Discussion Groups - Intercultural Education Strategy – One Year On

October 27, 2011

Group Members and Introduction

Members of the group introduced themselves and gave some background on issues of concern to them. Many of the issues raised in the introductions touched on the goals in the strategy.

Suzanne Dillon, Assistant Chief Inspector, DES – Chair

Anne O’Mahony, Integration Unit/Qualifications Curriculum and Assessment Policy - Rapporteur

Colette Kavanagh, Principal, Esker ET NationalSchool

Esker ET has 90% migrant pupils and a significant EAL challenge; however, given their unusual situation, they have learnt a great deal and have much to offer other schools about how to deal with EAL in the mainstream classroom.

Anne Walsh, Integration and Equality Officer, National Youth Council of Ireland

The NYCI emphasises the importance of working in partnership with schools. They provide training for youth leaders on intercultural issues which teachers often attend.

Majella O’Shea, National Council for Curriculum and Assessment

The NCCA is ensuring that there is an intercultural perspective to curricula as they are developed and implemented. This is particularly important in the context of the implementation of the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy and change at Junior Cycle.

Deirdre O’Rourke, DICE, Lecturer, Mary Immaculate College of Education

The challenge is to integrate interculturalism into other subject areas. The extension of the BEd to four years presents real opportunities to do this.

Bernie Judge, Teachers Union of Ireland

CPD is particularly important and the work of the PDST in this area is vital.

Bernie Toibin, St. John the Evangelist, NationalSchool

Schools with significant migrant cohorts which do not have DEIS status have real difficulties engaging parents. A home-school community liaison officer would be of real help. Parents need advice on how the Irish education system works.

Orla Christle, HEA

There are increasing numbers of migrant students getting to third level through access programmes.

Ian Murphy, CommunityNationalSchools

Parental involvement is crucial. Parents can be drawn into school through events involving their children. The school also provides courses for parents – all such courses build parents’ linguistic competence.

Jim Ferguson, NQAI

Considerable work has been done on mapping teacher competencies for language teaching and this will be finalised shortly.

Pat O’Mahony, IVEA

There is a danger that EAL hours at second level can be used to “top up timetables”. There are no benchmarks for teacher qualifications and delivery. There is a dearth of material which teachers without EAL experience can use. There needs to be much better communication of the materials and supports available.

Sue Hackett, NQAI

English is a global language and a basic skill for everyone. We need to set standards for what we want all English language learners to achieve.

General Discussion

Following these detailed introductions, there was a brief but more general discussion which focussed on active partnership.

Inspectorate

It was pointed out that the Inspectorate can be a source of inspiration. Inspectors can inform about services and supports available and recommend resources. However, this must be seen as supportive to teachers who may be struggling. It is also important that schools take ownership of issues and identify their own training needs. Inspectors can, however, advise schools in this context.

Community

Community based partnerships can provide support to students and parents. Creating these links can, however, be challenging. A suggestion that the CrokePark hours might be used to help create these links was considered unlikely to be possible given the range of issues already earmarked for this time.

The group also discussed the role of the teacher.

There was a consensus that teachers need to be given time to reflect on their practice and carry out classroom based research. The recast BEd will place additional emphasis on the teacher as a professional and the need for teachers to be researchers in their own classrooms.

It was also agreed that EAL teachers need time to co-ordinate their work with other teachers as well as providing language support.

Some concerns were expressed about the appropriateness of the Assessment Kit for the purpose of supporting and assessing English language acquisition by EAL students.

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