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This paper seeks to address the gender equity issue in terms of participation and achievement in foreign language learning in Irish schools. It begins by framing the discussion within the international concern regarding boys' underachievement in school. It goes on to present the reality that this underachievement of boys appears to be even more marked in the language and literacy curriculum areas. A particular issue with regard to both boys' participation and achievement in foreign language learning internationally is discussed before some evidence is presented of the existence of this same phenomenon in Irish schools. The contention that the issue is officially unrecognised and unacknowledged is then put forward. The paper finishes with a call for the impact of gender on participation and achievement in foreign language learning to be immediately recognised in Ireland to form part of any debate and reform of education and language teaching within the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the 'grades' of comparison is a familiar term, it is argued in this paper that a more thorough-going appreciation of a metaphor which originally had to do with steps allows us better to understand the development of the terminology of the grades of comparison as it moved from the Latin grammarians, especially Donatus and the commentators on his original work, into the medieval vernacular Irish and Welsh grammars. The architectural basis of the terminology, then, once identified, may help to clarify the use of such terms as Old Irish etargaire and how in Welsh grwndwal (lit.) 'ground-wall' came to be used of the positive form of the adjective. Abbreviations: CIL: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; eDIL: The Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (www.dil.ie); PL: Patrologia Latina [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment and growth of Irish-medium education has been central to the revitalisation of the language in Northern Ireland in recent years. Historically, the struggle by the minority of Irish speakers in the region to provide all-Irish schools has been both the goal and the engine of renewal and expansion during a period of community and political conflict. The present paper analyses the growth in the sector from the initial campaign for resources and official recognition of the first all-Irish school in Belfast's Shaw's Road Gaeltacht. It documents the range of sociolinguistic and educational challenges faced by the earliest immersion schools, and the manner in which the response served to mobilise individual speakers and contributed to the emergence of the small but unique urban community of Irish speakers. Among the issues discussed are the early internal conflicts about the merits of independent all-Irish schools (as in the Republic) versus all-Irish units within English-medium schools, and the manner in which an accommodation was gradually achieved between a reluctant Department of Education and the growing immersion sector. This paper deals with a number of other issues that help to define immersion education in Northern Ireland, including differences in the organisation of the sector compared to the Republic and the continuing challenges faced in areas of research, planning and teacher training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The popular and official description of the Gaeltacht as Irish-speaking rather than bilingual areas reflects the historically dominant discourse on language ideology in Ireland. While there is little evidence that the Gaeltacht people want to learn English at the expense of their Irish, as may have been the case throughout Ireland in the past, there is no doubt that all do want their children to be highly skilled, literate bilinguals. There is uncertainty in the language community as to which language or combination of languages to use when raising children to achieve this aim. This paper focuses on two aspects of public policy that encourage Gaeltacht Irish speakers to use only Irish with their children: Scéim Labhairt na Gaeilge and the principle of Irish-medium only schooling in the Gaeltacht for all pupils. Fieldwork carried out among Irish speakers in the West Cork Gaeltacht region of Múscraírevealed significant divergence of opinion on how much Irish should be used with children at home and at school to achieve IrishȔEnglish bilingualism, and also exposed how many in the community believe that they may have made an error in language choice with the benefit of hindsight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper explores the extent of Irish language use in networked communications' and attitudes towards the language by 125 schoolchildren from three backgrounds in Ireland: (1) an Irish-speaking area (Gaeltacht) and Irish medium of instruction, (2) an English-speaking area and Irish medium of instruction, and (3) an English-speaking area and English medium of instruction, with Irish as a school subject. The questionnaire-based research found that token usage of Irish was high, but the lack of domains of language usage meant that children had little opportunity to use the language for real communication. It was also found that as the level of exposure to the language decreases, so too does the level of communicative usage. Respondents tended to employ networked communication through Irish, if Irish was the usual language of communication with the particular interlocutor, and those who used Irish in various domains of their lives also used it more in their networked communications. With regard to the participants' attitudes towards the language, English medium schoolchildren were found to have the most positive attitudes towards the language; however, Irish medium and Gaeltacht schoolchildren were more aware of the importance of bilingualism and its practical benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the language in which history was written in ninth-century Britain and Ireland, focusing on accounts concerned with origins. It takes an entangled approach to the written vernacular and is concerned with how insular history-writing, whether in a vernacular language or Latin, was an integral part of a wider Latinate European story. Differences in language choice come more clearly into view, facilitating the exploration of the development of vernacular writing and the theory and practice of vernacularisation. The discussion is structured around three case studies, spanning Wales, Ireland and England. What emerges through comparative study is that linguistic theorisation and multilingual interactions both shaped language choice and were themes of the origin legends themselves, whether explicitly or implicitly. The need for vernacular languages, just like Latin, to have sustained institutional support in order to flourish is also underlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Ireland primary RE is a fractured, contested, complex and changing territory devoid of a common language and characterised by a proliferation of syllabi and curricula generated for increasingly diverse school types. For centuries the dynamic decolonising process has led to a questioning of former orthodoxies and an attempted de-linking of the place and potency of the RE curriculum as well as a fundamental change in perception of the nature, identity and purpose of RE. Placing particular emphasis on the work of a variety of decolonial and postcolonial critical theorists, the authors engage in a theoretical interpretation of 5 keys waves of curricular decolonisation in Ireland. from the 16th to 21st centuries and argue that a historical contextualisation is vital in attempting to understand its nature. Currently RE's perceived hegemonic status is challenged and its very existence within the curriculum is in jeopardy, as it faces a form of 'cultural oblivion'. The repackaging of religion under the more acceptable form of human rights and world religions with a confusion and conflation of values, ethics and RE and a hybridity of curricular styles and content is symptomatic of the latest wave of this decolonising process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a project aimed at the development of critical media literacy and language awareness by a group of Irish university students through the application of critical discourse analysis (CDA) tools in their Spanish language class. The participants were assigned various reading activities in which they had to reflect on the social representations conveyed by different press articles on immigration. They subsequently expressed their opinions in a classroom debate and a final written task. As a result, their awareness of the social implications of linguistic choices increased significantly. Assessment also showed a deeper understanding of immigration matters both in Spain and Ireland, and a clearer perception of their own stances on these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hickey’s (1991) article [Leisure reading in a second language: An experiment with audio tapes.Language, Culture and Curriculum,4(2), 119-131. Retrieved fromhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908319109525098] reported the benefits of audio-support for L2 reading of real books, showing gains in fluency and motivation among 9-year-old learners of Irish. In the 25 years since that, there have been significant changes in the educational and sociolinguistic context in which Irish and Irish reading are taught. That period encompassed a major shift in the curricular approach to teaching Irish, and changes in status. With the advent of a new primary school curriculum, it is time to revisit this topic and reflect on how changes in the interim have impacted on the teaching of L2 Irish reading. This article reviews the societal and educational changes relevant to teaching Irish in mainstream (English-medium) schools, offering insights into current practices from a qualitative study of teachers’ reflections on their pedagogical strategies, perceived priorities and difficulties encountered. Finally, it considers the advances made in the provision of materials supporting L2 Irish reading in the intervening years, and the challenges that remain with regard to promoting the use of those materials in mainstream classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents findings from an exploratory research project entitledGaelscoileanna and Multicultural classrooms: the potential for transfer to enhance L2 learning experiences. The project focussed on two language immersion contexts in Ireland which, despite obvious differences, share a range of significant commonalities. One context was that of the Gaelscoil, where instruction is through the medium of Irish, and the other that of the mainstream English-medium school, where learners from migrant backgrounds often experience a form of language immersion which is referred to here as ‘immersion by default’. The views of teachers and principals are described in this article. Data from this cohort illustrate how each school type approached the celebration of language per se in relation to learners for whom the language of instruction is not the L1. This raises two key issues: (1) the extent to which the school can see itself as a site of and for multilingualism, and (2) the extent to which learners in all immersion contexts can also be affirmed aslanguagelearners. Findings point to how immersion contexts, regardless of whether they are ‘design’ or ‘default’ in nature, can inform each other. We argue that each has the potential to approach Language in additive ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this article is to examine how struggles over language ownership are played out in a minority language setting, focusing on the case of Irish in the Republic of Ireland. The article examines the more or less serious struggles that emerge between so-called native, or L1, and nonnative, or L2, speakers of Irish in a language learning environment and the effect of these struggles on language acquisition and language choice. The discussion of these issues is based on a qualitative study of language ideologies held by 33 undergraduate students pursuing an Irish language degree. The study highlights some of the social and cultural differences that exist between these native speakers of Irish and second language learners and the need to find ways in which the two groups can work more productively together. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines out-of-school use of Irish and motivation to learn Irish among final year post-primary students from three different instructional backgrounds: mainstream students studying ordinary and higher level Irish as a subject only and immersion students. Information on motivation and use is linked to student proficiency in Irish. Motivation was measured using items adapted from Gardner's Attitude/Motivation Test Battery and out-of-school use using questionnaire scales. Results show the benefits of out-of-school use for proficiency. There are substantial differences between the three groups on all measures with immersion students having the highest levels of proficiency, motivation and use. As well as the obvious advantage of more target language use within the school, the immersion students also benefit from greater access to Irish-speaking networks outside of school compared to their mainstream peers. It is argued that mainstream students' failure to attain the speaking proficiency levels set in curriculum objectives is due to the limited instructional time in Irish and opportunity to use the language for real communication. This in turn affects personal investment in learning Irish. Ways of increasing student motivation and interactional opportunities, both in school and out of school, are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to growth in immigration to the Republic of Ireland, the number of language minority students enrolling in primary schools has increased substantially over the last 10 years. The Irish context is a particularly interesting one in that until recently Ireland was a country of net emigration with limited experience of cultural diversity. An additional factor here is the Irish language, which makes the education system open to bilingualism and encouraging linguistic diversity. This study looks at how Ireland is responding to these changes in a case study of practice in teaching English as an additional language (EAL) to students in a city in western Ireland. A review of government policy initiatives in this area reveals that they seem to have been developed primarily in isolation from international models of best practice. Instead, the concern is with reacting to what is considered a temporary issue. Finally, the case study shows very inconsistent EAL provision for learners in schools and a general under-valuing of the subject and teachers involved in its delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]