Lingua Genesis

Carl Dundas

Carl Samuel Dundas (born 27th May 1982, Barnsley, South Yorkshire) is a British peripatetic teacher of modern languages, freelance translator, studying hyperpolyglot and independent researcher into means of accelerated modern foreign language (MFL) acquisition. He has carried out several analyses of the quality of MFL teaching and learning within the primary, secondary and further education sectors of the mainstream system, as well as of a range of audio-visual materials, most notably the Michel Thomas method, BBC Talk Spanish and BBC Deutsch Plus. He shares many of his views and findings on the video website YouTube. He is the founder of the prominent ideology, Lingua Genesis, conceived in 2004 and made into a limited company in 2008. The company is dedicated to the provision of high-quality translation work in numerous foreign languages, as well as low-cost and innovative language learning opportunities for all age groups in a range of world languages, but also in mathematics. The company also seeks to revive the lack of popularity which language learning has suffered due to short-sighted governmental initiatives, poor standards of teaching and flawed learning structures as set out by course syllabi and assessment or examination regulations.

Early Years

Dundas was born in the village of Dodworth, just outside Barnsley, to Peter Dundas and Maureen Pooley, and as the younger brother of Helen Dundas (b. 1976). He attended the Dodworth C of E Infant School, the Dodworth Junior School and later the Kingstone Comprehensive School, which he left in 1998. He studied A-levels in German, Spanish, mathematics and general studies at the Barnsley College and concurrently worked as a teaching assistant at the St. Michael's Comprehensive School between 1999 and 2000.

University Education (2000 - 2004)

From September 2000, he studied a joint honours degree in German and Spanish at the University of Leicester, where he developed, in addition to his love of those languages, a particular fascination for the works of the German author, Heinrich Böll, and the metaphysics of the literary collection of the Argentine great, Jorge Luis Borges. During the third year of his course, he was employed for a five-month period by the British Council as an English Language Teaching Assistant at the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, before travelling to Andalusia to study Spanish at the University of Granada, where he also taught English to several native speakers from the locality.

He returned from abroad to recommence his final year of studies at Leicester in September 2003 and was ultimately awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in German and Spanish, with distinction in the spoken element of both languages, on 15th July 2004.

Teacher Training and Lingua Genesis (2004 - present)

Within 10 weeks of graduation from the University of Leicester, Dundas enrolled onto a one-year intensive teacher training course for further and adult education under the University of Huddersfield, completing seven theory assignments and a total of 120 hours of teaching to evening class and A-level students. It was during this time, in the face of unjustly high course fees for attendees, low enrolment figures and sudden drop-out rates from registers within the first month of the start date, in addition to an observance of trite and meaningless syllabus content and uninspiring teaching methods, that Dundas began to develop his language learning venture, Lingua Genesis.

Since 2004, Lingua Genesis (Lingua Genesis Ltd as of November 2008) has considered and undertaken research into alternative, non-traditional and more progressive ways of learning and teaching languages, whilst creating its own products (some of them revamps of existing marketed materials) and offering advice to members of the public about the pros and cons of a range of well-known and marketed audio-visual materials. He also offers a long-distance tuition service using Skype.

Lingua Genesis Ltd criticised the New Labour government on numerous occasions for its conflicting attitudes towards MFL in mainstream education, condemning its decision in 2005 to make the learning of a foreign language no longer compulsory in secondary education and for failing to introduce the subject obligatorily into the primary sector.

Designs for a Lingua Genesis website were begun in December 2006 and it was placed online for the first time in May 2007. Editions to the site are ongoing.

Research Convictions

Dundas's views on language learning have also found weight during his teaching commitments with other private language schools and agencies, for which he has worked since 2004. The variety of environmental learning situations in which he has taught and continues to do so in this capacity, e.g. family learning, one-to-one tuition, primary education, adult classes and business courses, etc, have provided a solid base from which he has been able to widen his research vision and constantly reflect upon psycho-sociological tendencies and micro-behaviours which infuse these situations.

Dundas has more recently become disillusioned with the introduction of parent-funded after-school clubs for children from all school years, stating from experience that they do not encourage regular attendance, interrupt the rhythm of academic progress of those who wish to learn, impede the tutor's ability to cater for age-related individual learner needs, and exploit self-employed or peripatetic teaching staff at the expense of saving on public funding. These are realistic views over which Dundas overtly states head teachers and the government are in denial and they explain his decision to temporarily withdraw from teaching in mainstream primary education in April 2008.

Continued Professional Development

Over the course of 2008, Dundas took a course into neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) with the Sheffield-born hypnotherapist, Dr Paul Peace, and has considered the effects of inductive modelling as a means of bettering individual linguistic proficiency, retention of vocabulary and raised levels of confidence in foreign languages.

One of his most significant involvements as a teacher to date has been with clients learning for business - a series of opportunities for work which had opened up means of searching for ways in which employees may quickly increase their knowledge of business language, while at the same time becoming steadily accustomed to more general everyday situations in which they are likely to make use of a foreign language.

Hyperpolyglottery

Since the spring of 2009, Dundas is a studying autodidactic hyperpolglot of a total of 12 languages: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Dutch, Greek, Portuguese, Turkish, Latin and Swedish. While he is already fluent in some of these languages, which are given in the order he first began to study them, his levels of proficiency vary, although he endeavours to spend an equal amount of time to studying each of them on a daily basis. He has also heard on numerous YouTube videos the convictions and learning tips of many other polyglots with whom he has liaised and maintains contact, among them Professor Alexander Arguelles, Moses McCormick, Richard Simcott, Steve Kaufmann, Stuart Jay Raj and Luca Lampiarello. Dundas has remarked positively on the personal motivation of the above linguists as both autodidactic learners and sharers of effective language learning instruction, describing them as true inspirations to other potential language learners around the world.

Lingua Genesis Limited (as of 2010)

The current status of Lingua Genesis is that of a limited company which is dedicated to the provision of tuition in a range of modern foreign languages and mathematics, the undertaking of translation assignments in several languages and the sale of independent language learning products or intellectual property.

Dundas is the managing director and the only shareholder within the company. As such, he is chiefly responsible for the execution of terms and conditions pertaining to the legal and financial interests of the company, which also conducts business with other associate teachers, translators and interpreters.

More information can be found on YouTube, Facebook, tutor websites, and on the company website, at www.linguagenesis.org.uk.

Other interests

Dundas describes himself as business-minded, socially outgoing, humorous, methodical, stubborn and highly competitive. Over the years, he has helped to raise money as an amateur dramatist for a number of charitable causes, such as leukaemia and cystic fibrosis, and written his own music, featuring translations into German and Spanish of hits by famous artists such as Westlife, Michael Jackson, Oasis and the Verve, none of which have been published or recorded. Among his favourite pop artists are Maná, Oasis, Frankie J, Westlife and Robbie Williams.

He is an avid fan of the Lancashire-born comic, Peter Kay, and as a keen snooker and billiards player, he is a great admirer of both Ronnie O' Sullivan and Steve Davis.

TV Game Shows

In November 2007, Dundas appeared in the 57th series of Channel 4's 'Countdown', having won one episode and becoming the first person ever in the history of the show to achieve this feat after solving two out of three conundrums in a debuting game. However, he was invited by the production team to partake in the 58th series of the show after an opponent had taken advantage of a situation in one round to change her original declaration of a non-existing word to a valid entry.

On his return to the show in the spring of 2008, he eliminated the reigning champion, solving the conundrum in one second in the first game and later defeating a further two opponents, including one from his home town of Barnsley. He was eliminated by a two-point deficit in the fourth game.

He was selected to feature on the short-list for applicants to 'Weakest Link' in 2008, but has never appeared on the programme, and in February 2009, applied for 'Golden Balls' and ITV's new quiz gameshow 'Divided'. He was not invited for interview.

Miscellaneous

Dundas is currently a fluent speaker of German, Spanish and English (mother tongue), and is able to converse in French and Italian to a high degree of proficiency. As of 2009, he is a self-taught hyperpolyglot, with Polish and Japanese being his fifth and sixth modern languages.

Using conscious techniques, Dundas is able to give the alphabet from Z to A, recite the numerical value of Pi to 100 decimal places and work out, using an algorithm, the day of the week on which any date from 1752 onwards falls.

Lingua Genesis Ltd has taught more than 250 people on a private one-to-one basis since 2004.

Its oldest student and starter learner is Norah Harrison of Dodworth, Barnsley, who began her study of Spanish with the company at the age of 83 years and 4 months, in April 2010. The second oldest learner is Myra Macpherson, who began to learn Spanish in September 2007, at the age of 80.