Here we go with the monthly round up of what’s going on with the good ship SSi… it’s going to be interesting to hear from what you think about the frequency - is there enough new stuff in here, or is it a bit samey?
Here’s last month’s report:
Currently available material
Same as last month. This is a bit disappointing - we were very confident that we’d have new Level 3 northern stuff out before Christmas - but a combination of fine-tuning the system and coughs and colds meant that we missed that one.
Coming next
Welsh: If we don’t have some new Level 3 northern lessons available this week, it will be next week at the very latest. But I’m hoping for this week - if Catrin shakes off the rather nasty bug she’s got at the moment!
Spanish: I’ll have having a chat with Gaby this month - I think we need to wait for one last rearrangement to the block system for the SSiBorg (which will break course production down into more digestible chunks), but with luck that will be ready quite soon.
Asturian: Still waiting on my recording, which I’m keen to do after the new block system (there’s something quite depressing about seeing too many thousands of recording tasks waiting for you!). But we should have some actual publishing with this before the end of the month.
Manx: there’s been a lot of work going on with Manx - plenty of new production, and a lot of recording, even in the face of the old block system. @adriancain will know better than I do right now how close we are to publishing more, but it’s certainly not going to be long.
Then we’ve also got movement again on the Cornish course, which I think is very close to going to recording now - so it’s reasonable to hope that there might be new published material in the next few months.
Once the block system is ready, I’m going to be talking to people about our next round of new languages - at the moment, that’s looking as though it might include some or more of Sami, Maori, Italian, German and French.
Incoming/outgoings
Pretty much the same as last month, plus a few extra Welsh subscriptions (usually a little slower at this time of year, I think - @Iestyn?).
Next steps
The two main things coming up are:
Our new 5 day immersion intensive for Welsh, trialling at the end of January. I’m excited about this model - it’s going to be fiendishly hard word, but I can’t wait to see the results.
An invitation to help build the English syllabus/course for a new online school - on a paid consultancy role and for a share of the revenue. This has come out of our new connections in Cambridge, and might be the first step towards reaching a far wider audience, so it’s pretty good news. At some point this year, we’re hoping it will generate enough income for us to plough some more resources into the Welsh side of things (although the new pattern of publishing for Level 3 Welsh starting this month is going to keep you on your toes anyway…;-)).
Other stuff going on
We should be starting to publish the videos I was talking about last month in the very near future. It’s going to be interesting seeing what sort of reception they get on YouTube, and if it would be worth perhaps putting some of our Spanish material into a course on Udemy.
I didn’t mention our apps last month - @lewie and @jamesmahoney have done superb and generous unpaid work to build iOS and Android apps for SSiW, and we also have a live iOS app for Spanish - not sure what our download figures are like - Jeff, James? Mobile is clearly a hugely important part of the experience these days, and we hope we’ll be able to put a lot more into this side of things (by actually managing to pay Jeff and James some non-Monopoly money one of these days!).
In summary
The first quarter of 2017 is going to be recording and publishing with Welsh, Asturian, Manx and Spanish…
Plus launching the 5 day immersive, and working on the English course for the online school project.
And carrying on trying to reach more new learners with videos and advertising.
Any other questions, fire away!
Oh… just one thing…
The requests for new languages
All these threads lead to requests for new languages!
We’d love to say yes, wave a magic wand and publish them all straight away.
But right now, it’s not about us being nudged to think ‘Oh, yes, [x] language would be a good idea’. We want to do all of them, but we can’t just yet.
If you’re actually, personally, willing to jump in with producing a new language - one that you speak to a native-like level of fluency - then yes, by all means sing out - we might just be able to squeeze one more in the next round of testing.
But otherwise, wishlists are just going to be a little frustrating for you, because we’re not in a position to respond to them at this stage…
And…
Wishing you all a happy, productive, loving and interesting 2017…