation of Stephen Krashen’s input theory. It was used to justify not teaching grammar. It is unclear if this was innocent. Ioan Talfryn referred to Krashen’s theory in his delusional research. Coleman and Klapper (2005) and other second language authorities refer to the interpretation of it being invalid.

The academics demonstrate only a surface understanding of such pedagogic issues. This is reflected in the college support for Duolingo and Aran Jones S.S.I.W. method.

It is reasonable to conclude that Professor Sioned Davies et al. research was unnecessary. The Welsh Government must have been badly advised that research was needed for the Welsh for Adult Service. All they needed to do was read Coleman and Klapper (2005) and implement their advice, who had a professional second language teaching authority contributing to their research. There is the issue of why the Welsh language academics' research did not accord with the second language academics' findings.

As Skemp (1990) said, “Behaviourist models of learning are most helpful in understanding those forms of learning which we have in common with the laboratory rat and pigeon, and it has to be admitted that too many children, the word mathematics has become a conditioned anxiety stimulus.” It was a fantastic achievement for the Welsh Language academics to justify the Skinnerist behaviourist dog training methods that died out in the 1950s. They knew that the Wlpan/Ulpan method originated in Israel. It was used to allow any Tom, Dick or Mary to teach Hebrew after the Second World War.

Rowntree (1982) contended that teachers have 20 years of teaching experience, and others have experience of teaching the same thing 20 times. Professional teaching was introduced in 1987; since that time, they have been striving for continuous improvement. The Wlpan method required no research, lesson preparation, or marking. It is such a raw, impoverished method of tutoring it could not be improved. It does not matter what label it is practised under. Teaching is not about providing information for learners.

It is reasonable to finally conclude that it is silly to expect learners to subconsciously pick up grammar through immersion when the language is not all around them. Aran Jones was applying his S.S.I.W. method, his perverted version of Wlpan on S4C television in 2020, which the National Welsh Learning College approved. Professor John Sweller (2017), an educational psychologist who has created a branch of cognitive science and is a recognised world authority on cognitive overload, explicitly states that languages cannot be learnt through immersion.

Gunn (2010) contended that immersion only has enforcement value. It is extremely difficult for learners in Wales to be immersed in the Welsh Language in their everyday lives because it is generally not all-around learners.

Hunter and Wiliams (2007) contended that many learners are being wooed into learning Welsh without understanding how much work is required and that discontinuity rates are high on Welsh for Adult courses. Newcombe (2009) refers to how difficult it is to learn Welsh. She refers to many learners giving up learning Welsh after around two years when their learning does not meet their expectations.

MacChroist (2012), Cardiff School of Welsh, who is an authority on language policy, contended that it is impossible to resurrect a minority language. Hywel Jones (Vaughan, 2020)), a statistician who was on the Welsh Language Board, stated it is impossible to create a million Welsh speakers. Gunn (2024) reviewed this from a cognitive perspective and concluded it is an impossible aspiration.

We all are inclined to believe what we hear or read without considering whether it is. The word speak a language is being prostituted across the world because it implies fluency sufficient to speak a native confidently with native speakers of the language they are being learnt. Fluency is always a matter of degree. Regurgitating a limited number of phrases fluently is not speaking a language fluently. Classroom learning is only a preparation for future learning (Field). New languages needs to be lived through to develop acceptable fluency and accuracy. They cannot be acquired through exclusively using websites unless learners live in exceptionally favourable environments.

It has been said that the school of life is a wonderful teacher, but it kills all its pupils. Education is such a deep science that no individual is an authority in every field. It would take too many lifetimes to research everything that is practised in schools from raw primary research. The principles of learning are defined by cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. They are providing greater certainty to what professional Q.T.S The Welsh Language are primarily providing a service to community learners up to A’Level.

The only proven teaching method that exists is professional teaching. Just because someone stands in front of a class or speaks Welsh makes them a competent teacher, especially when they have no professional training. This is what Professor Sioned et al. should have established in their 2012 research.

All learners are currently wasting their time learning Welsh in the Welsh for Adult Service. The reason why proven methods are required is because they will yield predictable learning outcomes. The reason why Q.T.S. teachers apply them is because it takes years to educate children, and they have children’s futures in their hands. Professors David Reynold and Daniel Mujis (), who are both very distinguished educationalists, ‘Dai Reynolds’, who was an advisor to the Welsh Government, called for the abandonment of D.I.Y. teaching methods across the world. Coleman Klapper (2005) referred to proven research academic methods of second language learning.

The provision of the Welsh for Adults in Wales is extremely political. Professor Sioned Davies et al. research appears to have been political window dressing where primary research was undertaken to justify the status quo. The required reform of the service has not been implemented. Learners are unnecessarily wasting their time learning Welsh in the Welsh for Adult Service, and they are being condemned to have unnecessary learning difficulty and failure, especially through supporting cheap website lessons.

The academics are clearly attempting to reinvent the educational wheel because they do not understand that the process of learning Welsh is fundamentally different from general learning and learning any other language or subject. The Welsh Government has an aspiration to create world-class teaching in Wales. The Welsh for Adult Service is an inspected service, but third-world teaching standards are being applied in the Welsh for Adult Service. It is unclear if it will take them to 2050 to discover what real teaching is.

References

Brockway, D. (2015) “Derek forecasts Welsh speaking fun.” Barry and District Press12th June 2015

watch?

v=Lsd1g1FtPJ4&t=1227s

Cockcroft (1982) Mathematics Counts. H.M.S.O.

Coleman, A. & Klapper.J (2005) Effective Learning and Teaching: Modern Language. London: Routledge

Gathercole, S.E. & Alloway, T.P. (2007) Understanding Working Memory: A Classroom Guide. London: Harcourt Assessment

Gunn, H.J.D. (2010) Developing Effective Second Language Teaching and Learning Strategies. Pontypridd: Denbigh Publications

Hagan, L.K. (2002) Pseudoscience at 30,000 feet: Suggestology, Suggestopedia and Accelerated Language Learning Sceptic Atlandena, CA Vol 9, Issue 3

Hunter, H. & William, C. (2007) in Dysgu Cymraeg Talybont :Llofa

Hurd, S & Murphy, L. Ed. (2005) Success with Languages. Oxen: Open University and Routledge.

Mac-Giolla Chriost, Diarmait (2012) Welsh for adults teaching and learning approaches, methodologies, and resources: a comprehensive research study and critical review of the way forward Welsh Government

McAllister and Blunt, A. (2013) Exploring Welsh speakers’ language use in their daily lives. Welsh Government.

Miles, C (2012) Pigeon Welsh Confronts Mutations The Institute of Welsh Affairs.

Newcombe, L.P. (2009) Think without Limits: You Can Speak Welsh! Aberystwyth: Llofa

Gunn, H.J.D. (2010) Developing Effective Second Language Teaching and Learning Strategies. Pontypridd: Denbigh Publications

Rodgers, A. (2002) Teaching Adults. Third Edition. Maidenhead: Open University.

Rowntree, D. (1982) Education Technology in Curriculum Development London: Harper and Row

Sweller, J. (2017) Cognitive Load Theory and Teaching English as a Second Language to Adult Learners TESL Ontario | CONTACT Magazine | August, 2017 http://contact

Vaughan, A. (2020) Newyddion gwych! Maths Predicts that Welsh

Language is Set to Thrive New Scientist 8^th January 2020.

Wallace, S. Ed. (2008) Educational Dictionary

Paper 3

Aran Jones Saysomething in Welsh (S.S.I.W).

There is an enduring myth across the world that new languages are easy to learn. The myth is exploited by commercial advertisers who sell their cheap website language learning lessons. The myth exists because we all possess a Ph.D in our native language, which we can apply with ease and flow. People do not understand how complicated languages are and how much work it takes to develop fluency in them.

Aran Jones, who is a Welsh Language Activist, is a skilful marketeer who exploits the myth to deceive his learners and give them false hope to learners who buy his lessons. He claimed he learnt Manx from scratch to a basic communicative level in seven binge learning hours. It is absolute fantasy.

Aran Jones was Chief Executive of Cymuned, which was a community Welsh language pressure group. It appears that when the money ran out, he created his S.S.I.W. "Saysomehtinginwelsh" website lessons so he could earn his livelihood. All he was doing was putting random phrases into cyberspace, where he was expecting learners to drill like musicians' practice scales so they could memorise them. The method is recognised as being brain-dead for tutors and learners (Wallace, 2009)

Aran Jones was claiming to create thousands of successful learners across the world. He was making ridiculous claims about what his learners could achieve. He had no honest means of interacting with them to ascertain their capability.

Aran Jones, in his fictional Kindle book, stated that:-

"One of the first people I trained in this method, Louis (who's a security architect in Sydney, Australia) did one full day's training for Spanish. He'd never learnt any Spanish before, but at the end of the day he had a real, enjoyable (if slightly limited!) conversation with a workmate from Mexico. Then he did NOTHING for 14 MONTHS. Then he did a specialised H.I.L.T. re-activation session, at the end of which 80-85% of what he had learnt was fresh and clear in his mind."

This would be extraordinarily easy for anyone to disprove. Learning is a process of cognitive growth. Aran Jones's concept of learning is what Confucius referred to as 'feed the duck'. Language cannot be poured into the brain like petrol into a tank. His method is a fantasy.

Aran Jones claimed on his website that:-

"Some people spend years learning Welsh dash but never crossed the bridge becoming a fluent user language. If you're reading this, you probably already feel you haven't learnt Welsh as quickly as you hoped. Maybe your body that you might be trying to learn it the wrong way, or you'd like to know how to do better, and how to find learning Welsh easier."

"Other people don't - you might already know some of them - tend to dip their toes into Welsh and then within a few weeks be chatting happily away to any Welsh speaker that they meet. You do know someone like that, you won't be at all surprised to hear that most of us feel a mixture real admiration and we're stressed frustrated jealousy while one of our friends learns Welsh so quickly”.

This claim is a disconnect from reality.

Aran Jones was quoted in the North Wales Post (Tr

ewyn, 2015) as saying:-

"Welsh tutor Aran Jones, 46, used Twitter to contact Cllr Gwenllian and initially said he'd be willing to do five intensive weekends with Mr Atkinson - for free.

"Today Mr Jones, who has learnt Welsh himself, extended his offer also to teach Mr McGrady so that they both can "confidently hold a conversation in Welsh"."

Councillor Gwenllian said: "Aran Jones should be thanked for his generous offer."

These claims are more than absolute fantasy. It is a very serious deliberate misrepresentation. He was deceiving learners about how easy it is to learn Welsh using his S.S.I.W. Welsh lessons. There are thousands of learners learning Welsh in Wales, including students training to be teachers. The notion that only Aran Jones' method can create unique miracles methods of learning anything is silly.

Aran Jones was quoted in Media Wales about his Manx in Day stunt (Shipman, 2016) that:-

"A language teacher has set himself an unusual target – to spend a day learning Manx on a live videocast and then have a conversation in the language with someone who is fluent."

"Aran Jones, the co-founder of SaySomethinginWelsh.com, will undertake the challenge on Monday, June 27."

“He will spend an intensive day learning Manx on a live videocast, taking a shot of Bifrost hand-crafted Manx vodka before each half-hour session."

We all accept products and services in good faith because we do not have the expertise to evaluate them. Aran Jones performed his marketing stunt on a live seven-hour podcast. He engaged in a twenty-minute conversation in Manx.

Aran Jones brainwashed people into believing he succeeded in doing it, but what he claimed was cognitively impossible. He sincerely believed it would be impossible to dispute what he did, and no one could challenge his claims and method.

Despite Aran Jones's extensive marketing of his method in the public domain, he has never referred to drinking alcohol to support learning since. The only occasion that he referred to Vodka enhancing learning was in this stunt because the stunt was sponsored by the Manx Vodka company. All Aran Jones appears to be interested in is making money.

Professor Sarah Eaton, a professor of Education who is a teaching authority on second language learning, stated that:-

"Let's be honest. Learning a language is not easy. There are companies out there who make big bucks selling slick packages with audio programs and pocket books, touting the idea that you can listen to their CDs or

MP3s in the car or on the bus and learn a language. There's even been an idea circulated that if you listen to these programs while going to sleep, that you'll magically wake up with that knowledge embedded in your brain, and words will flow from your mouth with ease."

and she states that:-

"What these companies are selling is hope. They are selling the idea that learning a language is effortless. What is more common is that people struggle. Even Mahatma Gandhi, who was deeply intelligent and patient, confessed to finding it difficult to learn languages."

There is no evidence that Aran Jones wants to be open and honest. He was offered more than just hope. He was deliberately making false promises that he knew he could not deliver. He was skilfully marketing his methods to failed and struggling learners.

A cohort of Welsh University Welsh Language tutors contributed to Dr Margaret Newcombe Cardiff School of Welsh book (Newcombe 2009) quoted Heini Gruffud, who is a respected Welsh Language tutor, that it takes around 200 hours of classroom study and 1,500 hours using Welsh in the community is needed to develop a confident basic Welsh language speaking capability. Those tutors had face-to-face interactions with their learners. Aran Jones was not. He learned Welsh as an adult in a Welsh-speaking part of Wales. He must know how long and difficult it is to learn. University second language learners go on residency to countries to develop their language capabilities (deKaser, 2007). There appears to be nothing innocent about Aran Jones' conduct.

Whilst not wanting to contradict Heini Gruffud, whose reference was not researched, it is recognised by cognitive scientists it takes 10,000 hours to develop mastery. Professor Sarah Eaton (2017), in her research, refers to 10,000 hours of practice is needed to develop well-rounded native-like language fluency. Aran Jones's claim in the Isle of Man can only be described as ridiculously disproportionate. It was 1,493 hours short of Hieni Gruffudd's figure.

Blakemore and Frith (2005), cognitive scientists contended that if someone has something important to learn, then it should be learnt over two nights. This is because sleep consolidates learning. Cooney-Hovath (2019), who is a cognitive scientist at Harvard Graduate School, which is equivalent to Oxford and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, refers to binge learning as being ineffective. Learning is a chemical process, and the longer learners learn, the more tired they will become and the less they will learn. Aran Jones was referring to it to deceive.

Mujis and Reynolds (2001) defined teaching and learning. Baddeley (2007), who is a world authority on memory, refers to the issue of interference if learners learn too much at once. Sagar-Fenton and McNeil (2018) contended that it takes around five years of daily practice to develop a 500-word fluent capability in a minority language for around three years. The phonology of a new language cannot be instantly learnt. The fundamental difficulty of learning Welsh is that it is not all-around learners. It is certainly not around learners in other parts of the world.

Aran Jones possesses no legal teaching qualifications. He demonstrates an appalling lack of understanding of the most elementary principles of teaching and learning. He is inclined to say anything that comes into his head. There is nothing special about learning a new language. The same basic principles of teaching and learning are applied across the curriculum. Words are facts. Facts need to be applied across the curriculum.

Aran Jones castigates all the proven practices. He justifies the 1950s Skinnerist behaviourist Wlpan method that continued to be practised up to 2018 in the Welsh for Adult Service. He claims it is crazy to believe that learners should learn grammar. He claims that professional teachers expect children to read and write in language lessons because they are too lazy to teach oral language. He makes an amusing reference to translators about why positive language transfer should not be used. Broady (2005) refers to the need to learn grammar and also to learn the three language skills. Some of his notions are incomprehensible.

Teaching is practised by millions of teachers across the world every day. Coleman and Klapper (2005) refer to proven university second language practice/Learning and memory have been researched by thousands of cognitive scientists. Aran Jones's claims are delusional.

Aran Jones refers to his method as 'cutting out the complicated stuff.' MacAllister and Blunt (2013) referred to many Welsh learners using his S.S.I.W. website, who claim many learners are too frightened to use their Welsh for fear of getting it wrong, especially because of a lack of understanding of grammar. Newcombe (2009) refers to the fact that when Welsh learners attempt to speak the Welsh language they have learned, they insist on speaking English to them. She illustrates the challenges in learning Welsh.

Mr Aran Jones stated learners "within a few weeks be chatting happily away to any Welsh speaker that they meet. There are learners who spent years learning Welsh, but they are unable to do that. He is clearly a pathological liar. He claims he wants people across the world to start speaking Welsh on the streets. One only has to walk through the streets of Cardiff and Swansea to witness the fact that very rarely will Welsh be heard on the streets. Languages cannot be learnt in classrooms. They need to be lived through.

Plenary

The law exists to protect the citizen. Teaching is a legal process. Q.T.S. teachers are trained in Schools of Education where they have access to the corporate intelligence that exists in them. They have their teaching competency assessed. There are libraries of educational books.

Aran Jones appears to believe he can say anything he likes despite his obtaining remuneration from his learners. His conduct appears very immature. He is offering his lessons in an increasing range of languages. One Kindle reviewer of his Kindle book described it as the "Type of learning you would expect to be given for nothing at a bus stop".

The definition of professional expertise is that it is a person who can author professional opinions in minutes, which would take a novice many thousands of hours of training and practice to do, assuming that they have the skill and intelligence to acquire it. The definition of ignorance is not knowing what you do not know.

Aran Jones has also been claiming that Professor Fitzpatrick has patronised his method by stating that "The method flies in the face of second language theory and practice, but it works". It is unclear if Aran Jones deceived her. He must have known he had no training to teach, and he must have foreseen that people were hero-worship professors, and then he was deceiving everyone, giving his website lessons a status it did not deserve.

Professor Fitzpatrick is only a linguist. Q.T.S. teachers are the legal experts on teaching and learning. If the facts are given the proper twist, the claim patronage is saying that Aran Jones is using unproven methods, which works. The reason why they work for him, enabling him to earn his livelihood by requiring learners to rehearse phrases, is because he is a pathological liar. He will find it impossible to defend the criticism that his conduct was not accidental; it was deliberate.

All qualifications are legally accredited. Aran Jones must know this because Agored Cymru rejected his application for his S.S.I.W. Welsh-speaking workplace assessment. This is not surprising because he has no training in how to create professional assessments. His teaching status is Tom, Dick and Mary. He is playing being a teacher and researcher. It appears reasonable to finally conclude that Aran Jones is a:-

"A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman"." has no legal teaching qualifications. He must know that p

Introducing learners to a new language is at the school level of learning up to A'Level Standard. The understanding and skills needed to teach effectively can be as deep if not deeper than the subject knowledge that needs to be taught. Gunn (2001) Teachers Council Ruling, which is a legal one, defines teaching and what it is not. It refers to teachers as being intensively trained. Aran Jones does not have a clue how to teach or learners learn, and he has not only been viciously questioning Q.T.S teacher's advanced professional integrity, but he has been libelling Q.T.S teachers on social media. He appears to have a grievance against teachers. The D.E.S. ruling illustrates the status of Q.T.S. teachers in Wales and that you are quack.

References

Baddeley, A.D. (2007) Essential of Human Memory. East Sussex: Psychology Press.

Blackmore, S.J. & Frith, U. (2005) The Learning Brain. Oxford: Blackwell.

Broady, E. (2005) The Four Language Skills or 'Juggling Simultaneous Constraints' in Coleman, A. & Klapper.J. Ed. Effective Learning and Teaching: Modern Language. London, Routledge.

Coleman, A. & Klapper.J (2005) Effective Learning and Teaching: Modern Language. London: Routledge

Cooney-Hovath, J. (2019) Stop Talking Start Influencing: 12 Insights From Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick. Chatswood, Australia: Exile

DeKyser, R.M. Ed. (2007) Second Language. Perspectives from Applied Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Eaton, A (2017) How Long Does it Take to Learn a Language: The 10,000 hour rule as a model of fluency Calgarry, Onate Press

https://www.springinstitute.org/wp -content/uploads/2016/01/How -Long -Does -It -Take -To -Learn -A Second -Language.pdf

MacAllister and Blunt, A. (2013) Exploring Welsh speakers' language use in their daily lives. Welsh Government.

Mujis, D & Reynolds, D. (2001) Effective Teaching, Evidence and Practice. London: Paul Chapman.

Sagar-Fenton, B and McNeil (2018) How Many Words do you Need to Speak a Language? B.B.C. Radio 4: 24^th June 2018

Shipton, M. (2016) This man will attempt to learn the Manx language in one day via a live videocast.” Media Wales 25^th June 2016

Trewyn, H. (2015) Language activist offers to teach Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd execs to speak Welsh North Wales Post 20^th March 2015

Wallace, R (2009) The Oxford Educational Dictionary Oxford. O.U.P

Paper 4 - ioan Talfryn’s deSuggestopedia

Abstract

The Desuggestopedia method is a 1960s pseudoscience method that was developed by Georgi Lazanov, a practising Bulgarian psychotherapist and psychiatrist who had researched the paranormal and clairvoyance. The method as practised by Ioan Talfyn on S4C and in the Welsh for Adult Service was a cocktail of Lazanov’s method, the behaviourist Wlpan methods and ‘fake science’ that he had researched, such as his complexity, dynamic systems and flip theories. He has been practising his desuggestopedia method for thirty years.

Lazanov had created bizarre theories in communist Bulgaria. The fact he was a psychotherapist meant the claims and methods he created appeared scientifically plausible, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. The fact that we do not use most of our brains has been believed, for instance. Lazanov's theory was if the brain was kept active, such as through listening to music and acting, then learners would be able to subconsciously absorb a ridiculous amount of information. It has now been recognised we use all our brains all of the time. The belief is neuromyth.

There was a belief that music could enhance spatial learning, which is referred to as the Mozart Effect. Words are facts. They are stored in abstract form in semantic memory. They can only be consciously acquired. The Mozart theory has been disproved. It was never applied to word learning.

Ioan Talfryn believed that if novice learners were given live plays or pantomimes that,they could subconsciously absorb a thousand words in their first lesson. He even admitted that learners are normally introduced to twelve. While the Wlpan method required learners to memorise phrases like parrots, he expected learners to memorise the story of his performed plays and pantomimes. Predominantly all his claims were cognitively impossible.

Ioan Talfryn has been expecting learners to listen to language, mouth words and bark at print (read). He entertained learners and allowed them to do most of the work. He was making ridiculous promises that he could not fulfil, and he was even advising learners on how not to learn. He was using Lazanov, who can only be described as a confidence trickster, to give his practice a status it did not deserve. Desuggestopedia is a ‘fake science’.

Introduction

Ioan Talfyn, in his Cariad@iaeth SC4 learners series, claimed that desuggestopedia was a new 1970s scientifically proven method of Welsh language learning that was superior to the traditional 1947 Wlpan Skinnerist behaviourist Welsh for Adult learning method, which he referred to as learning through drilling, ‘parrot’ fashion. He promised that the method was scientifically proven. He explained that his practice was based upon the method posited by Georgi Lazanov, who was a practising Bulgarian psychotherapist psychiatrist who had researched the paranormal and clairvoyance.

Although the Welsh language is a native language that belongs to Wales, the learning of it is not significantly different from learning any other language in the world, but the environments in which languages are learnt will differ, and individual languages can have distinct characteristics. There are no mutations, changing the sounds of specific letters of words in English as there is in Welsh, for instance, but both share a common alphabet. Welsh has only 24 letters in its alphabet, however. There is nothing distinct about learning any language cognitively.

Cognitive research illustrates that it takes around 10,000 hours of practice to develop mastery. Gunn (2017) contended that we all possess the fluency of a PhD academic in our native Language. Most people do not possess an appreciation of how complex languages are and how much work is involved in learning a new language. Professor Sarah Eaton (2011), an educationalist who went to live in Spain to learn Spanish, contends that it takes around 10,000 hours to develop native-like fluency in a new language.

Field (2000) contended that prior to the creation of the National Curriculum that was introduced in 1990 that every second language method had been tried by teachers. All subject boundaries are artificial constructs, and since 1987, teachers have had to conform to accepted models of proven cross-curricular teaching practice, especially since the introduction of professional teaching councils. The word teaching professionally has a distinct meaning, which is generally not understood by most persons on the street. Kirsch (2006) claims that even professional teachers are struggling to get second language teaching right. There are no simple answers to how to teach it effectively.

Formative teaching requires advanced teaching skills to practice. Formative community teaching of a new language needs to foster the learning of a basic skill, which is at the school level of learning. New languages are difficult to teach and for learners to learn. It is nearer maths than English because it is a basic skill. It is challenging to learn new languages in the United Kingdom because they are generally not all around them. There are only 11% of fluent Welsh language speakers in Wales, and Welsh is not an all-around learner.

University academics have been required to teach since 2006 in the Welsh for Adult Service. Teaching community learners is extremely different to teaching intelligent, academic learners. The universities' Welsh for Adult practice is based on the PhD master-apprentice model of learning, where the master disseminates their knowledge and skills to their apprentices. Teaching skills are needed in the community, not Ph.D.s. Community learners need intense learning support. The intelligence of community learners will vary. They often lack self-confidence and self-esteem (Rodgers, 2002).

Learning a new language could be viewed as like attempting to climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland. It is an ever-lasting journey rather than a destination that needs to be reached. It requires a long-term commitment to even reach the foothills of the summit of fluent new language speaking. Classroom learning is only the first step in new language learning. They need to be lived through to develop anything resembling native-like fluency.

The reason why learners find learning to speak a new language so difficult is because a range of skills need to be coordinated together to create and generate speaking a new language. This makes demands upon working memory. It causes cognitive overload, which is similar to what happens when people attempt to use a mobile phone whilst driving.

When learners attempt to learn a new language, ‘parrot fashion’ through memorising phrases, this allows them to regurgitate what they have learned and memorised. This does not make demands upon working memory. It is like learning memorising a song in a foreign language, like “Frere Jacques” in French. This gives learners a sense of early communicative accomplishment in their new Language. It is how adult learners often expect to learn. It does not provide them with secure avenues that will develop forward into longer-term learning success.

The Wlpan behaviourist learning methods required learners to drill phrases and to memorise them like parrots. Ioan Talfryn has been expecting learners to memorise his acted stories. In his 2015 S4C series, he gave his learners text of his pantomime story on woodland animals in Welsh and English. He was expecting learners to work out the Welsh from the English translation. He was expecting them to practice it every night. All he was doing in his lessons was expecting learners to mouth words, bark at print, listen to language, and sing and dance (Wikipedia, 2022). He entertained learners and let them do all the work.

Ioan Talfryn was making learning ‘fun’. Hunter and Turner (2007), honest Welsh tutors warned Welsh learners to avoid tutors engaging in this practice.

Ioan Talfryn claimed that if learners memorised the words and grammar of the pantomime, they could apply it generally. This was delusional.

Ultimately, in our native language, 70% of phrases we fluently use will be memorised ones (Eysenck and Keane, 2010). It is impossible for them to simply mechanically memorise each of them through rote practice. It can only be achieved through constructional language practice, where phrases are worn down in our memories through practical usage. It is like treading down paths through long grass over thousands of hours of practice. The memorised phrases are stored in the brain in complex, interrelated forms.

Ioan Talfryn’s Ants in the Head Research

Ioan Talfryn’s ‘Ants in Head’ research paper is based upon a misunderstanding of Krashen's heavily criticised Monitor Model. Saville Troike (2006), a leading American second language authority, refers to many of Krashen's claims as being vague, imprecise, and difficult to prove. She claimed his work was practised in the 1980s and 1990s, but the pendulum has swung in the opposite

direction towards formal grammar teaching and that Krashen’s method was abandoned in America.

The Welsh of Adult service appears to be the only second language course in the developed world that claims grammar should not be taught. Professional registered teachers would be placed on a competency procedure for not teaching grammar. Helen Meek in the W.J.E.C. Cwrs Mynediad advises learners not to learn grammar. The evidence is Ioan Talfryn research was an attempt to justify his practising his version of Wlpan.

Keith Field (2000) contended that second language teaching is an educational disaster area, and it is not teachers’ fault. He lamented that no major report had ever been devoted to second language learning. English Language learning is well-researched. There is a vast literature on the teaching of English and in teaching learners English as a second language. There are broad similarities between learning a new language and learning maths, especially for children learning their number bonds and multiplication tables. They cannot learn their multiplication instantly. They cannot be learnt subconsciously either. It is cognitively impossible.

Cariad@ieath S4C deSuggestopedia

Ioan Talfryn does not know how to teach, or learners learn. His concept is that learners are inanimate objects that information can be poured into like petrol into a tank. It is what Confucious 551 B.C. referred to ‘feed the duck’ philosophy of learning. Derek Brockway, B.B.C. Weather forecaster, who learned on his S4C Cariad@iaeh program, quoted Ioan Talfryn in the media that:-

“In your average language lesson, people learn around a dozen new words and repeat them like parrots. Desuggestopedia immerses the learners in about a thousand words from the first lesson and makes extensive use of stories, games and songs in every lesson. After a while, the vocabulary that has found its way into the subconscious comes out and people are able to express themselves naturally."

This is not cognitively possible (deKaser,2007). Spoken language has no gaps, unlike written Language (Costa, 2029). Word learning is stored in semantic memory (Baddeley, 2012). It is a declarative memory. Declarative memory is a conscious one. A simple Wikipedia search will confirm this (Wikipedia, 2022b and 2022c). Novice learners were unlikely to be able to remember one word!

Kelly and Phillips (2016) explained the cognitive basis of learning. It is not rocket science. Information enters the brain through our senses. We process unfamiliar information through working memory into the long-term memory store. Memory is constructed through growing synapses in the brain.

As Petty (2010) contended, memory decays over time. 50% of factual information is lost within an hour of learning it. Learning new language words is no different to learning a new arbitrary, random security code. We all know how difficult they are to learn.

Ioan Talfryn demonstrated his methods on S4C. He dressed up as ‘bear’ and then ‘goldilocks. He gave his celebrities animal masks, and he christened them with animal names. He then gave his adult celebrities a Welsh language children’s pantomime.

Chait (2000) contended that young children's early language is structured. It is built up from the word. Flynn (2008) contended that communicating with parents has a strong influence on children’s early language development. Sweller (2017), an educational psychologist who is a world authority on cognitive overload, contended that adults cannot learn new languages like young children learn their first language. This is because very young children are primed to learn oral language naturally. Adults cannot learn like three-year-olds. There is no evidence that anyone in the world, apart from Ioan Talfryn, believes that this is possible.

Ioan Talfryn also claimed that if learners dance and listen to music or sing, they can learn vast amounts of language. Sweller (2017) contend that learning from two modalities, phonological and visual, does not have an impact on working memory if they are congruent, but information that needs to be processed in the same modality causes interference, cognitive overload. Music and language are processed in the same modality. It can cause cognitive overload. It does not enhance learning. It will do no harm if it is not too loud and it is not actively listened to. What is referred to as the ‘Mozart Affect’ only applies to spatial learning.

Ioan Talfryn was seen singing and dancing on S4C with his learners as they read three sets of verbs from a wall. It ended without any attempt being given to assess whether they had been learnt or absorbed. This is because he claimed, according to his ‘Ants in the head’ theory, he believed that the words would only come out of the brain three days later, having been baked like buns in an oven. In my thirty years of teaching experience, including my work teaching adults with learning difficulties part-time, I never heard of any inspector having to come back three days later to ascertain whether children or adults have learnt anything in a lesson. We should know how we learn. This claim appears delusional, a disconnect with reality.

Window Dressing

Ioan Talfryn's series was supported by Bangor University, where he had been practising the Wlpan method in the Welsh for Adult Service under contract to them for over a decade. They were supposed to offer him professional development to him.

Ioan Talfryn even claims in his research that he learnt Breton after he was drowned in it on an intensive course for only ten days. He claimed that he could not instantly speak it, but when he returned to Wales, he met those who taught him in the Welsh Eisteddfod in Cardiff, where he discovered he had ‘flipped’ and that he could speak Breton quite fluently. It is unclear if this is how he learnt the other additional languages he claims he can speak. He claims he can speak six. It is extraordinary he does not appear to know how to learn them.

There is a reference in his “Ants in the Head” research to obscure theories like complexity theory. They are so complex there is no evidence anyone can understand them. The conclusion that he derides from it is that “If you have a lot of simple interactors, and let them interact, then the result can be rather complex.” These are theories that are simply designed to impress readers and justify his methods.

Ioan Talfryn’s claim that music can enhance learning, referred to as the “Mozart Effect”, has been disproved but only ever applied to spatial learning, not word learning as he believed (Wikipedia, 2002d). It was cognitively impossible for him to use it to improve learners' learning.

Ioan Talfyn’s explanation of his “Ants in the Head Theory is that “Replace ants’ neurons and pheromones with neurotransmitters, and you might just as well be talking about the human brain" can only be described as make-believe. These ridiculous explanations arise because he is misinterpreting what he has been told or read. All he needed to do was to make a simple Google search to establish the facts.

deSuggestopedia is a Pseudoscience.

Lazanov’s claimed research refers to attitudes to learning. Accelerated learning principles have been embedded into school practice since around the turn of the millennium (Smith, 1996), but many elements of it have been disproved, such as the theory of multiple intelligence. A great deal of research has been done on developing positive learning attitudes in maths, but the notion that developing positive attitudes will have a massive impact on the quantity of learning is fictional. It is the quality of teaching, presenting learning in a structured and palatable form, that is the most effective way of fostering effective learning that fosters positive attitudes towards learning. A mountain of research illustrates that the quality of teaching improves standards (Wiliam, 2018).

Richards and Rodgers (2001), leading language authorities, described deSuggestopedia as pseudoscience. Hagan (2002) offers a very detailed research review of the method, and he

stated that:-

“Considering its bizarre origins, it is remarkable this method is still around 40 years later”.

and he contended that:-

“Many extraordinary claims you will find in Suggestology. Lozanov's book is an amalgam of psychoanalysis, parapsychology, and mysticism; in short, a cornucopia of esoterica. The man who created a worldwide mind revolution, and who once claimed to have telepathic powers, holds forth on ESP, automatic writing, alpha wave biofeedback, and hypnosis among the Druids. (6) One of his most novel ideas is "hypnopedy," or sleep learning. Lozanov describes an experiment in which Bulgarian schoolchildren learned Russian vocabulary as it played over the loudspeakers in their dormitories while they slept.”

The rationale that I presented in this paper refers to contemporary cross-curricula, cognitive and neuro-research that indicates the method is a pseudoscience.

Educational methods do not mature like wine. They become putrid. 1960s learning methods belong to the 1960s. Saville Troike (2006) contended that the deSuggestopedia method died out in America in the 1990s. Coleman and Klapper (2005) referred to students sitting in armchairs. Their reference to the method illustrates they knew about the method and that it has no validity. They criticised the method.

Ioan Talfryn’s methods are so unique that no quality course providers practice it. This is why he believes he is entitled to practice and say anything he likes. No school has ever applied the desuggestopedia, as Swarbrick (1994) illustrates. She refers to it as a commercial learning method.

There is no evidence that Lazanoz honestly discovered the concept of accelerated learning. If he had, his name would have appeared in the academic literature because it would have been the root of research. Smith (1996) does not refer to it in his research book on accelerated learning.

Any Q.T.S. registered teacher practising Mr Ioan Talfryn’s method would be struck off for practising it because all he has been doing is making ridiculous claims, entertaining learners and letting them do all the work. The method is a pseudoscience. He is required to apply proven methods in the Welsh for Adult Service. Proven methods furnish predictable outcomes.

The problem with desuggestopedia is it was posited by a psychotherapist whose complex ‘fake science’ was plausible in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980. Ioan Talfryn claimed that we only use part of our brains on S4C, for instance. Astle (2018). who is a neuroscientist at Cambridge University of the Brain, contended this is a neuro-myth. We use all of it all of the time. Hagan (2002) refers to Lazanov's claim that doing other activities like acting and listening to music will make the whole brain more active, contributing to more effective learning. This is a delusion.

What is most significant is that Hagan (2002) stated that Lazanov claimed his theories could be applied across the curriculum. Multiplication tables require learners to learn and bring a hundred facts into fluency. Words are facts. Generations of parents have tried every approach to learning, including expecting children to sing them in an attempt to enable them to learn it. Maths is one of the most researched subjects in the world. A vast amount of research has gone into developing positive attitudes in the subject.

If adult learners could subconsciously absorb a thousand facts in an introductory lesson if they are reduced to a child-like state, then according to Ioan Talfryn, it is reasonable to assume children can also do it. They would be capable of memorising their multiplication tables instantly. His claim is ridiculous.

Plenary

There was no requirement for Welsh for Adult tutors to teach until 2006 in the university Welsh for Adult academic service. They have a history of developing their D.I.Y. tutoring methods. The service they are offering is a community one, not an academic one. The level of teaching is formative. It is at the school level of teaching. Whilst professional teachers require intensive training, the Welsh for Adults tutors do not appear to have been given any quality training.

There is no evidence that Ioan Talfryn is practising desuggestopedia as most tutors practice it. Reference to YouTube deSuggestopedia practising sessions illustrates this. The reference to Krashen’s input theory suggests that what he practised was a cocktail of desuggestopedia, the Skinnerist Wlpan behaviourist method, and his own research. He demonstrates a lack of understanding of the most elementary principles of learning. His advice to learners that they can cram information if they are struggling, the source of which was Lazanov, is the educational equivalent of doctors advising their patients to smoke. The claim is a crime against humanity.

Adults are enthusiastic, intelligent learners who will engage in a lot of self-study and will be inclined to blame themselves when they do not succeed in their learning (Colegan, 2022).

Ioan Talfryn’s claimed his methods appeared counterintuitive on SC4 Cariad Iaeth. It certainly was. It was also extremely deceptive. A degree of common sense should not be needed to work out if learners could learn something subconsciously, then they would not be aware of absorbing it. This allowed him to claim anything he liked about what he presented to them. The fact that he qualified his claim by stating that the word would ‘eventually come out' illustrated that he knew what he was doing. He claimed the words would start coming out three days later.

Mr Ioan Talfryn skilfully avoided showing learners engaging in language construction on S4C. In my teaching career, I have never heard of an Estyn inspector needing to come back to class three days after inspecting a lesson to establish if learners had learnt anything in their lesson.

Mr Ioan Talfryn was giving his learners a book with Welsh and English, respectively, on each facing page. He highlighted the equivalent chunks of each language on each page. He expected his learners to work out the translation as a homework task. It is immaterial whether he practised this in the Welsh for Adult Service. He did practice it on S4C.

It is reasonable to suggest that if Ioan Talfryn claimed miracle methods worked, then someone would have discovered them. Professor Stephen Pinker (2003) is a very brilliant Harvard psychologist who is a world authority on languages, contended that one of the wonders of the world is how babies become able to identify individual words in a speech. Mr Ioan Talfryn must have known his novice learners would not have been able to identify one word, let alone memorise 1,000 of them.

Three reliable sources, including Richards and Rogers (2001), refer to desuggestopedia as being pseudoscience. Coleman and Klapper (2005) researched book on second language learning, which has twenty-two academic contributors, referred to desuggestopedia learners sitting in armchairs. They dismissed the method. Hagan (2002) castigates the method. It is unclear if Ioan Talfryn really understood the method.

Teaching should be a learning process for teaching and child. (Gunn 2010). Ioan Talfryn appears to have been too ignorant to understand the principles of teaching and learning pertaining to all learning across the curriculum. They are not negotiable. There is overwhelming research that the behaviourist methods he was practising failed learners. This is what he was practising. It is an animal training method. If he wants to disprove this, it is defined by Cockcroft (1982). His report took five years to research and compile.

Ioan Talfryn’s subconscious learning claim, where he refers to novice learners sub-consciously absorbing a thousand words, as opposed to most teachers introducing twelve words, appears to be nothing more than a deceitful marketing soundbite that he was broadcasting to deceive learners into believing it is easier to learn Welsh than it is. Hagan (2002) referred to the Lazanov theory as:-

“You will learn the language stresslessly [sic], as a child does, by hearing new vocabulary and phrases in alternately loud, whispered, and emphatic intonations, all accompanied by slow rhythmic music in digital stereo.”

Sagar-Fenton and McNeil (2018) refer to a language research institute in Canada that agreed it would take around three years of daily practice to develop fluency of 500 words in a minority language. Welsh is a minority language. About 80% of the research into memory undertaken by cognitive scientists is on word learning. It is probably the first task they would do on an undergraduate cognitive science course.

Gaston (2014), who is a linguist, states the following:-

“It does mean that its succession of efficiency measures has landed Welsh with a system that makes life hell for second-language learners while being riddled with rules that can seem to be all but pointless.”

Welsh Language learners deserve all the quality learning support that they can be offered.

DeSuggestopedia is a D.I.Y. made-up method. Professor Mujis and Reynolds (2010) called for the abandonment of D.I.Y. methods across the world. Ioan Talfryn has been primarily entertaining learners. He required them to “Do it themselves” through the homework he set them.

The evidence that Lazanov, who had developed his theories in communist Bulgaria in the 1960s is, was a confidence trickster. He is deceased. This is illustrated in his YouTube interview with Lazanov (2013), which must have been broadcast in the 1970s, where he was asked how long it would take to develop “A conversational knowledge of German” and he replied, “One month”. He refers to the need to practice for three hours a day to achieve this. He emphasises the role of music in enhancing learning. He refers to them acquiring 2,000 words without doing any homework and acquiring all the German grammar. This mirrors Ioan Talfryn’s claims.

Hagan (2002) referred to the Lazanov theory as:-

“Well, if you struggled with two or three semesters of a foreign language in college, you will be embarrassed to learn that these "proven foreign language courses" allow anyone to "comfortably converse in a new language within 30 days."

The words can be viewed coming out of the late Lazanov’s mouth on YouTube. His claims can only be described as delusional and disconnected from reality.

Lazanov appears to be confused about what he did. He refers to himself as a physician, psychiatrist, neurologist, psychotherapist and educationalist, and it is claimed he researched the paranormal and clairvoyance. It appears that he was a physicist and psychotherapist. They are interrelated. No one can be an expert in so many fields.

The method is primarily used as practised by Ioan Talfryn by a small minority of incompetent English as a second language tutors to enable them to tutor across the world. The milder version required learners to engage in relaxing activities like sitting in armchairs. Lazanov’s deception and his ‘fake science’ gave the method a status it did not merit.

Suppose it were possible to create such miracle learning outcomes. In that case, there is the issue of why no one in the Welsh for Adult Service was practising the method, and despite all the trillions of hours of research that has been undertaken by professional teachers, cognitive and increasingly neuroscience, then surely somewhere in the world would have discovered what Ioan Talfryn claimed. The method was known by second language authorities.

DeSuggestopedia, especially how Mr Ioan Talfryn practised it, is not a proven method. Teachers and psychologists, such as Professor Stephen Pinker, investigate learning. He has written sixteen researched books. Astonishingly, rather than supporting learners, Mr Ioan Talfryn was advising them on how not to learn. The method was posited over fifty years ago.

A pseudoscience is intended to deceive. It blinds people with science. Ioan Talfryn was even making up his own ‘fake science’ referring to his complexity, dynamic systems theory and his flipping theory. Unless proven methods are applied, then learners will not learn effectively. He is not entitled to practice pseudo-science methods in the Welsh for Adult Service. He was covering up his incompetence through entertaining learners and giving them false promises that he could not deliver.

References

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Baddeley, A.D. (2012) Working Memory GoCognitive Psychology

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Eaton, S (2011) How Long Does it Take to Learn a Language: The 10,000-hour rule as a model of fluency Calgary, Onate Press

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Wiliam, D. (2018) Creating the Schools for Our Children’s Needs Learning Sciences International

The Future of the Welsh for Adult Service

Dr Margaret Newcombe (2009), Cardiff School of Welsh, referred to the 1947 root of the Wlpan Skinnerist behaviourist that was being practised in the Welsh for Adult Service that: -

“Wales is bursting with talented tutors who could lead upon the world stage".

The evidence is that they believed that the appalling Wlpan method that they were practising was superior to school teaching and established, proven university second language practice. They were able to market their method as researched and unique because responsible course providers would not practice it. This is illustrated by the support the National Welsh Language Learning College has given to the quacks, Ioan Talfryn and Aran Jones.

The Welsh Government has very high expectations for the services it delivers to all learners. A vast amount of public money is invested into providing its educational services. It has been independently advised that it should recruit more Q.T.S. teachers with teaching masterates so it can fulfil its aspiration to provide world-class teaching standards. It cannot be disputed that in the Welsh for Adult Service they are providing Third World tutoring standards that any Tom, Dick and Mary can practice without any training.

The behaviourist rote teaching they were applying is a very raw, over-simplistic tutoring method. Children know more about teaching and learning than them because they witness it being applied every day in the classroom. Aran Jones was referring to his perverted version of Wlpan as the ‘cut out complicated stuff’ method of learning. The fact that the Welsh National College is supporting his practice illustrates their impoverished understanding of the most elementary principles of pedagogy. Aran Jones has had no training. His and Ioan Taflryn’s methods are delusional. The only place he was entitled to practice them is in a Wendy House.

Professor Dylan Wiliam, who is recognised as a very talented educationalist, refers to it taking five years for a teacher to become an experienced teacher after undergoing intense training. The problem with ignorance is people do not know what they do not know. The university academics do not know what Q.T.S. teachers know. They are playing being teachers and researchers.

The revolution in teaching took place in the 1980s. Real teaching was introduced in 1987. It was defined in the Cockcroft Report (1982) in 1982 into maths. It was introduced because it was found that children were passing maths and second language examinations, but they could not apply what they had learnt.

It is abjectly unacceptable that Welsh speakers like Ioan Taflryn and Aran Jones were allowed to practice in Welsh for Adult service, claiming that they invented miracle methods. Teaching is not just about presenting information to learners. It is about presenting it in a meaningful and structured process and applying it to proven practices like curriculum development and researched methodology.

It is unacceptable that they both reported me to the police for criminally harassing them for professionally criticising their methods, which was not a crime. It was not a police issue. This has clearly arisen because of the college's inability to police standards and unwillingness to prohibit appalling dishonesty and practices in the Welsh for Service, despite the fact there is a contractual responsibility for all those in the service to apply standards commensurate with being in an Estyn inspected.

Plenary

Professional teachers are trained and assessed to apply educational research, especially those with higher educational degrees. All valid research commences with researching what is known because unless it is established, the research will not be worth the paper it is written upon. It will be a waste of time and money.

Education is such a deep science that primary and secondary research needs to be referred to. One would expect any university school of second languages committed to providing a quality service to read Coleman and Klapper (2005) researched book which iswritten for university second language academic tutors. They had twenty-two contributors, and they referred to three hundred research papers that included relevant research books.

There is no evidence that Professor Sioned Davies et al. knew how to undertake educational research. Retrospective research pertains only to historians investigating past events, but such research will be ‘new findings’. The 1950s behaviourist D.I.Y. methods the academics approved date back to what Confucius 848 B.C. referred to as the ‘Feed the Duck” practice (Gormely, 2017). They failed to even reach the 2005 researched level of Coleman and Klapper (2005). The National Welsh Learning College is still promoting Aran Jone's perverted Wlpan method in 2023.

There has been a requirement for proven methods to be practised in the Welsh for Adult Service from Autumn 2018. It has been common knowledge since Covid struck of what proven medicines are. The behaviourist Wlpan methods are extremely well proven, they have been proven to be totally ineffective, inhumane process of learning anything, and that is ineffective.

Learners who use websites or attend classes to learn Welsh only have one interest. It is to learn Welsh and be given the quality learning support they are contractually entitled to receive. Ioan Talfryn and Aran Jones were advising learners on how not to learn. This is why I challenged them and found policemen knocking on my door.

Public money is being spent to support the Welsh for Adult service. Learners devote their valuable time and money to receive impoverished Welsh for Adult service that they are being offered.

We all accept products and services in good faith because we do not have the expertise to evaluate them, which includes governments. If food health inspectors do not know what hygiene standards are, then there will be no point in their existence.

There is evidence to suggest that there is ‘political marketing’ in the Welsh for Adult Service and that the public is being deceived. Ioan

Talfryn and Aran Jones were presenting themselves as expert teachers and researchers.

The Welsh Government has taken independent advice on the training of teachers. If Q.T.S. teachers could practice without having any training, then there would be no point in their being trained. It would save a vast amount of public money. Tutors like Ioan Talfryn have been given outstanding Estyn outcomes for doing bugger all. He was not tutoring anything. The academics were clearly too ignorant to work it out.

Summing Up

Everything we do on planet Earth is a process of cognitive growth. It is only in the Welsh for Adult that is not provided in the community by registered Q.T.S. teachers who have been intensively trained and are registered. They are continuously striving to improve the service they offer instead of university academics. They do not apply their skills in a spirit of hope, optimism and guesswork.

The world of professional teaching practice has clearly been a secret garden to the university academics in the have been applying their impoverished skills and weak understanding for decades. Q.T.S. teachers would be severely reprimanded if they did not research what they are contractually required to practice and if they supported quacks advising learners how to learn like Ioan Talfryn and Aran Jones.

A contractual requirement was made from Autumn 2018 for proven methods to be applied in the Welsh for Adult Service. There is only one proven method that exists, which is professional teaching. There should have been a ‘revolution’ in the service where the D.I.Y. methods would be abandoned and training implemented. No Q.T.S. teacher would approve Ioan Talfryn’s method, especially since he has also written an obscene book referring to his own Welsh Language experiences.

The Adult for Service can only be transformed into 21st century if experienced Q.T.S. Welsh Language English medium schools teachers are appointed to direct the service, especially as the Welsh for Adult Services is a monopoly service and there appears to be a conspiracy of complacency in the service. There is no alternative. Otherwise, it will take more than ten years to develop a quality service.

References

Cockcroft (1982) Mathematics Counts. H.M.S.O.

Coleman, A. & Klapper.J (2005) Effective Learning and Teaching: Modern Language. London: Routledge

Gormley, W. (2017) The Critical Advantage: Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Schools Cambridge: Hardwood Press

The Future of the Welsh for Adult Service