Out-of-school Use of Irish, Motivation and Proficiency in Immersion and Subject-only Post-primary Programmes

Receptive vocabulary knowledge and motivation in CLIL and EFL

“…The research in the Basque Country by (e.g., Lasagabaster, 2011) contributes to palliate the lack of empirical findings. Some studies have been conducted in Ireland (Murtagh, 2007) and in Finland (Seikkula-Leino, 2007). Overall, results confirm what assumptions suggest: language learning and motivation benefit from each other in a CLIL context.…”

Motivation and Vocabulary Breadth in CLIL and EFL Contexts. Different age, Same Time of Exposure

“…In the line of the last study, some studies have focused on examining motivation in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and EFL contexts. Most researchers find that motivational levels are higher in CLIL settings (Lasagabaster 2011, Murtagh 2007, Seikkula-Leino 2007. One of the reasons for this result is provided by Dalton-Puffer (2008), who points to the idea that CLIL may make learners lose their inhibitions to use the foreign language in a spontaneous way.…”

‘You’re looking at this different language and it freezes you out straight away’: identifying challenges to parental involvement among immersion parents

“…For the purposes of the present research, which examines the nature of parental involvement in an immersion context, it is pertinent to look at why parents might or might not choose to become involved in their children's education. Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (1995, 2007 moved beyond demographics with a model of parental involvement grounded in psychological literature (see also Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler's contributions in Walker et al 2005). This framework suggests that parents choose to become involved in their child's education for the following reasons: their personal construction of the parental role; their personal sense of efficacy for helping their children succeed in school; their perception of opportunities and demands for involvement presented both by their children and their children's schools; and life context variables.…”

“…However, there is a clear mismatch between Irish ability and use, with only 1.8% indicating that they used the language daily outside of the education system and a further 2.6% responding that they use Irish on a weekly basis only (Central Statistics Office 2012). While there are networks of Irish speakers in the country, these are largely dispersed, and as a result the opportunities for immersion (and mainstream) students to use the language in real communicative settings outside of school are very limited (Murtagh 2007). This, in turn, entails a limitation in the richness of language to which pupils are exposed, but it is also likely to depress their motivation to use the language as a result of being mainly or wholly associated with the school curriculum and not with peer culture (Baker 2003).…”

“…Hoover- Dempsey and Sandler (1995, 2007 argue that it is those parents who believe that parents should be involved in their children's education who are most likely to become involved. Parents with a less active role construction will be more likely to think their child's education should be 'left up to the school'.…”