The Mary Glasgow 2009 Award

The Mary Glasgow Award 2009 was won by the ‘MFL Volunteers’ scheme run by Dorset Adult Learning and based at the Blandford Adult Learning Centre. Corinne Middlemiss, the project co-ordinator, received the award and a cheque for two thousand pounds at the European Awards ceremony in July 2009.

Although the notion of using volunteers was already established elsewhere in the Dorset AE service, the MFL volunteers programme enhanced and greatly expanded the concept. By a master stroke of original thinking, the organisers recruited their volunteers from the ranks of the many foreign nationals seeking to learn or improve their English through courses in Dorset’s adult learning centres. The idea has been carried forward and supported by a comprehensive information and recruitment scheme and an innovative training handbook and induction process.

The Mary Glasgow Trustees who visited the project commented that ‘It has the happy quality that all the parties are winners. Tutors gain new skills, have the chance to explore a variety of forms of class organisation, and can draw on the volunteer as a linguistic and cultural resource. For the volunteers there are also new skills and understandings, cultural, social and linguistic interchange, and enhanced self confidence. Most important of all, the learners get the benefit of individual attention, confidence and the availability of an authentic and up-to-date language resource.

In making this award, the Mary Glasgow Language Trust hopes that this model will find favour in other parts of the country, as adult education continues to make a significant contribution to the nation’s capacity in languages.