Expansion to Ireland as a case study in Irish open-access academic journal

A report summarising the results of the launch of Native School workshops in Ireland was published in the journal of the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics (IRAAL), Teanga.

Ireland is the country where the programme Native Schools has progressed the fastest. In only five months, our school workshops were implemented in two cities (Cork and Dublin) and three languages (Portuguese, Spanish and Italian). This contrasts with other countries, where Native School workshops took one to two years to reach different cities and languages.

Vital to the fast expansion in Ireland was the support of our local coordinators Francesca La Morgia, Ana Almeida and Maria Nuñez, together with Irish organisations like Mother Tongues, APC Microbiome Institute and Trinity College Dublin in the delivery of our workshops. Since the submission of the article to Teanga, the network has extended to French and to Galway, thanks to the involvement of the French Embassy in Ireland and Cell EXPLORERS. Overall, universities, research institutes and embassies have enabled Native Scientist to grow and flourish, assisting in the preparation of the scientists for the workshops, making venues available and providing funding for the activities. This shows that Irish society is "STEM-ready" and "multiculturalism-ready", reflecting the commitment that Ireland has in the promotion of STEM education and heritage languages among scientists.

Seventy-five children and seventeen scientists participated in these workshops. The report of these activities is now published in the Teanga journal, summarizing the impact of Native Schools in Ireland and setting the scene for future workshops. The full report can be read here.

Joana Moscoso and Taiana Correia, founders and directors of Native Scientist say: “To have our work published in a journal dedicated to general and applied linguistics is a milestone in the history of Native Scientist and a stepping stone for further developments and collaborations.”

Teanga

Teanga belongs to the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics and covers the topics of Second Language Acquisition, First Language Acquisition, Pragmatics, Bilingualism, Language Policy, Multimedia Language Learning, and Immersion Education.

Native Scientist

Native Scientist is a non-profit organisation based in the UK that develops and implements projects aimed at promoting science and language literacy among migrants students. Founded in 2013, it reaches over 1000 pupils a year and counts with a network of 800+ international scientists in Europe.