The Linguist

@Linguist_CIOL JUNE/JULY The Linguist 17 FEATURES Veejay Lingiah, FlashAcademy FlashAcademy has grown since 2018 to become the UK's leading EAL (English as an additional language) platform for schools, helping around 1,000 primary and secondary schools. It has also been developed to support colleges teaching ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) and workplaces seeking to improve employees' English skills, with over 500,000 learners worldwide. We also added digital assessment after learning that UK teachers spend 4 million hours a year on paper-based assessments for EAL pupils. Our team has doubled in size and there are now 40 of us – essentially still former teachers, linguists and techies. We have the same funders but have added UFI Ventures to that group. My own challenge has been in helping the company transition from a 'start-up' to a 'scale-up' enterprise. This has meant often challenging changes to the team as we move from needing generalists to specialists. We've also introduced processes to help us grow sustainably, such as our 'Education Success Team', who support all of our customers. When I last spoke to The Linguist, our aim was to cover 50 languages and develop a 'Get-Give' initiative. We've managed to get to 48 languages so far. Instead of 'Get-Give', we started to support refugees with English language provision in schools and colleges, and recently added Ukrainian, as well as free online materials at flashacademy.com/Ukraine. During the pandemic, we delivered over 1 million digital lessons to UK pupils. Our team have coped brilliantly and while they have been largely remote, we're starting to bring some physical time back to help with more creative/social sessions. flashacademy.com Aline Sara, NaTakallam Since 2019, we have greatly expanded our conversation sessions by adding Kurdish, English and, most recently, Ukrainian and Russian with tutors displaced by the war. To date, our refugee tutors and translators have generated over US$1.5 million and connected with 12,000 learners through NaTakallam. In 2020, NaTakallam implemented a much-needed price increase to help push us towards self-sustainability. As the team expanded, we hired our first Chief of Staff, Daniël Kuipers. We introduced a membership model for our translation services and began working with international bodies such as the OECD and Oxfam. We now provide translation services in over 30 languages, including low-resourced languages such as Rohingya and Amharic, as well as virtual interpretation services.. We have expanded our B2B partnerships and provided conversation sessions for organisations such as Doctors without Borders and Internews, and partnered with more than 300 schools and universities. Our team has always connected virtually and we tripled our language sessions during the pandemic, with many tutors relying on NaTakallam as a source of human connection. When Covid caused Teens of Color Abroad (TOCA) to cancel their study abroad plans, our Conversation Partners began leading sessions for hundreds of teenage students of colour. In the next period, we will be focusing on creating a new Spanish curriculum, and adding a learning management system to improve the learning experience for students who are interested in structured lessons. natakallam.com Robbie Norval, Lingo Flamingo Our overarching objective is still to empower older adults and people living with dementia through language learning. In 2018, we opened a language school in south Glasgow, which we refer to as our 'nest'. The profits support our projects in care homes and day centres across Scotland, enabling us to be less grant reliant. Our care home classes are funded through private sales and grant funding. We also worked with partners across Europe to design dementia-friendly language materials for the 'Super lingo' project. In 2021, we became a recognised provider of Scottish Qualification Authority Courses. Many of our participants have never had a formal qualification and they are now doing so within a care home setting. We have delivered over 4,000 classes in Scottish care homes since we launched in 2015, and over 3,000 community classes from our nest. We currently have 6 employees and 20 freelance tutors. Covid was challenging as it was impossible to deliver our care home courses, and very sad to hear about the consequences of outbreaks for staff and residents. The pandemic forced us to develop new ideas, such as training care home support workers, penpal schemes with residents, and an online portal with downloadable resources. We had started to offer some classes in England, but due to Covid we are now just getting our projects back up and running in Scotland. For a long time I was focused on developing and improving services, and while this is still a consideration, I have learnt to enjoy the moment and recognise how far we have come; to reflect on 'failure' and not be put off by bumps along the road. www.lingoflamingo.co.uk © MUNDO LINGO © LINGO FLAMINGO

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