Watch: Extraordinary video of Sri Lankan teachers speaking Welsh after one hour

A remarkable video showing trainee teachers in Sri Lanka speaking Welsh after just one hour’s training has captured the imagination online.

Tea Leaf Trust alumni from the Maskeliya school went through the ‘Anyone Can Teach’ teacher training programme, with Tom Cassidy, friend of Tea Leaf Trust and Head of Education at SSi – SaySomethingin.com.

“To get them to experience the methodology, they learnt Welsh, using our AutoMagic system,” said Tom.

According to the course lead the AutoMagic system is ‘like having a personal tutor in your pocket’.

After only one hour time spent in-app, they could confidently knock out a bunch of sentences in Welsh,” said Tom. “They found it much easier than I expected.”

Oh. My. Word.

This is the most unexpected and glorious Welsh class I’ve ever seen.

In Sri Lanka. Being taught by an English guy. To help train teachers.https://t.co/8YbccHIunE#UnexpectedWelsh @OwsWills @S4CDysguCymraeg

— Aran Jones (@aranjones) April 6, 2023

He added: “Basically we are training people to become English teachers with our partners the Tea Leaf Trust in Sri Lanka. We created the ‘Anyone Can Teach’ teacher training programme, with a view to giving Sri Lankan students the opportunity to become teachers of spoken English, without needing formal and expensively meaningless qualifications.

“The programme is designed to get Tamil and Sinhala speakers confident and interactional in the use of spoken English in around 30 hours.

“But the Welsh part is beautiful.

“Since the teachers already speak English, the training to understand the AutoMagic methodology involved them having to learn a new language, an unusual language, a great language.

“Of course, since SaySomethingin was set up initially to help people learn Welsh, we got them to learn Welsh.

“And they already love Welsh!”

Find out more about the AutoMagic system HERE