A WREXHAM Glyndwr University lecturer is boosting his skills and connecting with his heritage by taking on a Welsh language challenge created by a reality TV winner.

Owen Dale – lecturer in Business, Marketing and Management – was selected from around 200 applicants to take on the Baker’s Half Dozen challenge, set up by Apprentice winner Alana Spencer.

The Aberystwyth-based entrepreneur, who won the BBC competition in 2016, invited six people to learn Welsh with her throughout 2020 via the Say Something in Welsh online resource.

Owen is originally from Hertfordshire, but his father hails from Llandudno.

He decided to learn Welsh after he and his partner Rachel, a doctor, moved to Llanelian near Colwyn Bay in 2017 to further their careers and start a family.

The university lecturer combines teaching duties with his role as director of marketing consultancy and training provider Marketing Made Easy

At the end of the year, the learners will all meet up to record a conversation in Welsh, after which a donation will be made to the charities of their choice. Owen is supporting Wales Air Ambulance.

“Welsh is in the family. I’ve chosen to come and work in North Wales, I’m delighted to be teaching at Glyndwr, and the challenge is raising money for a good cause - I’m really excited to be involved,” he said.

“I am a practitioner academic, so I’m able to offer students a hands-on, practical approach and so one of the motivations for learning Welsh is to better communicate with them and get involved with the business community in North Wales.”

While Owen has previously studied other languages, the Say Something in Welsh course has opened up a whole new approach.

“The Say Something in Welsh course is very different in that in the early stages, the message very much is ‘don’t worry too much about the rules and the grammar, just get comfortable speaking and learning words,” he said.

“It’s almost like learning how a child learns. Children don’t translate, they associate so it’s more about breaking it down into words and phrases and then starting to build it up.

“It’s challenging as an academic because you want to know why, and we’re deliberately told ‘don’t worry about that, that will come later’ so you kind of have to curb your natural curiosity”

The learners are sharing their progress in videos on social media throughout the challenge.

“I knew from talking to family members and friends that it’s a challenging language to learn and it’s a challenging undertaking in 12 months, so it is difficult, but I expected it to be,” he said.

“I think the Say Something in Welsh approach is a very good one – it is a case of not over-thinking it, learn like a child, build it up.”

Owen is receiving plenty of help from his colleagues Dr Ben Binsardi and Gaenor Roberts in the North Wales Business School – and is also receiving support on social media.

“As Twitter is a public forum, there are hashtags about learning the Welsh language and the amount of support that we’ve had from other Welsh learners and speakers has been absolutely brilliant,” he said.