This project is bilingual and aims to record and collect “slices of life and work” in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides (Western Isles), primarily for language learners. The website hosts pages of links to video and other materials in the Guthan nan Eilean/Island Voices Series, and carries news about the project. It is also a means of communicating ideas and suggestions from local and remote users, who may be teachers or learners of English or Gaelic.

Over 150 videos in English and Gaelic can be accessed. The documentary clips give a plain language introduction to a topic. These are complemented with more challenging authentic speech interviews with actively involved community members, which give the viewer a closer insight into the subject.

This project remains work in progress, as the homepage blog continues to record ongoing activity in the community, and adds to it. Users are invited to browse through past posts to learn about the history of the project, and see examples of more work by learners and other community members. Selections of this work are also gathered together in thematic pages with titles such as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”, or “The Great War”.

For those interested in the community and linguistic issues that surround the project, there is also a Research/Reports page, which gathers together a range of associated research projects and articles. The work is islands-based, and has included provision for training for tutors and others, with a view to encouraging further community-based recording.