PPLI Primary Guidelines REVISED EDITION - Flipbook - Page 33
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Language and Languages in the Primary School Some guidelines for teachers by David Little and Déirdre Kirwan
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 write
Figure 14: Description of our school in English and Irish illustrating the transfer of
developing literacy skills from English to Irish
a translation into English and/or their HL (Figure 14). If the original story were written in English it would be beyond
most pupils at this level to produce an Irish translation, whereas producing an English translation reinforces their
learning of Irish.
Using poetry to support the development of plurilingual literacy
Irish and HLs should be included in the discussion of poems in
English. 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 HL – 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 HL, others will need to ask their parents). A poster
can also be made with the various names for Santa Claus, Christmas
tree, etc. 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/HL – what she ate for dinner, how she spent the evening,
whether or not her family had visitors, and so on (Figure 15). The
Figure 15: Dual language diary in Irish and English (Second
Class)
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.
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