PPLI Primary Guidelines

Language and Languages
in the Primary School

Some guidelines for teachers
by David Little and Déirdre Kirwan
ppli.ie
To primary school principals and teachers: These guidelines are designed to help you respond
to the challenges of the Primary Language Curriculum, include the home languages of EAL pupils
in the activities of your classrooms, and develop your pupils' intercultural learning. They are
produced under Languages Connect: Ireland's Foreign Languages in Education Strategy. It is our
hope that you will find these guidelines useful in the context of positive attitudes and
appreciation of cultural diversity in the classroom and beyond, as well as fostering an interest
and curiosity in learning further languages and intercultural communication. The first part of
the guidelines provides a rationale for doing this, and in the second part you will find practical
suggestions for including Irish and home languages in everyday classroom communication.
We are grateful to Professor David Little, and Dr Déirdre Kirwan for writing the guidelines.
Professor Little was formerly Director of the Centre for Language and Communication Studies
and Head of the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences at Trinity College
Dublin, Ireland. For the past fifteen years, he has played a leading role in the Council of Europe's
work on the language education of migrants. Dr Kirwan is best known for the approach to
linguistic diversity and language education that she and her colleagues developed at Scoil Bhríde
(Cailíní), Blanchardstown, converting extreme linguistic diversity – more than 50 home languages
in a school of 320 pupils – into educational capital.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to the staff, pupils and parents of Scoil
Bhríde (Cailíní), Blanchardstown, for their contribution to the
development of the plurilingual approach to primary education
described and illustrated in these guidelines.
The authors are also grateful to the Professional Development

Service for Teachers, the TEAL Project (Mary Immaculate
College), Dr Bronagh Ćatibušić, and two serving primary
principals for providing detailed feedback on the first draft of
the guidelines.
Language and Languages in the Primary School Some guidelines for teachers by David Little and Déirdre Kirwan ppli.ie
Executive summary
This document is a response to action 2.E.6 of the Languages Connect implementation plan: “Guidelines will be
developed and made available for principals and teachers on their role in supporting an intercultural dimension and
promoting the home language, where the home language is neither Irish nor English’’ The document also addresses
the integrated approach to the teaching of Irish and English recommended in the new Primary Language Curriculum
and the intercultural dimension of language education at primary level (action 2.E.3).
Part I is concerned with issues of general principle:
• The “plurilingual approach” to language education and its pedagogical implications
• Language development in the pre-school years
• The linguistic demands made by primary schooling
• An integrated approach to teaching Irish and English that includes immigrant languages in classroom
communication
• The intercultural dimension of primary education
Part II illustrates some of the features of a fully integrated approach to language education inspired by Part I:
• The general pedagogical approach
• The supports that the school should provide: a language policy; a well-stocked library; affirmation
of pupils’ efforts; documentation of language learning and use; language support classes
• Some activities that work

› Using familiar routines and themes to support language learning in junior classes: greetings;
counting and addition; colours; days of the week; food; music; events in the environment; games;
telling the time
› Including Irish and home languages in the delivery of curriculum content: Irish; home languages;
a plurilingual approach to classroom discussion; language awareness
› Producing parallel texts in two or more languages: first steps; producing longer texts; using poetry to
support plurilingual literacy; a class diary; texts in three languages; preparing to write in two or three
languages; functional writing; creative writing; identity texts; mixing languages in one text
› Consolidating plurilingual learning: inter-class interaction; senior pupils read stories to juniors;
autonomous language learning; encouraging pupils to improve their home language proficiency
PPLI delivering Supported by
3
Poem for competition organised by MotherTongues: Languages and Identity
Introduction
The vision of Languages Connect is that “Ireland’s education system will
promote a society where the ability to learn and use at least one foreign
“ Ireland’s education
system will promote a society where
the ability to learn and use at least one
language is taken for granted, because of its inherent value for
foreign language is taken for granted,
individuals, society and the economy”. 1 The Language Education Policy
because of its inherent value for
Profile developed collaboratively by the Department of Education and “
individuals, society and
Skills and the Council of Europe and published in 2008 offered a similar
the economy
vision: that Ireland should “move away from ‘an official but lame bilingualism’
to become a truly multilingual society, where the ability to learn and use two
and more languages is taken for granted and fostered at every stage of the
education system and through lifelong education”. 2 Immigrant communities “are providing Ireland with a rich and
diverse source of new languages”, 3 in society at large but also in our schools, and the success of the Languages
Connect strategy depends in part on ensuring that immigrant languages flourish, to the benefit of those who speak
them and to the enrichment of our society and culture.
The principal focus of Languages Connect is foreign language learning and foreign languages will be included in the
primary curriculum from 2024. These guidelines contain arguments and practical suggestions that are highly relevant
to foreign language teaching. They were written, however, to address two other reasons why the primary sector has
an essential role to play in the national strategy. First, the successful learning of Irish at primary school provides fertile
ground for the learning of foreign languages at primary level and beyond; and second, Languages Connect is
committed to the development of immigrant languages as a national resource, and this is a process that should begin
in primary school:
The Primary Language Curriculum recognizes that ‘most schools and classrooms include children whose home
language is a language other than English or Irish’. Proficiency in their home language contributes to these children’s
development of proficiency in the language of instruction. 4
It is important to add that respect for and affirmation of home languages is a

Success of the precondition for social cohesion. If home languages are disrespected or denied,
Languages Connect strategy the identity of the individual is also disrespected or denied. This is likely to give
depends in part on ensuring that rise to resentment that in future years will come back to haunt Irish society.
immigrant languages flourish, to the In their practical dimension these guidelines draw on classroom practice
benefit of those who speak them developed by Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní), Blanchardstown. The school received its
and to the enrichment of our first immigrant pupil in 1993, after which the diversity of its pupil cohort
society and culture. increased steadily. By 2015, 80 per cent of the school’s 320 pupils spoke a
language other than English or Irish at home, and most of them had little or no
English when they started school in Junior Infants.
1
Languages Connect. Ireland’s Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education, 2017–2026, Dublin: Department of Education and Skills, 2017, p. 7.
2
Language Education Policy Profile: Ireland, p. 51.
Available at https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Education-Reports/Council-of-Europe-Language-Education-Policy-Profile.pdf
3
Languages Connect, p. 14.
4
Languages Connect, p. 30. The Primary Language Curriculum, Dublin: Department of Education and Skills, 2019, is available at
https://curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/2a6e5f79-6f29-4d68-b850-379510805656/PLC-Document_English.pdf
5
Language and Languages in the Primary School Some guidelines for teachers by David Little and Déirdre Kirwan
According to the consultation that informed Languages Connect, “It is difficult for students from
immigrant communities to maintain their languages without additional supports including
qualified teachers [of immigrant languages] who are registered with the Teaching
It is important to
Council”. 5 The experience that informs these guidelines shows, however, that it is
add that respect for and
possible for pupils from immigrant families to transfer the literacy skills they develop
affirmation of home languages
in English and Irish to their home languages with support but without the benefit
is a precondition for
of explicit instruction. 6
social cohesion
The guidelines are divided into two parts. Part I deals with issues of general principle,
while Part II outlines an approach to language education in primary schools that is
informed by those issues.
Pupils' reflections on the many benefits of including home languages in their education
Victoria told me that in her former school you were When I use my home language in class, I have a smile
not allowed to speak your own language. on my face, I feel excited, I feel like I really want to do it
I found that very shocking
Sometimes when we learn a language it’s easier to

Don’t hide away from your own language because it’s learn other ones; sometimes it’s not really about which
what makes you you, and it’s special and it’s, … it’s like language you’re learning, it’s how to learn a language
having an arm or a leg, you can’t take it away from you
It’s great because at a very young age you can … learn

A child without a language is a child without a soul from each other … and just to be able to say that I
went to a school that supports all different languages
and cultures is a great thing to have.
Using our home languages helps us to get personal
into each other’s cultures and languages; it’s very
useful for friendship, for knowledge, so in many ways When two people speak the same language
we’re all expanding… it makes you feel closer because there’s a kind of bond between
you have a perspective on that person’s point of view both of them
5
6
Scoil Bhríde’s version of plurilingual education is fully documented in Engaging with Linguistic Diversity: A Study of Educational Inclusion in an Irish
Primary School, by David Little and Déirdre Kirwan, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019; paperback edition, 2021
6
Part One
Language, identity, learning and
culture in the primary school
1.1 The plurilingual approach to language education and the Primary Language Curriculum
The Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) 7 advocates a “plurilingual
approach” to language education. The CEFR distinguishes between plurilingual individuals, who are able to
communicate in two or more languages, and multilingual societies, in which two or more languages are present. This
distinction accommodates two facts: plurilingual individuals do not necessarily live in multilingual communities, and
multilingual communities are not necessarily made up of plurilingual individuals. The CEFR also distinguishes between
multilingual and plurilingual approaches to language education.
A multilingual approach provides for the teaching of second and foreign languages in isolation from one another,
“with the ‘ideal native speaker’ as the ultimate model”, 8 whereas a plurilingual approach seeks to develop “a
communicative competence to which all knowledge and experience of language contributes and in which languages
interrelate and interact”. 9
If this latter approach is to become a reality, each language taught at school must be a fully integrated part of each
pupil’s communicative experience from the very beginning.
As the CEFR acknowledges, the adoption of a plurilingual approach entails a significant modification of the aim of
language education, which is now “to develop a linguistic repertory in which all linguistic abilities have a place”. 10
This is the goal of the new Primary Language Curriculum, which provides for an integrated approach to the teaching
of English and Irish while taking account of immigrant pupils’ home languages. 11
An integrated approach to language education is recommended by the research report that Pádraig Ó Duibhir and
Jim Cummins wrote for the NCCA in 2012. 12
The pedagogical implications of the plurilingual approach can be summarized in four principles, to which we shall
return from time to time in the following sections:
1. Teaching and learning should be grounded in language use that is spontaneous and authentic: spontaneous in
the sense that it arises naturally from the minute-to-minute activities of the classroom; authentic in the sense that
it reflects the concerns of the learners both in the immediate context of learning and in their lives more generally.
An integrated plurilingual repertoire helps to shape and define the individual’s identity, so teaching and learning
should also be organized in ways that engage learners’ existing identities in the fullest possible way.
7
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Available at https://rm.coe.int/1680459f97
8
CEFR, p. 5.
9
CEFR, p. 4.
10
CEFR, p. 5.
11
Primary Language Curriculum, Dublin: Department of Education and Skills, 2019, p. 23.
12
P. Ó Duibhir & J. Cummins, Towards an Integrated Language Curriculum in Early Childhood and Primary Education, Dublin: National Council for
Curriculum and Assessment, 2012. p.45.
8
2. Teaching and learning should draw on all the linguistic resources available to learners: their proficiency in other
languages and their explicit and intuitive knowledge of linguistic structures and the pragmatic and sociolinguistic
conventions of language use.
3. Teaching and learning should acknowledge that languages are discrete. Although a plurilingual repertoire makes
it possible to switch between languages in order to facilitate communication, the CEFR describes proficiency in
relation to particular languages. In other words, it respects the fact – confirmed by a large body of psycholinguistic
research 13 – that languages are separable in the mind and separate from one another in most contexts of use. The
goal of a plurilingual approach to language education should be to enable learners to achieve the highest possible
level of literate proficiency in each of the languages they are learning.
4. Plurilingual repertoires are necessarily provisional: at any time in life, a change in our circumstances may require us
to learn a new language; it may also mean that we have less reason to use one or more of the languages in our
repertoire. With this possibility in mind, teaching should help learners to develop language learning skills that they
can deploy in later life. These include skills of self-management and the ability to reflect on the process of language
learning and evaluate its outcomes. We return to the issue of self-management on p. 23 below.
1.2 Language development in the pre-school years

Children’s acquisition of the language of the home in early childhood is closely bound
“ Children from
immigrant families who
speak a language other than
up with their cognitive development, primary socialization and enculturation. As they
English or Irish at home bring
learn to speak, they learn to think; by speaking they also assert membership of the
additional diversity that extends
family into which they have been born; and family membership introduces them to
the routines, attitudes and beliefs that define family culture. From birth, typically
“
far beyond differences between
languages.
developing children are proactive in developing relationships and engaging with their
immediate environment; by nature, they are autonomous agents, eager to take initiatives
both in conversation and in their exploration of the physical world. At the same time, of
course, they depend on parents, siblings and other caregivers to engage with them in the dialogue that gradually
provides them with knowledge and the language with which to talk about it.
When children from English-speaking families start school at

the age of four and a half, they have passed through closely
similar processes of linguistic, cognitive and social
development. But those processes have been fed by a
potentially infinite diversity of experience as a result of
differences in domestic routine, family structure and dynamic,
the stories they are familiar with, the television programmes
they watch, the apps they play with on their parents’ phones,
the toys they have acquired, the wider family and social
networks their parents have introduced them to, the places
13
See, for example, D. Singleton, “A critical reaction from second language research”, in V. Cook & Li Wei (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic
Multi-competence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 502–520.
9
they have been to on holiday … the list is endless. This diversity of experience is reflected in the diversity of their
interests, which in turn is reflected in the diversity of the words they know. Pre-school children also differ in their
communication skills, depending on the frequency and style of conversation they have experienced inside and outside
the home. As any Junior Infants teacher knows only too well, this means that when they start school pupils are
dizzyingly diverse linguistically, socially and culturally, even if they all speak what counts as the same language at home.
Children from immigrant families who speak a language other than English or Irish at home bring additional diversity
that extends far beyond differences between languages. Some immigrant parents come from communities in Africa
and India where multilingualism is widespread and fluid; others come from countries that identify the nation state
with a national language. Some are in close contact with their country of origin and may return there regularly, while
others have lost contact, whether from choice or necessity. Some are members of immigrant communities that have
well-established networks of social support, while others have little or no contact with other speakers of their language.
And as with their Irish counterparts, the socio-economic diversity of immigrant families reflects great diversity of
educational background, experience and achievement.
1.3 The linguistic demands of primary schooling

The 1999 Primary School Curriculum assumes that new knowledge is successfully acquired only on the basis of what
14
the learner already knows: “the child’s existing knowledge and experience form the base for learning”. The knowledge
that pupils bring with them to primary school has been called their “action knowledge” because it is the “inner map of
reality” on which their actions are based. 15 The pedagogical challenge is to present and process “school knowledge”
(curriculum content) in ways that are accessible to pupils from the perspective of their action knowledge; and the
pedagogical goal is to help them to absorb school knowledge into an ever-expanding and increasingly sophisticated
store of action knowledge. It is generally agreed that the most reliable means of achieving this goal is classroom
communication that allows pupils to take initiatives and encourages them to think aloud – communication, in other
words, that is dialogic and exploratory. This coincides with the first of the pedagogical principles that underpin the
plurilingual approach (section 1.1 above). As the Primary School Curriculum further notes, “language is central to the
learning process” and “the child is an active agent in his or her learning”. 16 One of the curriculum’s general aims is “to enable
children to learn how to learn”, 17 and this is achieved by engaging them in problem-solving that requires them to “observe,
collate and evaluate evidence, to ask relevant questions, to identify essential information, to recognize the essence of a
problem, to suggest solutions, and to make informed judgements” (cf. the fourth of the pedagogical principles summarized
in section 1.1). 18
The process of teaching and learning at primary school is many times more complex than a brief summary can easily
convey, and it is made more complex still by the need to develop pupils’ literacy skills. To begin with, this is a matter of
teaching them how to represent the spoken word in writing, but from a relatively early stage learning to read and write
also means learning to communicate in ways that differ significantly from the oral communication that has shaped
14
Primary School Curriculum, Introduction, Dublin: The Stationery Office, 1999, p. 8.
15
D. Barnes, From Communication to Curriculum, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976, p. 80.
16
Primary School Curriculum, Introduction, p. 8.
17
Ibid., p. 7.
18
Ibid., p. 16.
10
pupils’ lives so far. Oral communication is context-dependent: the comprehension and production of meaning are
supported by paralinguistic cues (intonation, gesture, eye contact, feedback, etc.) and by features of the physical situation
(persons and objects in focus, the sunshine that is pleasantly warm or uncomfortably hot, the rain that is making you
wet, etc.).
Communication of this kind is a precondition for child language acquisition and the so-called naturalistic acquisition of
second and foreign languages; children develop conversational language as they acquire their action knowledge.
Academic language, on the other hand, tends to be context-reduced: cues to meaning are provided entirely by the
spoken or written text we are seeking to understand or produce. No child has academic language as his or her home
language; it develops with the acquisition of school knowledge.
It is important to make four things clear regarding the distinction between conversational and academic language.
1 From a cognitive point of view the distinction is not absolute and boundaries are often blurred. For example, chat
among friends is cognitively undemanding, but if in the course of such chat you try to persuade others of your point
of view, the task may quickly become cognitively challenging. Conversely, classroom talk routinely includes passages
of conversational as well as academic language; only thus, after all, is it possible to bring pupils’ action knowledge
into fruitful engagement with school knowledge.
2 Although academic language develops with the acquisition of literacy, some writing tasks use conversational
language (e.g., e-mail, text-messaging), while academic language includes much of the spoken communication that
occurs in classrooms and other academic contexts.
3 Academic language occurs in all contexts of formal learning: children in kindergarten encounter it in a primitive
form as soon as the focus shifts from “here and now” to “there and then”.
4 Academic language is by no means confined to formal educational environments; it also has value and validity in a
multitude of contexts outside the classroom or lecture hall. In other words, mastery of academic language is an
overarching educational goal.
11
When children from English-speaking homes attend an English-medium primary school in Ireland, the conversion of
school knowledge into action knowledge requires them gradually to extend their linguistic repertoire in their first
language, adding literacy skills, acquiring the words and phrases that embody key curriculum concepts, and in due
course mastering the registers and genres characteristic of the different curriculum subjects. The task facing children
from families who do not speak English at home is altogether more challenging because they have not acquired their
action knowledge in a version of the language of schooling. There is thus no easy way of promoting a fruitful interaction
between school knowledge and their action knowledge.
It is often assumed, in Ireland as in other countries, that children from immigrant families will progress most rapidly if
they try to forget their home language and concentrate all their energies on mastering the language of schooling. This
leads some schools to forbid the use of home languages anywhere on their premises. Such a policy is cruel because, as
was pointed out in section 1.2, the language first acquired in early childhood is central to the pupil’s identity and it is
the medium in which his or her action knowledge has been acquired. To require pupils to shed their identity and action
knowledge as they come through the school gate is hardly to provide them with the secure and nurturing environment
that the Primary School Curriculum argues is necessary for effective learning. To forbid the use of home languages is
also foolish. The language that has shaped pupils’ identity and action knowledge is necessarily the default medium of
their discursive thinking and is thus their primary cognitive tool; instead of blocking it, we must find ways of helping
them to use it. Finally, the policy of forbidding the use of home languages in school is doomed to failure, because it is
impossible to suppress them in the never-ending but unspoken stream of pupils’ consciousness.
So, what is to be done? Recognizing that a truly inclusive school must find ways of exploiting all pupils’ action knowledge,
Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní) adopted the policy of encouraging pupils from immigrant families to use their home language for
whatever purposes seem to them appropriate, inside as well as outside the classroom. This prepares the way for
implementing the second of the pedagogical principles that underpin the plurilingual approach: Teaching and learning
should draw on all the linguistic resources available to learners (section 1.1 above). Junior Infants quickly discover which
of their peers speak their own or a closely related language, which helps them when working in pairs or small groups.
Learning to count and matching colours and shapes are treated as multilingual activities – they are carried out in English,
Irish and home languages.
In this way, pupils’ home language proficiency contributes to their learning both of curriculum content and of English
as the principal language of instruction. This is what Languages Connect is getting at when it argues that immigrant
pupils’ proficiency in their home language contributes to the development of their proficiency in English.19
Teachers in Scoil Bhríde routinely ask pupils from immigrant families to tell the rest of the class how they express key
words and concepts in their home language, and from an early age they encourage pupils to make comparisons between
the various languages present in the class, including English and Irish. This helps all pupils to develop an unusually high
level of language awareness; it also encourages discussion of the why and how of language learning, in accordance with
the fourth of the principles that underpin the plurilingual approach (section 1.1 above).
But perhaps most important, pupils from immigrant families become literate in their home language by transferring
the skills they are developing in English and Irish. In this they receive help from their parents, older siblings and other
family members, and in some cases from weekend classes organized by their community.
19
12
But there is ample evidence to suggest that the high levels of motivation generated by the school’s language policy
enable pupils to make a great deal of progress under their own steam.
By doing so, they confirm Cummins’s Interdependence Hypothesis, according to which skills developed in one language
can be transferred to another language provided there is adequate exposure to that language and sufficient motivation.20
The key procedure adopted by Scoil Bhríde is the production of parallel texts – that is, texts with the same structure and
thematic content – in English, Irish and home languages. To begin with, in Senior Infants, the texts are very simple: “My
name is …, my teacher is …”. But as pupils gradually learn to write longer and more complex texts in English and Irish, so
the texts they produce in their home language become correspondingly longer and more complex.21 Transfer of skills
between languages is fundamental to the Primary Language Curriculum, to which we now turn.
Cummins's Interdependence
Cummins’s Iceberg Model of
Hypothesis claims that
Language Interdependence
when children learn to read
and write in one language
they develop generic skills that
they can transfer to
other languages
Surface Features Surface Features

of L1 of L2
Common Underlying
Proﬁciency
20
P. Ó Duibhir & J. Cummins, Towards an Integrated Language Curriculum in Early Childhood and Primary Education, Dublin:
National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, 2012, pp. 31–36.
21
For examples from all classes, see Chapter 4 of D. Little & D. Kirwan, Engaging with Linguistic Diversity.
13
1.4 An integrated approach to the teaching and learning of Irish and English
As we pointed out in section 1.1, the Primary Language Curriculum embodies a version of the plurilingual approach
because it aims to provide pupils with a learning experience in which English and Irish support one another. It also
acknowledges in its core curriculum document and its support materials the role of EAL pupils’ home languages and
includes the use of “other languages” in its learning outcomes (see section 1.1).
The rationale for the curriculum recognizes that language is “central to how and what we learn” and “our chief means
of intrapersonal and interpersonal communication”, noting that language “develops through communicating – by
giving, receiving and making sense of information”. 22 The rationale defines language learning as an “integrated process”
that is the product of “meaningful interactions and conversations” and entails the transfer of skills betwee
23
languages. To adapt a key formulation from the CEFR, the Primary Language Curriculum aims to help pupils to
develop a communicative competence to which all knowledge and experience of English, Irish and other languages
contributes and in which English, Irish and other languages interrelate and interact.
The pedagogical principles implied by the CEFR’s plurilingual approach (see section 1.1) are thus directly relevant to
the Primary Language Curriculum:
• The teaching and learning of Irish and English should be grounded in language use that is spontaneous and
authentic; this ensures that both languages are an integral part of pupils’ daily communicative experience.
• Teaching and learning should draw on all the linguistic resources available to learners, whether or not the class
includes pupils with a home language other than English or Irish.
• Teaching and learning should acknowledge that English and Irish are discrete entities that differ greatly as regards
vocabulary, morphology, syntax and phonology.
• By encouraging reflection on the similarities and differences between the two languages, teaching should help
pupils to develop language awareness and understand what it means to learn how to learn a language.
22
Primary Language Curriculum, p. 7.
23
Primary Language Curriculum, p. 8.
14
The classroom activities presented in Part II of these guidelines embody three general principles:
1. When English is the language of instruction and Irish the second language of the curriculum, teachers should use
Irish for interactive routines with which pupils are already familiar in English, especially in the early stages. Obvious
examples in Junior Infants are learning to count and learning to match shapes and colours (already referred to in
section 1.3). Action games can also be played bilingually, and stories with which pupils are already familiar in English
can be read to them in Irish. In this way, pupils’ proficiency in English scaffolds the development of their proficiency
in Irish.
2. In the presentation of curriculum content, teachers should as a matter of course give pupils the Irish equivalent for
key words and concepts. As pupils’ proficiency grows, it should be possible for Irish to replace English for parts of
each lesson in a version of CLIL (content and language integrated learning).
3. The production of parallel texts of the kind described in section 1.3 should play a central role in the development
of pupils’ writing skills. It is not necessary for texts always to be produced first in English. If the teacher and pupils
collaborate in writing a story in Irish during class, pupils should find it easy enough to rewrite the story in English
for homework; rewriting a comparable English text in Irish, on the other hand, might well be beyond them. It goes
without saying that teachers should sometimes use Irish informally when communicating with pupils outside the
classroom.
Whether they come from Irish or immigrant families, pupils at

Scoil Bhríde encounter Irish for the first time when they start
school. Junior Infants teachers have reported that home
languages tend to be used when the focus switches from
English to Irish: the second language of the curriculum
evidently licenses multilingual communication. This has two
important consequences. Irish pupils are strongly motivated
to learn Irish because they too want a “home language”; and
pupils from immigrant families are no less keen on learning
Irish than their native-born peers, which in turn motivates
some Irish pupils to learn another language with help from a
family member or on their own.
Whether English and Irish are the only two languages in play
or they are supplemented by a variety of home languages, the
plurilingual approach lends itself to intercultural education;
indeed, the Council of Europe binds plurilingualism and
interculturality together in a single concept: plurilingual and
intercultural education. This prompts the question: how exactly
does the development of plurilingual repertoires lead to
intercultural learning?
15
1.5 Converting linguistic and cultural diversity into educational capital

The Council of Europe uses “pluricultural” to refer to individuals who belong to two or more cultural groups and
“intercultural” to denote a complex of cognitive, affective and behavioural competences that include:
• knowledge about other cultural groups, their products and practices, and the ways in which people of
different cultures interact;
• attitudes such as curiosity, openness, respect for otherness, and empathy;
• skills of interpreting and relating, for example, interpreting a practice from another culture, and relating it
to practices within one’s own culture;
• skills of discovery such as the ability to search out and acquire new knowledge about a culture and its
practices and products;
• critical cultural awareness, that is, the ability to evaluate critically the practices and products of one’s own
and other cultures. 24
In considering how we can bring interculturality into the primary classroom, it is important to avoid the cultural
essentialism that characterizes much popular discourse. Cultural essentialism associates the nation state with a national
language and national culture that are assumed to be shared by all citizens. Trivially, it produces cultural stereotypes
– every French family has croissants and café au lait for breakfast; every Swiss house contains a cuckoo clock. Non-
trivially, it can be deployed as a powerful tool of social exclusion – those who do not share the language, beliefs and
practices of the nation have no place in its territory.
People who live together develop common attitudes, beliefs and patterns of behaviour; over time they come to share
a common history; and their common history produces cultural artefacts of many different kinds – works of art in
various media, but also institutions and systems of administration, government and law. At the same time, however,
each of us belongs to multiple sub-cultures, some of them overlapping and others distinct. In section 1.2 we saw how
pre-school children’s action knowledge is shaped by the culture of the home; when they start school, they are exposed
to the cultural practices that shape primary education in Ireland, which may be similar to or different from what they
have already experienced; and in due course they will become members of other cultures – societies, sports clubs,
professions and so on. There is nothing new about cultural diversity, even within apparently homogeneous societies;
what is new is our recognition that education should equip children, adolescents and young adults to recognize,
understand and respect diversity and difference.
This is the message of Intercultural Education in the Primary School, published by the NCCA in 2005:
Intercultural education “respects, celebrates and recognizes the normality of diversity in all areas of human life” and
“promotes equality and human rights, challenges unfair discrimination, and promotes the values upon which equality is
built”.
24
Adapted from M. Byram, Multicultural societies, pluricultural people and the project of intercultural education, Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2009,
pp. 6–7. Available at https://rm.coe.int/multicultural-societies-pluricultural-people-and-the-project-of-interc/16805a223c
16
The same document points out that the term “interculturalism” implies that different cultural groups live together in
harmony, whereas “multiculturalism” has been used to refer to multiple cultural groups sharing the same space without
having much contact with one another, especially if they speak different languages.25
In practical terms, intercultural education is a matter of learning to recognize, interpret and tolerate diversity and
difference in all their forms. An integrated approach to the teaching and learning of English and Irish provides a
powerful stimulus for this kind of educational practice, and it is made more powerful still by including in the daily life
of the classroom immigrant languages and the action knowledge they embody. Again, however, it is important not to
fall into the trap of cultural essentialism. Some 200 languages are spoken in Ireland today, and the adult speakers of
those languages have brought with them great diversity of cultural experience, practice, attitudes and beliefs. But the
extent to which the children of immigrants share in their parents’ cultural heritage varies greatly. Some children
regularly visit their parents’ country of origin, perhaps spending their summer holidays with grandparents and
participating in the life of the extended family and local community; they become pluricultural in the Council of
Europe’s sense. Other children have no more contact with their parents’ culture of origin than the parents themselves
can provide by teaching them traditional songs and stories and sharing reminiscences.
Teachers’ insights into the benefits of including home languages in curriculum delivery
I think that awareness of Irish as a language of Children are responding very positively to the open
communication is much more heightened in the Irish language policy – even their body language and
children because of the children who’ve come from demeanour within class; the speed and accuracy with
other countries and who quite openly speak about which they answer questions when their own
their language and in their language language is involved. Regardless of subject, their
interest increases if it is something to do with home or
their own language or their own experience; therefore
Irish lessons are a good way to include pupils’ home
when they respond it is with much more developed
languages, and it has a knock-on effect on the Irish
thought … equally in writing.
children. They begin to see Irish as their second
language
The work that the children have produced gives
evidence of how successful it has been. The open
When you bring in the home languages
language policy has permeated through
the lights come on!
the whole school.
While a number of years ago … I would have said ‘Oh

In any class the children are open to learning all
written work, no. The oral is the most important’ I think
languages and greet you in several different
that if they form their thoughts with pen and paper
languages and it has almost become a matter of fact
first, it gives them the confidence then to go and speak.
it’s just integrated into daily school life
25
Intercultural Education in the Primary School, Dublin: National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, 2005, p. 3.
17
The dialogic and exploratory talk that mediates between school knowledge and pupils’ action knowledge allows pupils
to contribute fragments of their home cultures to the ever-expanding knowledge of the class. Some of those fragments
will be broadly familiar to many pupils, while others are startlingly different; in many cases difference will be linguistic
as well as cultural. But the adoption of the plurilingual approach advocated by the Primary Language Curriculum and
explained in these guidelines should help pupils to accept novelty and difference with interest and respect, welcoming
all forms of diversity for the enrichment they bring.
Parents’ appreciation of the benefits of a plurilingual approach
Our children see these other girls and boys in their class speaking this other language with
fluency and with confidence and I think they say, ‘Why can’t I do that with my Irish?’ It
makes them want to speak the Irish more at home. I think it spurs them on
We like the school’s interest in our language. Before, my daughter was ashamed to hear us
speaking it. Now she wants to read and write in it
I really think because it is so much encouraged in this school, how to speak and to find the
similarities between your own home native language and English, Irish and French, it
definitely speeds up the learning of English
When my child came home and told me that the teacher asked her to say something in
[our home language] I sat down and cried because I thought, ‘Someone wants to know
about our language.
A weight was lifted off my shoulders when I heard that it was alright to speak
my language at home.
18
Part Two
Implementing a plurilingual
approach to language education
in the primary school
2.1 Some pedagogical preliminaries

These guidelines address two educational challenges, to make Irish part of each pupil’s “everyday lived language” (the
Primary Language Curriculum) and to support the languages of the new Irish to the benefit of themselves and Irish
society (Languages Connect). As we explained in Part I, taken together these two challenges imply the adoption of a
“plurilingual” approach to language education, which is shaped by four pedagogical principles:
1. The teaching and learning of languages should be grounded in spontaneous and authentic language
use: languages are “lived” only when they are used for communicative and reflective purposes.
2. Teaching and learning should draw on all the linguistic resources available to learners.
3. Teaching and learning should acknowledge that languages are discrete entities.
4. Teaching should help pupils to develop awareness of language and of what language learning entails,
e.g. by drawing on their plurilingual repertoires to make connections between different languages.
The first of these four principles requires that Irish as well as English should be fully integrated in everyday classroom
communication; the second acknowledges that the home language of each pupil is his or her primary cognitive tool
and a valuable resource for the class as a whole; the third principle reminds us that the goal of all language education
should be to develop the highest possible level of age-appropriate literate proficiency in the languages in each pupil’s
repertoire; and the fourth reminds us of the importance of developing pupils’ reflective and metacognitive skills.
Current theories of second language acquisition differ in their understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that
produce proficiency, but they agree that those mechanisms are driven by spontaneous and authentic language use. 26
They agree, in other words, that it is impossible to teach languages in the traditional sense; the best we can do is create
the conditions that enable pupils to learn their target language by attempting to use it.
Our first priority must always be to involve pupils in genuine communication. This means providing them with the
words and phrases that enable them to participate, supporting their efforts to speak (and in due course write), and
ensuring that classroom talk is dialogic and exploratory (cf. section 1.3), so that it encourages them to take initiatives.
The more initiatives pupils take, the more likely it is that teachers will be diverted from their lesson plans. This is not
something to worry about, however: if language proficiency arises from language use, all pupil-initiated discourse will
lead to learning. Its effect may not be immediately apparent, but it will inevitably play its part in the hidden processes
of language growth.
In order to meet the challenges of the Primary Language Curriculum and Languages Connect, we need to find ways
of scaffolding pupils’ attempts to use Irish (and English in the case of EAL pupils). 27
26
See, for example, two chapters in J. W. Schwieter and A. Benati (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Language Learning, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2019: N. C. Ellis and S. Wulff, “Cognitive approaches to second language acquisition” (pp. 41–61) and J. Truscott and M. Sharwood
Smith, “Theoretical frameworks in L2 acquisition” (pp. 84–107).
27
The term “EAL (English as an Additional Language) pupil” is used to refer to all pupils whose home language is neither English nor Irish and who are
thus entitled to receive English Language Support.
20
We also need to include home languages in classroom communication and in due course support pupils’ literacy
development in those languages. Teachers who are new to this approach may worry that because they do not know
EAL pupils’ home languages, they cannot understand when they speak and write them and thus cannot provide
correction. This fear is, however, misplaced. When, with help from their parents and other family members, EAL pupils
transfer their emerging literacy skills from English and Irish to their home language, they produce texts which native
speakers of the languages in question judged to be no less correct than texts written by their peers in the country
they or their parents came from.
2.2 What supports should the school provide?

A school language policy
The Primary Language Curriculum is a matter not just for the
individual teacher but for the school as a whole. It is thus important
to develop a school language policy that is endorsed by the Board
of Management, shared with parents, and regularly reviewed and
updated. We recommend that a language policy document should
include:
• a mission statement that acknowledges the central role played

by language in education, accords equal status to all languages
present in the school, and emphasizes the importance of helping
pupils to develop integrated plurilingual repertoires;
• a statement of guiding pedagogical principles similar to those at

the beginning of section 2.1 and a summary of their practical
implications;
• a commitment to regular review and (if necessary) revision in

the light of experience and to accommodate changes in the
linguistic and cultural profile of the pupil cohort.
In this way, the language policy document provides an important

reference point as a statement of the school’s interpretation of the
Primary Language Curriculum.
A well-stocked library
Reading plays a central role in children’s language development, so
schools should provide them with a rich array of age-appropriate
books (fiction and non-fiction) in English but also in Irish and EAL
pupils’ home languages. 28 From an early stage in their literacy
development, pupils should have access to age-appropriate
bilingual dictionaries in English and Irish/home languages.
28
Grants are available from Post-Primary Languages Ireland to buy books in home
languages.
21
Affirmation
It is important that the principal and all staff members (including non-teaching staff ) show an interest in pupils’
linguistic efforts and achievements: regular affirmation is empowering and motivating.
Initiatives that involve the whole school community are likely to have a greater impact than those undertaken by
individual teachers without support.
Documentation of language learning and use

All languages present in the school should be seen on the walls of classrooms and corridors and heard in readings,
recitations and performances of various kinds. We recommend that teachers maintain an archive of particularly
interesting pupil work – stories and poems, projects of all kinds, portfolios, vocabulary notebooks, personal dictionaries.
These can be drawn on for displays and exhibitions and used at staff meetings to inform discussion of school language
policy and its implementation. A well-maintained archive can also provide research data for teachers who undertake
postgraduate study. There are various ways of organizing a class archive – teachers will have their own preferences –
but it is motivating for pupils to be involved in the construction and maintenance of the archive, especially in senior
classes. Individual learning also benefits from documentation: there is a sense in which what pupils write in their
copybooks is their learning. Teachers may find that documentation of learning is easier to manage if pupils use different
copybooks for different aspects of their language work, e.g. homework and classwork in one copy, insights into
similarities and differences between languages in another, a personal multilingual dictionary in a third. Teachers have
also found it useful to keep their own log, recording classroom exchanges and pupil contributions of special interest
as well as words and phrases that they learn in EAL pupils’ home languages.
Language support classes

It is in keeping with the approach recommended in these guidelines to include all pupils in language support classes:
native speakers of English benefit from an intensive focus on language, and they can help to scaffold EAL pupils’
communication. Mixed ability groups benefit all learners: pupils with well-developed skills provide a model for those
Using templates of flower petals to create a welcoming recognition of all languages in the school. The empty petals are waiting for new languages.
22
whose proficiency is less well-developed, and the help they give enhances their own understanding of language. It
should go without saying that effective language support classes require close cooperation between language support
and class teachers. Especially in the early stages, classes should begin with an undemanding focus on the learners as
individuals. If someone has a new coat or shoes or a new soft toy, that may provide a useful starting point for engaging
everyone. EAL pupils can be asked the word for coat and shoes in their home language – the teacher should repeat
the words and ask whether she has pronounced them correctly. When EAL pupils have begun to read and write, it is a
good idea to write down what they say in English and Irish so that their learning is focused on their own attempts to
communicate. In due course classes can deal with whatever topics are current in the pupils’ mainstream class.
The importance of involving parents

Parents of EAL pupils play an essential role in maintaining and developing their children’s proficiency in the language
of the home, especially when it comes to reading and writing. They should be encouraged to engage in the same
literacy-supporting activities that teachers recommend to English-speaking parents, but in their home language:
reading to their children every day, engaging in shared reading and writing activities, encouraging their children to
communicate electronically with family members in other countries, and so on. It is important to make clear to them
that their home language, in which they are expert, has an essential role to play in their children’s development and
education. When immigrant parents are unable to provide literacy support of this kind, the school may be able to help,
for example by putting the family in touch with literate speakers of the same home language. Parents should be kept
informed of the progress of their children’s language learning; regular teacher–parent liaison is vital if EAL pupils are
to develop literacy in their home language. One way of facilitating communication with parents who are not fluent in
English is to create multilingual templates for frequently used messages; other parents are usually willing to help with
translations.
2.3 Some activities that work

The plurilingual approach to language education is not a new method that teachers should follow slavishly. Rather, it
is a general approach to teaching, learning and classroom communication that is shaped by the four principles
summarized at the beginning of section 2.1. By emphasizing dialogic and exploratory classroom talk and encouraging
pupils to take initiatives, the approach fosters reflective learning. It is never too early to make pupils aware of what
they are learning and why. Even in the Infant classes it’s possible to stimulate reflection on learning, its processes and
outcomes by regularly asking five questions: What are we doing? Why? How? With what results? What next? 29 In senior
classes, some teachers have used the WALT (“We are learning to …”) and WILF (“What I’m looking for …”) technique to
develop their pupils’ reflective skills. At all levels of the school, learning that pupils undertake on their own initiative
should always be encouraged and applauded. It is natural that they learn fragments of one another’s home languages;
they may also teach one another the same song in all the languages of the classroom, or songs from the countries
their parents came from.
As we explained in section 1.4, a plurilingual approach to the learning of Irish means providing pupils with three kinds
of support: (i) especially in the early stages, interactive routines whose structure and meaning are already familiar to
29
Cf. L. Dam, Learner Autonomy 3: From theory to classroom practice, Dublin: Authentik, 1995, p. 1.
23
Second Class: A description of ‘Our School’ in English and Polish
them in English; (ii) the regular use of Irish in the delivery and processing of curriculum content; and (iii) the transfer
of developing literacy skills from English to Irish via the production of parallel texts in the two languages. A pedagogical
dynamic based on these three kinds of support also accommodates EAL pupils’ home languages and fosters the
development of home language literacy. The dynamic of linguistic interdependence 30 supports the gradual
development of academic language across the individual pupil’s plurilingual repertoire. The next three sub-sections
provide examples of activities for each of these support types, and a fourth sub-section briefly describes four ways of
consolidating plurilingual learning. All the activities we describe were devised and successfully implemented by
teachers in Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní), Blanchardstown. 31
2.3.1 Using familiar routines and themes to support language learning in junior classes
Greetings
One of the earliest and most natural ways of introducing Irish into an English-medium school is by teaching pupils
how to greet one another in Irish using the salutation Dia dhuit. This can be extended to all the languages of the
classroom by asking if anyone knows a different way of saying Hello. The question can be put in context for very young
children by asking them to think about what their parents say when they come to collect them from school. Very soon
pupils learn that while one child says Dobri den, another says Salut, a third says Ciao, and so on. Pupils are encouraged
to tell their parents the different ways in which classmates greet one another. In this way all pupils’ languages are
acknowledged and children are exposed to a new and important fact: that there are many different ways of performing
simple communicative acts. To begin with, some EAL pupils may feel self-conscious when encouraged to speak their
home language or volunteer information about it. Needless to say, their reticence should be handled sensitively.
30
P. Ó Duibhir & J. Cummins, Towards an Integrated Language Curriculum in Early Childhood and Primary Education, Dublin: National Council for
Curriculum and Assessment, 2012, pp. 31–36.
31
Many more examples are provided by D. Little and D. Kirwan, Engaging with Linguistic Diversity: A study of educational inclusion in an Irish primary
school, London: Bloomsbury Academic, paperback edition, 2021.
24
Counting and addition

Pupils in Junior Infants are expected to be able to count in sequence
from 1 to 10 in the language of schooling. They are also expected
to be able to identify the various numerals involved and put them
in the correct order. Some pupils will already know how to do this
while others will not. In an English-medium school, counting will
first be taught in English. When pupils can confidently count from
1 to 5 in English, they can be taught how to do so in Irish, and EAL
pupils can tell the class how they count from 1 to 5 in their home
language. Repeating the task in different languages reinforces basic
curriculum learning. It also presents early opportunities to identify
cross-linguistic similarities, e.g., a dó, deux, duo, and trois, three, a trí.
The same approach can be adopted when teaching addition.
Teachers should not be surprised or worried if pupils mix languages when they perform simple additions, e.g., a two
agus a two sin a four. In time and with practice, they will learn not to mix languages.
Colours
Discussion of colours in English can include words for colours in Irish, and EAL pupils can be invited to tell the class the
words for colours in their home languages. One way of teaching basic colours is to arrange mats of different colours
in a circle and invite individual pupils to jump onto each mat in turn, calling out the word for its colour in their preferred
language. The rest of the class repeats what each pupil says.
Days of the week

When pupils have learned the days of the week and their sequence in English, they can be taught their Irish equivalents.
After that, they can learn the days of the week in whatever home languages are present in the classroom (parents are
usually happy to write down the necessary words in their home language). Experience shows that children enjoy
performing simple learning activities multilingually; they find it motivating to learn the languages of their classmates
at the same time as they learn curriculum content in English and Irish. Regularly performing simple learning activities
multilingually lays essential foundations for the increasingly complex processes of plurilingual learning in later years.
Even at this early stage it is a good idea to support oral learning with print; for example, the days of the week should
be written in each of the languages of the classroom and displayed on the classroom wall.
Senior Infants: Days of the week in English, Irish, Polish, Spanish and French
25
Food
Snack and lunch breaks provide daily opportunities to discuss food. They are also an ideal time to discuss likes and
dislikes in Irish, e.g., An maith leat _____? Is maith liom/ Ní maith liom, and to compare the words for various items of
food in different languages. When pupils are drawn into this kind of interaction, they very often begin to initiate such
conversations among themselves. More formal discussion of food can be reinforced using pictures with labels in
English, Irish and home languages. The teacher writes the English and Irish words for different types of food on the
whiteboard. Pupils are asked to choose the foods they like, draw them and write the appropriate names beside them.
EAL pupils then ask their parents to add the appropriate words in their home language. It is important that work of
this kind is always read aloud to the rest of the class: by publishing it in this way the teacher signals the equal
importance of all languages and reinforces pupils’ interest in languages and their motivation to learn.
Music
Music provides numerous opportunities for pupils to practise their Irish and learn fragments of EAL pupils’ home
languages. Using topics with which the children are familiar, simple tunes can be used, e.g. “The Farmer in the Dell”, to
incorporate all the languages of the classroom. Starting with Irish, continuing with home languages and finishing with
English, children can repeat the same phrase in different languages all through the song.
When Christmas is approaching, the song might begin:
Verse 1: Verse 2: Verse 3:

Tá Daidí na Nollag ag teacht (x 2) Le féiríní do chách (x 2) Santa’s on his way (x 2)
Hé hó mo dhaidio Hé hó mo dhaidio Hé hó mo dhaidio
Tá Daidí na Nollag ag teacht. Le féiríní do chách. Santa’s on his way.
The words in the second verse are translated by EAL pupils or their parents into their home language. The first verse is
repeated and sung, this time in English. Simply by imitating their classmates, all pupils in the class can learn to sing the
second verse in everyone’s language.
Events in the environment

An important task in the Infant classes is to develop observational skills that contribute to all aspects of pupils’
development, education and language learning. Both in the classroom and in the immediate environment, teachers
can use pupils’ observational capacity to support language learning; using Irish as the language of communication in
these situations encourages pupils to associate the language with interesting events. For example, on a walk around
the school grounds, the teacher stops and signals to everyone to be very quiet and listen to and/or look at the object
of her attention. Éistigí! Ar chuala sibh é sin? or Féach ar sin! Cad é? Using body language to indicate what she is listening
to or looking at, the teacher waits for a response from the children, who use whatever language they know to answer
the question. Their answers are confirmed by the teacher in Irish: Is éan é. Ta sé ag canadh. Back in the classroom this
event can be used to reinforce the language that has been learned. The teacher asks: Cad a chuala tú? Cad a chonaic
tú? With her help the children answer: Chuala mé… Chonaic mé …. Phrases like these can be reinforced until they are
a fully embedded part of each child’s linguistic repertoire and can be used as the basis for further language
development. Encouraging children to draw a picture of the bird and telling the class: Is éan é, helps to further reinforce
he language involved. Over the course of a week or longer, pupils can create similar pages with drawings of different
animals or objects of interest. Stapled together, the pages make a book. Children can then use their books as prompts
to recall the Irish they have learnt.
26
Second Class: Text about

food in English and Latvian
written unaided in class
Senior Infants: Drawings of food labelled in two languages
Second Class: Description of our school in two languages illustrating the transfer of developing literacy skills from English to Irish
27
Third Class: Dual language storybook written in Chinese (unaided) and English
Third Class: Dual language storybook written in Albanian (with help at home) and English
28
The spiral nature of the Primary School Curriculum helps to ensure that the language learned at this early stage will
develop to become a natural part of each pupil’s linguistic repertoire that can be expanded further with regular use.
Games
Irish and EAL pupils’ home languages can be used to perform action games like “Hand to hand”,“Toe to toe” and “Head,
shoulders, knees and toes”. Irish can be used to play other familiar games. Bingo is one possibility; another is a guessing
game in which one pupil hides an object behind her back and the pupil who correctly guesses what the object is takes
the next turn. Almost without effort pupils learn the language specific to each game – for the guessing game, Cad atá
i bhfolach agam? Cad atá i bhfolach sa bhosca agam? Cad atá i bhfolach faoin bhoird agam? Is ____é.
Telling the time

When pupils learn to tell the time they should do so in English and Irish. EAL pupils can teach the rest of the class how
to tell the time in their home language.
2.3.2 Including Irish and home languages in the delivery of curriculum content 32
Irish
The use of Irish for classroom management and to reinforce the communication of curriculum content ensures that
the language is not confined to the Irish lesson pupils have each morning but becomes part of their everyday reality.
This effect is strengthened by spending a few minutes each day getting pupils to share their news in Irish – perhaps
something they heard or saw on the way to school (chonaic mé…/chuala mé … bhí timpist ar an mbóthar/is é seo mo
bhreithlá/ etc.) or some other event that has made an impression on them: language that has personal relevance is
easy to retain.
Fourth Class: Lesson in Irish on how to make a sandwich; procedure translated Fourth class: Lesson in Irish on how to make a sandwich; procedure
into home language (Igbo) for homework translated into home language (Illongo) for homework
Allow pupils to use English words to fill gaps in their knowledge but write the missing Irish words on the whiteboard.
Correct grammar and pronunciation, but without comment. Pupils should always write new words and phrases in their
copybooks; in junior classes they may draw matching pictures. Alternatively, they can write the words and phrases on
slips of paper that are kept in a box and referred to when needed. By the time pupils are in First Class it should be
32
See also Primary Language Curriculum, Support Material for Teachers, Dublin: Department of Education and Skills, 2019, pp. 113–122: The place of
Irish in a Multilingual Environment.
Available at https://curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/3ac44a69-57f9-49ea-80db-ebec76831111/PLC-Support-Materials_All-Strands-Final.pdf
29
possible to introduce individual lessons and topics in Irish, using the whiteboard to model correct language use. The
Irish that pupils write in their copy books can then be translated into English and/or home languages for homework.
Home languages
By encouraging EAL pupils to volunteer words and phrases in their home language, the teacher ensures that those
languages are always activated to support pupils’ learning. EAL pupils know that the teacher and their classmates do
not know their home language, which means that they can contribute information that would otherwise not be
available to the class. This is empowering and fosters self-esteem. The teacher may tell the class that a small orange is
called a mandarin and ask EAL pupils what it is called in their language. Always accept whatever they offer – e.g.
mandarinka in Polish – even though you may have no way of knowing whether it is right or wrong: experience suggests
that in the great majority of cases it will be right. Contributions from EAL pupils are almost guaranteed to produce
interesting insights. For example, cold is fuar in Irish; in Romanian it is frieg, which sounds a bit like fridge, which is cold.
A plurilingual approach to classroom discussion

Make the translation of key words and phrases into Irish and EAL pupils’ home languages a regular feature of classroom
interaction. Write the translations on the whiteboard and have pupils write them in their copybooks. If EAL pupils do
not know how to spell the words and phrases they offer, get them to ask their parents to write them down so that they
can share them with the class the next day. The following activities have been used successfully in various classes:
• Writing a single text in two or more languages

• Writing a text in one language and summarizing it in another
• Providing a list of key vocabulary for a text written in a language of the pupil’s choice
• Writing a factual text using a sequence of different languages
• Writing a dialogue between two or more characters, each of whom speaks a different language
• The countries of origin of EAL pupils’ families are located on a map. The pupils tell the class which languages are
spoken in these countries. Sometimes they can provide more information than the teacher; for example, Filipino
pupils may be able to give the class examples of the many loan words from Spanish that entered Tagalog as a result
of Spanish colonisation of the Philippines.
• Clothes and weather: the teacher elicits from the class a list of the clothes worn in different countries and in different
seasons, using English, Irish and all the languages of the classroom.
• On any topic the teacher can ask questions in Irish that pupils answer in English and/or their home language.
Answers given in home languages are translated into English for the benefit of classmates.
• Discussion of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child leads pupils to consider how they could make
newcomers feel welcome in their class. This prompts them to make a multilingual poster to advertise the school’s
language policy and show newcomers that all languages are “at home” in their classroom.
• A lesson on clothes draws on all languages present in the class. Pupils compile a multilingual list of items of clothing
and footwear, looking for similarities and differences in pronunciation and spelling. Cultural differences are also
explored. The results of this work are captured on posters that can be used as a point of reference in future work.
• In a lesson on food, pupils discuss the ingredients required for making a particular dish, e.g. pasta, before making
the dish and tasting it. Pupils then make a multilingual table listing the ingredients and summarizing the steps in
cooking the dish in English, Irish and all the home languages present in the class.
30
Third Class: Story in English and Russian about a snowman
31
Second Class: Identity

text in English and
Bosnian written
unaided in class
Sixth Class: Report on

visit to post-primary
school in Irish,
Tagalog, French and
English. Written
unaided in class
Sixth Class: Extract from list of words to do with clothes
32
Third Class: Millennium goals in English, Chinese, Yoruba, Tagalog, French and Italian
Sixth Class: ‘Language wall’ on the theme of clothes and fashion, created in real-time discussion led by teacher
33
Sixth Class: Procedure for making a

pasta dish in four languages (English,
Irish, French and German)
Sixth Class: Profile of a model in four languages

(English, Irish, French and Hungarian) produced as
part of the project on clothes and fashion
34
Language awareness 33
The inclusion of Irish and home languages in classroom communication inevitably develops pupils’ language
awareness. It is a good idea to consolidate what they learn incidentally by regularly spending a few minutes focusing
on language as such. Pupils can compare the position of verbs and adjectives in English, Irish and the other languages
available to the class; they can explore the relation between orthography and pronunciation and the impact of diacritics
on pronunciation and meaning; and they can consider whether two or more of the languages present in the class are
closely related to one another. When they are, speakers of those languages can create a role play by way of illustration.
Senior pupils can carry out a survey of their classmates to discover, for example, in which languages present in the
class the adjective comes before the noun and in which languages it comes after. It is a good idea to have regular
discussions about language learning. Which languages in their developing plurilingual repertoire do pupils find easiest
to understand, speak, read and write? What helps them to learn a language – to understand what people say to them,
to speak, to read and to write? Present senior pupils with a short newspaper report in a language they don’t know but
on a topic they are already familiar with, e.g. a sporting event. Read the report aloud and write key words and phrases
on the whiteboard. Discovering that they can work out the meaning of these words and phrases and thus understand
the general gist of the report provides a boost to pupils’ confidence in their linguistic ability; it also invites further
discussion of what is involved in learning a new language. Teachers whose class includes EAL pupils cannot be
expected to know all the home languages present in the classroom. But by encouraging the use of those languages
they provide themselves with daily opportunities to learn, and by presenting themselves as learners they create
possibilities for co-learning that can be inspirational for pupils’ education.
2.3.3 Producing parallel texts in two or more languages

The development of fully integrated plurilingual repertoires entails that learners develop literacy skills in each of their
languages. It is widely assumed that this means teaching them to read and write in each language separately, which
is impossible when multiple home languages are present in the class. However, as we explained in section 1.3, it is
possible for skills in one language to be transferred to another language provided there is adequate exposure to that
language and sufficient motivation on the learner’s part. With help from their parents and older brothers and sisters,
EAL pupils can transfer their emerging literacy skills in English and Irish to their home languages. They learn to do this
by producing parallel texts in English, Irish and their home language – parallel in the sense that the texts are as far as
possible identical in structure and content.
First steps
When pupils are first learning to write, the teacher can produce simple worksheets for them to complete in English,
Irish and (in the case of EAL pupils) their home language. The worksheet might focus on different kinds of fruit or
different items of clothing, or it might provide basic information about the pupil – name, age, class, name of school,
where they live, which languages their speak, likes and dislikes. In the very early stages, EAL pupils will certainly need
help with their home language. A parent or older sibling may write words for the pupil to copy or dictate the spelling.
When parents’ English language skills are less well developed than those of their child, they can nevertheless help if
the child provides an oral translation of words and phrases he or she needs to write.
33
See also Primary Language Curriculum, Support Material for Teachers, Dublin: Department of Education and Skills, 2019, pp. 107–122: Language
awareness.
Available at https://curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/3ac44a69-57f9-49ea-80db-ebec76831111/PLC-Support-Materials_All-Strands-Final.pdf
35
Fifth Class: Pupil’s description of her home in Irish, French, Malayalam and English
36
Fifth Class: The weather in France in

French, Irish, English and Romanian
Senior Infants: Identity text in English and Tagalog
37
Second Class: ‘My Life’ in English and Spanish, written unaided (four of six pages)
38
Producing longer texts

In First and Second Class, as pupils gradually develop the ability to write longer texts, the production of parallel texts
can start with Irish rather than English. For example, Irish versions of stories pupils are already familiar with can be
written collaboratively by the whole class, or they can invent stories based on events they themselves have experienced,
like having a fall and injuring themselves. The teacher scaffolds their contributions to the story, which she writes on
the whiteboard as it takes shape, correcting pupils’ errors without comment. The pupils write the story in their
copybooks and for homework rewrite it in English and/or their home language. If the original story were written in
English it would be beyond most pupils at this level to produce an Irish version, whereas producing an English
translation reinforces their learning of Irish.
Pupils can write and illustrate small dual-language books about themselves and their family, the school and its garden,
their favourite animal, hobbies, weather and so on. Two sheets of A4 folded twice, cut and stapled make a book of eight
pages. Such books can be read aloud to the rest of the class and displayed at events in school, when video recordings
of pupils reading their work may also be shown.
Using poetry to support plurilingual literacy

Irish and home languages should be included in the discussion of poems. For example, when introducing “The Night
before Christmas” make sure that pupils know what Christmas is in Irish and ask EAL pupils how they say “Happy
Christmas” in their home language – Nollaig shona dhuit; Joyeux Noel; Buon natale; linksmų Kalėdų; feliz Navidad. The
class can then make a poster that combines these greetings with festive images (some EAL pupils will know how to
write the greetings in their home language, others will need to ask their parents). A poster can also be made with the
various names for Santa Claus and pronunciations can be compared.
A class diary
One way of giving the whole class ownership of texts in two or more languages is to keep a class diary in a hardback
A4 notebook. Each day a different pupil takes the diary home. Excused other homework, the pupil writes on a topic of
her choice in English and Irish/home language – what she ate for dinner, how she spent the evening, whether or not
her family had visitors, and so on. The next morning, she reads what she has written in the diary to her classmates.
Keeping a class diary in this way has proved to be among pupils’ favourite activities, and it engages parents in their
children’s learning – it has stimulated some Irish parents to begin re-learning the Irish language so that they can help
their children with their diary entries.
Texts in three languages

Sooner or later EAL pupils begin to produce parallel texts in English, Irish and their home language. At this stage it is a
good idea to encourage pupils not always to begin with the same language so that they learn how to move freely
among the languages in their repertoire. In Third and Fourth Class, it is not unusual for pupils to produce parallel texts
that run to several pages. Not to be outdone by their EAL peers, some Irish pupils may produce text in English, Irish
and a language that is not taught at school – an older sister may be learning Spanish at secondary school or a
neighbour may be a native speaker of Italian. It is important to recognize that with appropriate help pupils can produce
well-formed text in a language of which they know little besides the text they have written. Even if they have no further
contact with the language, performing such a task is a worthwhile learning experience, to be set beside the learning
of fragments of EAL pupils’ home languages when playing in the school yard.
39
Second Class: Dual language diary in English and Irish
40
Third Class: Writing in three languages

(Irish, English and Tagalog)
Sixth Class: Autonomous work by

native speaker of English who
wanted to learn Italian
41
Preparing to write in two or three languages

Pupils should be encouraged to collect information on the topic or person they want to write about and to compile
their own word lists in English, Irish and their home language. If this becomes a normal part of the way they work, they
will gradually accumulate a personal multilingual dictionary that reflects their language development as well as their
interests. Especially in the senior school, some pupils get interested in a language that is far from their experience and
certainly not taught at school – Korean, for example – and use the internet to add to their multilingual word lists.
Especially when it is pursued autonomously, interest in a language far removed from the pupil’s experience may not
seem to lead anywhere, but it is evidence of the pupil’s reflective engagement with language and certainly coincides
with the purposes of the Primary Language Curriculum.
Functional writing
Writing that describes familiar procedures, like how to make a sandwich or how to bake a cake, gives further scope for
trilingual work. For example, an Irish lesson may focus on the successive steps in making a sandwich, captured by the
teacher on the whiteboard and written by the pupils in their copybooks. The pupils then translate the Irish text into
English for homework. In a multilingual classroom, EAL pupils are also encouraged to translate the Irish text into their
home language. The next day, pupils read their work aloud to their classmates. Like all other multilingual activities,
functional writing presents opportunities to develop pupils’ language awareness. For example, whatever the content
of the sandwich, the word for bread is sure to be used at least once, in the same part of the procedure. Asking pupils
to identify the word for bread when the steps are being read aloud in an EAL pupil’s home language is a good way of
fostering their listening skills and encouraging them to find connections between words and phrases in different
languages.
Creative writing
Already in Third and Fourth class, pupils often write for their own enjoyment. They may
• decide to translate the words of a Christmas carol or poem into their home language or write a new Christmas
poem in English and Irish;
• write stories in which the characters speak different languages;
• make a picture dictionary of words and phrases associated with Christmas in Irish, English and their home language;
• write in English and Spanish after spending a holiday in Spain;
• write a story about how a pupil who spoke only Irish might feel if he found himself in a country where no one knew
the language;
• write a dialogue in Irish about buying something in a shop;
• write a letter in Irish and English to an uncle in Australia thanking him for the money he sent at Christmas and
saying how it has been spent;
• write about a visit to the park in Irish;
• write a diary in Irish.
42
Fourth Class: Translation of Fourth Class: Story in which

Christmas poem from characters speak different languages
English to Tagalog (English and Romanian) – first of six pages
Fourth Class: Christmas story about a girl who spoke only Irish and went to live in England
43
Third Class: The diary of ‘My dog Oliver’ written in Irish, autonomously and unaided, by a speaker of Tagalog – first of five pages
44
In Fifth and Sixth Class creative writing in multiple languages undergoes further development. The increasing
sophistication of pupils’ language skills is reflected in their interest in writing; the expressive quality of that writing;
the length of the stories they write; their choice of language(s) in which to write; the way in which all their linguistic
knowledge is brought to bear on their writing; and the support this knowledge provides for their further language
development. The texts they write are informed by all aspects of the curriculum and by the innovative ways in which,
with support from their teachers, they present those topics, for example:
• A description of the weather from the four points of the compass of whatever country is in focus can be written in
all the languages the pupils know – In the north it is cold can be written in English, Irish, home languages and any
other languages the pupils know; similarly for south, east and west.
• Descriptions of pupils’ homes or their ideal house can be written in as many languages as possible.
• Pupils can keep a diary of Christmas, Eid and other celebrations in multiple languages and can design multilingual
greetings cards for their teacher and peers.
• A lesson on a Christmas carol or hymn in Latin, e.g., Dormi Jesu, Adeste Fideles, gives pupils an opportunity to draw
on their collective linguistic resources to arrive at an English translation. This is a highly motivating activity that
pupils engage in with enthusiasm; it is empowering for them to realize that working with your peers you can
understand a language that you have not learned.
• Multilingual posters can be created on various topics: healthy eating, exercise, anti-smoking, climate change, etc.
• Pupils can work collaboratively to produce versions of folktales from Ireland and EAL pupils’ countries of origin in
two or more languages.
Mixing languages in one text

Pupils enjoy using all the languages in their repertoire in a single text, for example, a report on a visit to their
prospective post-primary school. The rule is that each sentence must be written in a different language from the
sentence that immediately precedes it.
2.3.4 Consolidating plurilingual learning

When a plurilingual approach to language education is implemented across the school, teachers will think of many
different ways of consolidating language learning. Here are just four examples; teachers will think of many other
possibilities.
Inter-class interaction
EAL pupils from senior classes (Third–Sixth) can visit junior classes and interact with pupils in Irish and their home
languages. Senior pupils can also teach juniors songs in their home language. These activities benefit senior pupils as
well as juniors because they acknowledge and affirm their linguistic identity and promote self-esteem.
Senior pupils read stories to juniors

In Fifth and Sixth Class pupils may regard fairy tales as suitable for much younger children. However, having pupils at
this level read Irish versions of stories such as Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks and the Three Bears to Junior and
Senior Infants is a good way of boosting the language skills of all involved. Similarly, EAL pupils in Fifth and Sixth Class
can read stories in their home language to Junior and Senior Infants who have the same home language; and they
can repeat the exercise for their classmates, who try to identify and understand key words and phrases.
45
Dormi Jesu
A teacher of Sixth Class told her pupils that she was learning a Latin carol in her local choir. She was interested to know
if they would be able to decipher its meaning. Knowing that carols are associated with Christmas, a Romanian pupil
suggested that the sound of Crăciun, in her language, was like Christian, and Christmas is a Christian festival. Another
pupil pointed out that the French Noël reminded her of Nollaig in Irish. The teacher then told the pupils the name of
the carol ‘Dormi Jesu’ and putting the text on the whiteboard asked them to listen carefully to the words as she read
them. What followed was a stimulating interaction where the children used their combined plurilingual expertise to
work out the meaning of the words.
Dormi Jesu! Mater ridet

Quae tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi Jesu blandule!
Si non dormis, Mater plorat
Inter fila cantans orat
Blande, veni, somnule
Bubbling under the surface of Irish life is a great polyglot stew, a profusion of tongues unlike anything in our
history. And here’s the thing we need to grasp – this is a fabulous resource for indigenous culture. It is turning
a monochrome screen of words to a glorious technicolour.
And instead of creating the tower of Babel that is often feared, this policy simply made all the kids better at
languages. They became a great resource for each other, adding insights from their own linguistic worlds.
Imagine a classroom in which half a dozen children are retelling an Irish legend in half a dozen other
languages, translating, inquiring, playing with the infinite diversity of words. What a fabulous educational
experience that must be – working-class kids getting a daily course in applied linguistics that would be hard
to match at university.
And one of the beneficiaries of this approach is, rather wonderfully, the Irish language. Kids who are
comfortably polylingual are much more at ease with Irish than those who live in a monolingual English
world… “the presence of other languages in the classroom helps them to accept Irish as one more medium of
communication”.
These quotations are taken from Fintan O’Toole’s article in The Irish Times, 26 November 2019,
entitled ‘Schools with immigrants producing tomorrow’s Irish speakers’.
https://bit.ly/irishspeakers
46
Autonomous language learning

One way of encouraging autonomous learning is to introduce a Language Box to which pupils voluntarily contribute
texts of various kinds: favourite recipes written in various languages, free writing in languages of their choice, personal
profiles, etc. This provides an opportunity for pupils to write in languages they know while providing support for pupils
who are learning a language already spoken by one or more of their classmates.
In addition:
• Pupils from a variety of language backgrounds may choose to learn the home language of a friend (often a
reciprocal arrangement).
• Individual pupils use a variety of methods to teach themselves new languages – CDs, course books, language
quizzes, language videos, keeping language notebooks, etc.
• Two or more pupils form a language learning partnership.
Encouraging pupils to improve their home language proﬁciency

When grandparents or other family members phone or pupils visit their parents’ country of origin, they may realize
that they cannot converse as easily as they would like in their home language. This is quite normal: growing up in an
English-speaking environment will influence children’s home language development to varying degrees. They should
be praised for what they can do and given every encouragement to continue to use and learn their home language,
perhaps by practising it with other speakers of the language during break. Plurilingual development is not a matter of
instantly achieving “native speaker” proficiency in the language of the home but of gradually acquiring a linguistic
repertoire of which the home language is a fully integrated part.
47
Delivering Supported by

PPLI Primary Guidelines

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

PPLI Primary Guidelines

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

PPLI Primary Guidelines

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Language and Languages

in the Primary School

The authors are also grateful to the Professional Development

Part I is concerned with issues of general principle:

• The “plurilingual approach” to language education and its pedagogical implications

• Language development in the pre-school years

• The linguistic demands made by primary schooling

• The intercultural dimension of primary education

• The general pedagogical approach

• Some activities that work

PPLI delivering Supported by

It is important to add that respect for and affirmation of home languages is a

PPLI delivering Supported by

Sometimes when we learn a language it’s easier to

It’s great because at a very young age you can … learn

PPLI delivering Supported by

PPLI delivering Supported by

1.2 Language development in the pre-school years

When children from English-speaking families start school at

PPLI delivering Supported by

1.3 The linguistic demands of primary schooling

PPLI delivering Supported by

PPLI delivering Supported by

PPLI delivering Supported by

Surface Features Surface Features

PPLI delivering Supported by

PPLI delivering Supported by

Whether they come from Irish or immigrant families, pupils at

PPLI delivering Supported by

1.5 Converting linguistic and cultural diversity into educational capital

• attitudes such as curiosity, openness, respect for otherness, and empathy;

PPLI delivering Supported by

While a number of years ago … I would have said ‘Oh

PPLI delivering Supported by

Parents’ appreciation of the benefits of a plurilingual approach

PPLI delivering Supported by

2.1 Some pedagogical preliminaries

PPLI delivering Supported by

2.2 What supports should the school provide?

• a mission statement that acknowledges the central role played

• a statement of guiding pedagogical principles similar to those at

• a commitment to regular review and (if necessary) revision in

In this way, the language policy document provides an important

PPLI delivering Supported by

Documentation of language learning and use

Language support classes

PPLI delivering Supported by

The importance of involving parents

2.3 Some activities that work

PPLI delivering Supported by

Second Class: A description of ‘Our School’ in English and Polish

PPLI delivering Supported by

Counting and addition

Days of the week

PPLI delivering Supported by

When Christmas is approaching, the song might begin:

Verse 1: Verse 2: Verse 3:

Events in the environment

PPLI delivering Supported by

Second Class: Text about