Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Home Languages and Home Learning: Supports for Multilingual Families

Multilingual families can find it difficult to navigate the learning needs of their children in English or Irish medium schools and using their own mother tongues at home.

We have produced short videos on how families can support young children with their literacy, numeracy and creativity in 5 languages (Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Romanian and Spanish) as well as in English.

They are available for all to see and share on the TCD Youtube channel playlists:

The webinar which presents and discusses these videos is available HERE. In the webinar, we celebrate and highlight the opportunities in the everyday lives of multilingual families for parents to support young children learning at home in all and any of the languages at their disposal.

The webinar presenters are:

Dr Ann Devitt, Principal Investigator on an IRC funded project on Family Digital Literacy
Dr Francesca La Morgia, founder and director of Mother Tongues, a non for profit organisation that promotes multilingualism in Ireland
Cathal O’Gorman, Infant Teacher from Griffth Barracks Multidenominational School
Eadaoin Kelly, Principal of St Mary's Primary School on Dorset Street in Dublin's north inner city, a school where over 85% of children have English as an additional language.
Dr Déirdre Kirwan, former Principal of a linguistically diverse primary school for 28 years, co-author with Prof David Little of Engaging with Linguistic Diversity: A Study of Educational Inclusion in an Irish Primary School (2019) Bloomsbury Academic.

This work is a collaboration with Mothertongue and is part of the Family Digital Literacy project, a collaboration with NALA and funded by the Irish Research Council.

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Twitter: @MotherTonguesIE @IrishResearch @NALAIreland @anndeibh