Monday 22/07/2024

This second week began with a course on Irish films. We studied 5 of them : The field, The commitments, Brooklyn, Banshees of Inisherin, and The quiet girl. After a short presentation and viewing extracts, we had to exchange about them : speech report, article for a newspaper, answer to a letter, write and talk about the clip from the perspective of another character. These pedagogical activities can easily be transposed to our students. During the second part of the day, we had a lesson about Hiberno-English, which uses a mix of English and Irish words with Irish pronunciation and grammar.

All these topics drive us deeper in Irish culture and history, and promote our language practice.

Date: Tuesday 23/07/24

We’re continuing our exploration of Irish literature this morning with the study of The Windows of Wonder by Bryan MacMahon. We first watch a short adaption of the story before reading the text. Many activities drove us to reflect on our practice as teachers : what are our values ? The world is changing, what do we have to teach ? Is «prompting» a new skill to teach ? Why creativity and imagination (=capacity to create mental images) are fundamental, and how to help our students to develop these skills ?

A second part dedicated to the North of Ireland and «The troubles» leads us to question our role as teachers once again : how can we teach disruption ? What can we do to make our students understand the world we live in ? We found out that there is no recipe to teach these sensitive subjects, but using the distance could help.

The afternoon was lighter with Peter’s guide to stripping : stress, tone, rhythm, intonation, pronunciation and so on. « It was good Craig » !!

Date: Wednesday 24/07/24

The great Art of Storytelling is the subject of today. Everyone had to introduce a myth or a legend from his country : we found out that they are similar topics in EU. Then, our teacher proposed us to read and analyse an article, using a very interesting way : we first are in group of 4 people, everyone has got a number in the group, then we split and join the same numbers of the other groups ; then, we have to read and summarize a short paragraph together. At least, we join our first group and try to answer the questions, everyone bringing what he found out. The main idea which emerged, one again, was the importance of making children and people in general, wonder and question. And stories are one of the way. We discovered that Celtic mythology still plays an important role in Irish culture and talked about beliefs, festivals, Banshee, Changeling, Leprechaun and Puca.

Date: Thursday 25/07/24

We keep on our discovery of Irish literature with drama. I will keep that creative writing activities based on literary texts such as poem make students work on their understanding of the text. During the afternoon, we worked on our portfolio, supervised by our teacher : we shared all we learnt, and we will bring back to our school. We found out that collaborative work on presentations is efficient on Google tools.

Cultural event tonight : River dance !

Date: Friday 26/07/24

Final session : Discussing Dissemination Strategies & Portfolio Presentations. «Grand oral » for everyone !

This experience was an opportunity to train my English speaking, as I don’t use it in my daily work. I could also deepen my knowledge about Irish culture and got a better understanding of the Irish society.

Meeting teachers from many European countries is very enriching, and I bring back various tools and teaching methods to share with my colleagues. 

Emmanuelle Nallis.