PPLI Primary Guidelines - Flipbook - Page 22
Language and Languages in the Primary School Some guidelines for teachers by David Little and Déirdre Kirwan
ppli.ie
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.
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.
Delivering
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