In our ongoing A Day in My Life series, Huw Owen, Work Welsh training officer at Ceredigion County Council, take us through what his job entails.

I began this role in July and have been very busy from the outset, establishing new lessons, activities and events that will provide the perfect opportunities for the staff of Ceredigion County Council to learn Welsh in engaging ways.

My job offers both a chance and a challenge to develop new formal and informal teaching programmes in the field of learning Welsh.

The Work Welsh Pilot Scheme, funded by the National Centre for Learning Welsh, is a pioneering one that answers a vital need in Ceredigion, one that will, in turn, feed back into the broader conversation about teaching and learning in the Work Welsh education sector in general.

I see it as a chance to develop something new that is of genuine value to the people around me. It is, therefore, a very important and especially exciting opportunity, an endeavour of which I’m really pleased to be a part of.

Teaching a class is the primary joy of any tutor. It’s a privilege to assist a learner on their journey to fluency and to get to respond to the challenge of preparing and delivering classes of the highest quality to best serve the needs of the learners, both as individuals and as members of unique classes.

Formal teaching also brings its duties – the duty of detailed preparatory research, the duty of informed and correct leadership to the learners, and the duty of constantly improving the tutor’s own understanding of the subject.

I go about preparing and delivering all the council’s classes with these duties clear in my thoughts, and with the specific needs of the learners forever at the forefront of my mind.

Language is a communal phenomenon and the provision of opportunities for learners to become a language community and use their Welsh outside of the classroom is also a vital part of my job.

In response to this, I arrange a weekly Clwb Cinio Cymraeg for council staff. The Clwb gives learners of every level and fluent speakers a chance to meet over lunch to speak in Welsh.

This is a welcoming space in which learners may use and develop their Welsh – perhaps for the very first time outside of class – and in doing so, become a part of the council’s community of Welsh speakers.

See this week’s south papers for the full story, available in shops and as a digital edition now