This is the website of the

CORNISH LANGUAGE

CLASS held online and in

Penzance, Cornwall, UK.

Made with Xara

Chun Quoit, Cornwall

The Heamoor Class

Dyskadoryon

Teachers

Roz Peskett

After spending a fair amount of her life travelling the globe, Roz came to rest in Penzance in early retirement in 2006. Roz has a Geography MA from Cambridge, a PGCE from King’s College London and, as a result of her varied contact with speakers of other languages, especially East Asian languages, a TEFL/TESL Diploma as well. Roz started her teaching career in a newly formed comprehensive school on Tyneside before working in Singapore with her husband for 20 years in a Christian training centre for Asian Graduates where English was the common language of teaching and communication. Roz started learning Cornish in 2009 in a class in Marazion. On her way to passing Grade 4 in 2014 she attended classes in Heamoor, St Ives and Camborne and was barded in 2015 in St Austell. Along with other Heamoor class members she has sung in the small choir, Keur Heb Hanow, (in Cornish only), giving especially Cornish carol concerts, taking part in the Truro Music Festival and producing two CDs. She has helped to run Cornish language activities for primary school students. Roz is also a reader for the occasional Cornish language church services across West Cornwall. Roz has been teaching at the Heamoor class for several years now as well as for classes at the annual Penn-seythen Gernewek.

Tony Phillips [Class Co-ordinator]

Tony was brought up bilingually in Montreal before returning, aged 9, to Cornwall. He was a fisherman, a mechanic and a youth and community worker before gaining qualifications in ecology and teaching, from the Universities of Plymouth and Exeter respectively, in his late twenties. He has enjoyed 30 years of Primary teaching, half as a ‘teaching Head’, in village schools across west Cornwall. He both leads and delivers Cornish language school and community activities, particularly on trails and visits to heritage sites on the Penwith coast and moors, a place where he also completes weekly butterfly transects as a UKBMS monitor. (Tony is also the Cornwall species champion for the ‘halik byghan’ or ‘small heath’ butterfly). Currently, Tony is a Cornish Language and Culture Advisor for Keskowethyans Tirwedh Pennwydh (Penwith Landscape Partnership), the Education Lead for Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek (Cornish Language Fellowship) and sits on the Signage Panel of the Akademi Kernewek (Cornish Language Academy).

Johanna Harvey

A closet linguist from childhood, I encountered Cornish after marrying a Cornishman, and started learning the language with Ray Edwards at KDL, passing the first grade exam in 1996. Slow and steady has been my route to the exams. Whilst bringing up my family, I obtained a degree in French and German with the Open University, followed by a PGCE, but decided to continue working as a Teaching Assistant. After so many years of studying alone using ‘Skeul an Yeth’, interspersed by sessions with KDL, it was a blessing to me, living in Somerset, when lessons moved online and I was able to join Steve’s class at Klass an Hay in 2020. Having finally taken my Grade 4 exams in 2022, it is time to fulfil my long term ambition to teach Cornish.

Paul Tyreman

Born and brought up in Newlyn, Paul went off to study Chemistry in 1979 and, after a short spell as a scientific civil servant, spent 26 years teaching in secondary schools in London and Cornwall. He gave that up in 2012 and, after volunteering at PK Porthcurno, the Museum of Global Communication (formerly known as the Telegraph Museum) for a few years, he drifted into part-time employment there as a Learning Facilitator, so he still gets to do the fun bits of teaching Science and Technology. He has done some volunteering at a couple of local schools that has involved teaching a bit of Cornish as well as building and racing an electric car. He plays a bouzouki in the Penzance-based Raffidy Dumitz band, which turns up at Cornish events throughout the year - usually because people ask them to. He started studying Cornish at Klass an Hay in 2018 and took three of the four Cornish Language Board exams between then and 2022 (2nd grade would have been 2020 but Covid got in the way). Oh, and he’s a 6th Dan in Ki Aikido as well, and will ramble on about any of these things for ages, if you ask about them!

Terry Moyle

With roots in St Keverne going back many centuries, Terry is proud to be a descendant of both smuggler John Carter, “King of Prussia”, and Thomas Flamank of 1497 fame and his St Keverne connection also links him with Mighal Josep an Gov. Following four years at university in London, Terry taught Geography and Sociology in secondary schools in Kent for 43 years. In more recent years and since retirement he has written nine books on various aspects of St Keverne parish resulting from his passion for both local and family history. He was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh in 2021 for service to the St Keverne community. Terry started learning Cornish in 2020 when courses went online as a result of the pandemic. He lives in Kent but spends as much time as possible in the family home in St Keverne and, when there, teaches a beginners’ class in the village pub. He is also heavily involved with the work of the St Keverne Local History Society using his research and collection of old photographs of people, places and events in the parish.

Alexandre Le Gall

Born and raised in Brittany, in the region of Kemper, Alexandre studied political science in Rennes, Salzburg and Strasbourt, before entering the French civil service in 2007. However, he had a deep interest in Breton and Celtic culture from early childhood, and began learning Breton in 2005. The language became a passion that led him to graduate in the Breton language in 2011. Having heard the Cornish language is a sister language to Breton, he decided to learn as much as he could about Kernewek and Kernow, although he has lived outside Cornwall, in France (Poitiers) and later in Spain (Santander). After a few years studying mainly Skeul an Yeth, the pandemic gave him the opportunity to learn Cornish properly, throught the medium of newly launched online classes. Alexandre felt so welcome and comfortable in the Cornish community that he kept on studying, attending classes with Klass an Hay in 2022/2023, and passing Grade 4 in the summer of 2023. Now, Alexandre is keen to give back to Cornwall as much as he can, and contribute by teaching the Cornish language.

Jane Cunio

Born in Bude, most of Jane’s life has been spent in England, and she now lives in Somerset. She has a degree in French and German, with subsidiary Spanish, and languages have always been her great love. She was lucky enough to work as a technical translator for a few years, a fantastic job, and after that spent some years in export sales, where she could use her languages. She had been trying to learn Cornish since the late 70s, when she discovered KDL. However, it was only during Covid, when classes went on line, that she finally made progress and worked her way through the exams. Now she would like to make a contribution by teaching others, particularly those not based in Cornwall.