School leaders

Boost inclusivity, educational performance and more

Unlock the benefits of foreign languages for students with free resources for your school

What Can We Do To Support You?

Help your MFL Teachers, Guidance Counsellors and students by providing resources and promotional ideas including teaching material, events, information and Leaving Cert Saturday Classes and Online Essay writing support for lesser taught languages.

For more information and teaching resources for your MFL Teachers or ways to broaden the choice of languages in your school see PPLI.ie

 

The MFL Teacher Upskilling Scheme was developed under ‘Languages Connect’ strategy to develop existing, unused ‘dormant’ language capacity in our schools.

The scheme is aimed at languages teachers qualified in a language they are not teaching or are not teaching to full capacity.

Teachers can upskill to teach a language again after a period of not teaching it, or expand their teaching of the new language, perhaps moving from junior cycle teaching to senior cycle teaching.

With upskilling, schools are able to expand their capacity in languages provision or add new languages that are available on the curriculum.

MFL teachers in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian languages are currently availing of the upskilling scheme.

Twenty schools have been awarded €15,000 each to contribute towards exchange costs and to offer scholarships to students who would not otherwise be able to participate.  Click here for more information about the School Exchanges Scheme.

• Supplementary training materials are available on the PPLI website free of charge for all MFL teachers to diversify, enhance, and expand MFL teaching
• Resources to support teaching and learning in the classroom
• Resources for guidance counsellors are available as lesson plans
• Work placement portal and resources

• PPLI can assist you with the introduction of new languages via short courses, TY modules, and introductory first year courses.
• Curriculum support is available from PPLI. A generic short course has been developed for use in providing any MFL, and specific short courses in ISL, Japanese, Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian. All are fully aligned with NCCA templates and guidelines.

Benefits of Offering a Foreign Language in Your School

PPLI can help you to promote the work of your MFL colleagues in school

  • German department in Newpark Comprehensive hosting a language assistant
  • Teachers in Lucan Community College organising a school exchange
  • Presentation College Wexford using digital tools to support teaching and learning
  • Apply for a European Language Label from the European Union to show that you are a centre of excellence in MFL learning and teaching.

• Give parents the message that language learning is important to you – recent research by Red C shows that 78% of parents think learning a language is important as a life skill, and 81% think it’s important for finding work
• Demonstrate the range of opportunities open to students in the context of modern languages.
• Support the languages of the new Irish thus recognising the value that linguistic and cultural diversity delivers to individuals, society and the economy
• Show that you are a school where languages are celebrated

• More Languages More Options “No matter what else is on the CV, we really are
looking for languages” (Laura Glendon, Software Industry)
“A foreign language is something to make you stand out from the rest” (Niamh Cacciato, Lawyer)
“Had I not had a foreign language, I wouldn’t have had the massive opportunities I have had in life” (Ciaran MacSamhrain, Engineer)

• Learning languages supports development of communication skills, resourcefulness and creativity, problem solving and teamwork
• Language awareness developed in MFL learning improves skills in the first language
• Languages are an asset because they complement all sectors including STEM and business
“Students with languages can go into a whole range of diverse areas from writing to business to technical to diplomacy, international law and politics, it’s limitless” (Orlaith Tunney, Careers Services, Trinity College)
• Use languages teaching and learning to support the Digital Learning Framework. Tutorials to support the domains in the languages classroom are available on
the PPLI website.

Do you have students who speak different languages at home? Watch them become more confident and proud of their identity when you encourage their language in and outside the school.

The school community as a whole also benefits when you promote foreign languages. Students develop more empathy, acceptance and an appreciation for diversity.

• Ireland has signed up to the Barcelona objective of mother tongue plus two for every citizen
• Ireland as the only partly English-speaking nation in Europe will attract further funding opportunities such as opportunities for teacher exchange through
Erasmus+
• Foreign language competence is even more important in context of Brexit

Working with
languages

Watch and listen to some of the career stories

 

learn more

Did you
know?

Only 6.5%
of the world’s population are native English speakers