Wedgwood Memorial College

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Wedgwood Memorial College is a small residential college in Barlaston, near Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. The college, a member of the Adult Residential Colleges Association, offers short courses in literature and languages (French, German and Esperanto); political science and history; and art, art history and architectural history.[1] Wedgwood Memorial College has a non-circulating library with 15,000 volumes available for research and private study.[2]

The college's buildings are also rented out for weddings, parties and small conferences, with eight rooms available that accommodate from ten to 40 people per room.[3] One of these rooms is the Montagu C. Butler Library, located in Esperanto House on the grounds of the college.

The college was originally housed in Barlaston Hall, a nearby building which had been endangered by coal mining operations and a geological fault, which had caused major diagonal cracks in the walls.

[edit] Esperanto instruction

The headquarters for the Esperanto Association of Britain has its main office at Wedgwood Memorial College

Since 1960 Wedgwood Memorial College has offered a week-long Esperanto summer school every August. Esperanto tutor Paul Gubbins, who has taught at the college for many years, declares that students typically learn Esperanto to a more advanced level than students of other foreign languages: "Students of Esperanto do not have to wrestle with the irregularities of a foreign language: these impede fluent, uninhibited expression. This means that often, particularly with an advanced group at the college, I find myself not so much ‘teaching’ Esperanto but exploring the language with students – pushing it, testing it and challenging it to an extent that is impossible in a traditional language classroom."[1]

The college offers a weekend course in Esperanto theatre every January and a weekend residential course in Esperanto language every October. The latter course is particularly suited to people who have completed an introductory free course, whether a traditional postal course[4] or an Internet-mediated one.[5] The Esperanto Association of Britain offers a partial subsidy to Esperanto learners attending the Wedgwood Memorial College program and who have first completed such an introductory course.[6]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b College Tutors
  2. ^ College Library
  3. ^ Seminars and Small Conferences
  4. ^ Ana Pana Esperanto correspondence course
  5. ^ lernu.net - Several free on-line courses in Esperanto
  6. ^ Languages taught

[edit] External links