More focus on English in all-Irish schools

RESEARCH is urgently needed to find the best way to teach English in all-Irish schools, the Government’s curriculum advisers have found.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) has compiled research on international best practice in the area of language immersion in schools, where a language which is not in everyday use is used for teaching most subjects. Particular focus was placed, for example, on the teaching of English in all-French schools in Canada.

The subject remains controversial in many areas and Education Minister Mary Hanafin is seeking legal advice on the stance of a Co Kerry Gaelscoil which does not begin full teaching of English until pupils reach first class. The minister could seek to withdraw funding from the school if the full curriculum is not being provided.

The primary curriculum guidelines suggest that infants in the country’s 160 Gaelscoileanna and 150 Gaeltacht primary schools should receive at least half-an-hour of English tuition every day.

The NCCA paper points to a need for comprehensive evaluation of Irish immersion to help the long-term growth of all-Irish education.

“The most urgent reason for carrying out this work, however, is that despite the evidence for the positive impact of Irish immersion on speaking proficiency, there are a number of particular challenges facing schools in the sector that require investigation,” it said.

Among these challenges, it points out, is the early introduction of English in all-Irish schools and the sequencing of early reading in Irish and English.

According to research in 2004, almost 60% of these schools introduce reading in Irish first but researchers say there is no evidence to suggest that one policy is better than the other.

“It must be acknowledged that the different strategies of Irish reading first and English reading first may well represent the optimum response at individual school level to different educational, social and linguistic circumstances.

There is no reason why best practice in this area should be the same in all all-Irish schools,” the paper said.

International research has found that factors such as parental involvement, socio-economic background and the use of language in the home can influence the impact of different teaching strategies.

The NCCA suggests that quantitative research on a sample of all-Irish schools, with more qualitative studies within a selection of them, would be most informative for development of policy in this area.

The proposals form the latest part of the council’s review of language and literacy in all-Irish schools, which also included a survey of students, teachers, parents and other interested parties.