Annual Report 2023 Entire Book - Flipbook - Page 11
Inspiring Language Teaching and Learning for the Future
Languages Connect Summit
Saturday 14 October 2023, Convention Centre Dublin
This event brought together teachers and stakeholders of all languages to celebrate the progress of the
Languages Connect strategy and look to the future. Everyone had the opportunity to hear from expert
keynote speakers in language learning and wellbeing, to encourage and inspire teachers and stakeholders, to
collaborate and share with colleagues, to learn new skills and strategies in workshops hosted by teachers for
teachers, to inspire language learning for the future, and to provide an opportunity for relevant stakeholders
and teachers to engage with one another.
The themes, which were chosen to reflect priorities of the Languages Connect strategy and successes of
implementation, were:
Celebration | Collaboration | Diversification | Inclusion | Innovation | Inspiration
Topics highlighted on the day included CLIL, innovative digital technologies, and methodologies that
promote inclusion. The summit was an opportunity to showcase and celebrate the significant progress made
in many areas.
Stakeholders
The Department of Education, Oide, Oide Tech in Ed, Léargas, and COGG partnered with PPLI, offering relevant
workshops. Many other education partners and stakeholders were involved in workshops and disseminated
information to teachers at the expo including the NCCA, SEC, the Teaching Council, ten Higher Education
Institutions (HEIs), thirteen embassies and cultural institutes, and the Teacher Professional Networks (TPNs).
Participants
Teachers of the traditionally taught French, German, and Spanish made up the largest proportion of
participants. However, a significant number of participants were teachers of the new and lesser-taught
languages, including Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian. There
were also teachers of Arabic, Welsh and Korean as well as a cohort of teachers representing the non-curricular
languages including Dutch, Greek, Latvian, Romanian, and Turkish. A significant number of teachers of Irish
were also in attendance. In total there were 700 in-service teachers in attendance, many of whom also
provided workshops.
As a result of close collaboration with colleagues involved in teacher education in the HEIs it was possible to
include 140 Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students. It was an opportunity for the teachers of the future to
connect with other teachers, learn from the professional development opportunities, discover the teacher
professional networks, collaborate with their peers, and become familiar with the relevant Professional
Learning Communities on social media.
169 Foreign Language Assistants (FLAs) from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain also
attended on the day. As the Summit focused on celebrating the Languages Connect strategy and on
promotion and support for language education in Ireland, it offered a unique opportunity to include the
annual induction for the FLAs.
- PPLI ANNUAL REPORT 2023 -
11
