PPLI Primary Guidelines REVISED EDITION - Flipbook - Page 2
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 version of
the guidelines.
