PPLI Primary Guidelines REVISED EDITION - Flipbook - Page 29
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Language and Languages in the Primary School Some guidelines for teachers by David Little and Déirdre Kirwan
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
the language involved. Over the course of a week or longer, pupils can create similar pages with drawings of different
animals or objects of interest: is madra é; is cat é; is úll é. Stapled together, the pages make a book. Children can then
use their books as prompts to recall the Irish they have learnt. Unlined jotters – their first plurilingual copybooks – can
be used at Stage 1 to record new vocabulary and pose questions using speech bubbles and simple drawings with stick
people.
Teachers will observe that pupils transfer what they have learned in class to authentic and spontaneous use of this
new vocabulary in interaction with one another – evidence that the language learned has become embedded into
their individual linguistic repertoires and is being used autonomously.
Games
Irish and EAL pupils’ HLs can be used to perform action games like “Hand to hand”,“Toe to toe” and “Head, shoulders,
knees and toes”. Irish can also be used to play other familiar games. When children have learned to follow instructions
in English in PE class, teachers can “piggy-back” on what children already know by using the equivalent instructions in
Irish, which pupils will quickly master.
First steps in the development of plurilingual literacy
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 HL. 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 they speak, likes and dislikes. In the very early stages, EAL pupils will certainly need help with their
HL. 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.
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