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Education Policy

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 December 2021

Tuesday, 7 December 2021

Ceisteanna (318)

Neale Richmond

Ceist:

318. Deputy Neale Richmond asked the Minister for Education the efforts that are being made to promote the study of foreign languages at second-level; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [60098/21]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

I can advise the Deputy that significant progress has been made to date under Languages Connect, Ireland’s Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education 2017 – 2026 which aims to increase and diversify the range of languages taught and learned. Implementation of Languages Connect is overseen by a Foreign Languages Advisory Group.

Some of the actions taken to date include:

- The inclusion of four new Leaving Certificate curricular languages in September 2019 for examination in summer 2022 – Lithuanian, Mandarin Chinese, Polish and Portuguese

- The development of the Languages Connect website: https://languagesconnect.ie/

- The development of a significant body of resources to support teachers and improve the quality of teaching and learning on https://ppli.ie

- Development and support for Communities of Practice for teachers of foreign languages

- An increase in the number of Foreign Language Assistants from 110 in 2017 to 170 in 2021.

- An additional allocation for schools introducing lesser taught languages (Circular 006/2020) to promote diversification

- Funding for school exchanges, teacher upskilling and school libraries through Post Primary Languages Ireland (PPLI)

- Funding for summer camps to promote uptake of new and heritage languages

- Funding for HEIs to promote language courses

- Funding for a new upskilling programme for Spanish Teachers in UCC

- Piloting a Visiting Spanish Teacher Programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Education in Spain

- Thinklanguages annual event for Transition Year students to encourage them to take a foreign language for Leaving Certificate: This attracted 150 schools and approximately 12,000 students in recent weeks.

- A series of additional awareness raising activities including social media campaigns, and the creation of a body of resources to support guidance counsellors with understanding and promoting the value of foreign languages skills

- Publication of a toolkit to support cultural and linguistic diversity in our schools

- Launch of a language sampler module in approximately 500 primary schools across the country using 11 different languages, to encourage the take up of foreign languages at post primary level and to help inform the potential introduction of foreign languages at primary level as proposed in the draft Primary Curriculum Framework

- Integration of foreign languages in Careersportal.ie

- Roll out of a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach to foreign language learning

Further details on many of these actions and more are available in PPLI’s annual report which is available here: https://ppli.ie/about-us/

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