Linguascope
Linguascope is a publisher in the United Kingdom of online educational resources for Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teachers for French, German, Spanish, Italian and English in the classroom. It is a member of the British Educational Suppliers Association and a corporate member of the Association for Language Learning.
History
Pre 2002
Linguascope began life in 1998 as a school webpage started by a language teacher, Stéphane Derône. Originally published as bonjour.org.uk and catering for French, the site was made available online for French teachers from other schools to use.
In 2002 Mr. Derône hired new staff to develop content for German and Spanish on the websites in the same mould. Richard West-Soley, a language teacher and graduate in German and Spanish, started working for Mr. Derône, and hallo.org.uk and hola.org.uk were launched. This period saw the introduction of Flash activities to the site, moving on from the original JavaScript-based activities. These were intended for whiteboard teaching, which was beginning to become the norm in UK MFL classrooms around this time. Italian and English versions of the sites soon followed. Soon afterwards Anna-Chiara Swaine joined the team to provide formal administration and organisation, as well as regular attendance at the various education exhibitions in the UK and beyond to market to schools.
2002 - 2008
As the sites developed, bonjour.org.uk and its sister sites were brought under the single Linguascope brand. Other content projects soon followed, including Linguamate, a Flash content creation tool. Ready-made content for other levels was also provided, with Linguastars for Key Stage 4/High School students and Linguaprime for Primary/Elementary schools. Eventually, the sections were renamed to become Elementary, Beginner and Intermediate sections of the different Linguascope language areas, as well as related tools and resources.
An offshoot of the Linguamate / Activity Builder site became the separate site Activiscope , an online Flash / SCORM-compliant content creation tool.
2009 - 2010
Alongside electronic resources, Linguascope also develops and markets a range of physical aids for classroom teachers, including posters, stationery and grammar aids, such as the Verb Wheel. In addition to these resources in 2009 Linguascope also acquired the kinaesthetic learning aid Talking Dice and promoted them through their existing channels along with new redistribution partners in Europe, Australasia and North America.
In addition to this Linguascope also entered the apps market creating a series of applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. These applications offer a slimmed-down version of the Linguascope website, as well as an international news update service, available in the same languages as the website, a Verb Hub application, offering similar learning techniques as that of the Verb Wheel and a Word of the Day app, allowing users to build their vocabulary of five languages. A Talking Dice app was also launched allowing users to practice any language in similar fashion to the Talking Dice computer software.
As of 2010 Linguascope has six members of staff. 2010 saw the first Linguascope Roadshow, with demonstrations and training given to delegates at venues in Glasgow, Newcastle and Bristol.
Linguascope Conference
Linguascope’s inaugural conference was held in Brighton on the 25 and 26 June in 2010 at the Thistle Hotel. Delegates were given presentations from MFL specialists including Helen Myers, José Picardo, Russell Stannard, Rachel Hawkes and Joe Dale. A dinner was also held for delegates with Stephen Clarke, the author of A Year in the Merde, attending as the guest speaker. The 2011 edition of the Linguascope Conference will be held again at the Thistle Hotel in Brighton on 1–2 July , featuring John Moloney (comedian) as guest speaker.
Awards and nominations
In 2003, the bonjour.co.uk website was entered in the Cable & Wireless Childnet awards and was given the Special Individual Award, for Mr. Derône’s contribution to the MFL community .
During the Summer of 2010 the company was also nominated in two categories for the Education Investor Awards.