Cymoedd tutor wins national Work Welsh Award

Cymoedd Tutor Fiona Hennah from Newport has scooped Foundation Level Learner of the Year at this years’ Work Welsh Awards.

Fiona, a Science lecturer who teaches on the Access to Higher Education programme at the college, is an enthusiastic Welsh learner and is currently on her second year of the FE Work Welsh (Foundation 1) FE course. She has made a great deal of progress in her learning and use of the Welsh language.

The FE Work Welsh project is funded by the National Centre for Learning Welsh through the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and coordinated by ColegauCymru and its aim is to support lecturers in FE colleges to use the Welsh language confidently in the classroom. The programme consists of 120 hours of training and is based on a combination of teaching sessions, 1-1 mentoring sessions, observation of lecturer’s teaching and independent study. The training is delivered by the College’s Work Welsh Language Tutor, Alison Kitson.

Fiona’s interest in learning Welsh stemmed from the desire to converse with her family, especially her young nieces; who attend Welsh medium schools. Fiona enjoys spending time chatting, reading and even singing with them and ultimately learning a lot from them.

She incorporates Welsh into her teaching resources, and shares English to Welsh Glossaries of Scientific Terms with all her students. She also finds and shares Welsh-medium resources in her subject, to help her Welsh first-language students. 

Fiona provides bi-lingual written feedback to all her learners when marking assignments, and encourages non Welsh speakers to learn Welsh too.

Congratulating Fiona, Alison Kitson, Work Welsh Tutor at the college said “This is a well-deserved award, Fiona is so enthusiastic about learning Welsh and inspires and supports other people to learn Welsh too. She also has a great interest in Welsh music and culture and shares lots of news items, music video clips on the College’s Staff Welsh Learners’ website”.

Commenting on her Award, Fiona said “I’m delighted to have won this Award, it means so much to me. I really enjoy learning Welsh and have to thank my excellent tutor – Alison Kitson, for being so patient with me”.

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