Page 300 - Karmen Pižorn, Alja Lipavic Oštir in Janja Žmavc, ur. • Obrazi več-/raznojezičnosti. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2022. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 44
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ils with retrospective scaffolding for the learning of English and Irish.
From these simple beginnings, language learning throughout the school
is attached to routines that guarantee repeated use of linguistic forms, in-
cluding formulae, set phrases and idioms. For example, from the first day
in Junior Infants, greetings and farewells are exchanged in English, Irish
and all the home languages present in the class; after a week every pupil
can perform these simple functions in every language present in the class.
Opportunities abound to perform more complex activities in multiple lan-
guages. For example, as early as First Class a nature walk can be used to
teach pupils the English names of trees and birds, which they write in their
copybooks; EAL pupils can add the names in their home languages; and on
a subsequent occasion the nature walk can be repeated in Irish. Through
repetition, the phrases the teacher uses on the walk become a fully embed-
ded part of each pupil’s linguistic repertoire and can themselves be used as
the basis for further language development. Encouraging pupils to draw a
picture of their favourite tree or bird to illustrate their language notes helps
to reinforce their learning.
This last example combines language socialization with pupils’ litera-
cy development and brings us to the second part of our answer to the ques-
tion: how does Scoil Bhríde launch the process of learning new languages?
In section 2.3.3 we gave some examples of the identity texts that EAL pupils
produce in English and their home language; and we’ve already argued that
the production of parallel texts in two or more languages – texts that are
as far as possible identical in thematic and discourse structure – provides
pupils with a bi-directional scaffolding. The texts reproduced in Figures 1
and 2 express (a small part of) their authors’ identity and help to anchor
that identity in an emerging plurilingual repertoire. It is difficult to over-
state the importance of this fact. From Senior Infants on, all pupils spend a
lot of time writing, much of it on their own initiative and for their own en-
joyment; in this way they develop high levels of age-appropriate literacy in
multiple languages and simultaneously construct a plurilingual identity.
One of Scoil Bhríde’s language support teachers used the “language
experience” approach to teach English reading and writing to newly ar-
rived EAL pupils who had attended school and learned to read and write in
their country of origin. In the “language experience” approach, “matters of
form are always encountered in the service of meaning which is located in
the learners’ experience” (Ivanič, 2004, p. 230), and emphasis is placed on
“the importance of children’s own language productions as a bridge from
300
From these simple beginnings, language learning throughout the school
is attached to routines that guarantee repeated use of linguistic forms, in-
cluding formulae, set phrases and idioms. For example, from the first day
in Junior Infants, greetings and farewells are exchanged in English, Irish
and all the home languages present in the class; after a week every pupil
can perform these simple functions in every language present in the class.
Opportunities abound to perform more complex activities in multiple lan-
guages. For example, as early as First Class a nature walk can be used to
teach pupils the English names of trees and birds, which they write in their
copybooks; EAL pupils can add the names in their home languages; and on
a subsequent occasion the nature walk can be repeated in Irish. Through
repetition, the phrases the teacher uses on the walk become a fully embed-
ded part of each pupil’s linguistic repertoire and can themselves be used as
the basis for further language development. Encouraging pupils to draw a
picture of their favourite tree or bird to illustrate their language notes helps
to reinforce their learning.
This last example combines language socialization with pupils’ litera-
cy development and brings us to the second part of our answer to the ques-
tion: how does Scoil Bhríde launch the process of learning new languages?
In section 2.3.3 we gave some examples of the identity texts that EAL pupils
produce in English and their home language; and we’ve already argued that
the production of parallel texts in two or more languages – texts that are
as far as possible identical in thematic and discourse structure – provides
pupils with a bi-directional scaffolding. The texts reproduced in Figures 1
and 2 express (a small part of) their authors’ identity and help to anchor
that identity in an emerging plurilingual repertoire. It is difficult to over-
state the importance of this fact. From Senior Infants on, all pupils spend a
lot of time writing, much of it on their own initiative and for their own en-
joyment; in this way they develop high levels of age-appropriate literacy in
multiple languages and simultaneously construct a plurilingual identity.
One of Scoil Bhríde’s language support teachers used the “language
experience” approach to teach English reading and writing to newly ar-
rived EAL pupils who had attended school and learned to read and write in
their country of origin. In the “language experience” approach, “matters of
form are always encountered in the service of meaning which is located in
the learners’ experience” (Ivanič, 2004, p. 230), and emphasis is placed on
“the importance of children’s own language productions as a bridge from
300
