Mentorship is a crucial aspect of initial teacher education (ITE) for physical education (PE) teachers. This study seeks to explore best practices in mentoring PE teachers during placement, identifying effective strategies, challenges, and areas for development.

There are moves both north and south of the border to develop CLIL provision for the teaching of modern foreign languages to support student engagement and interest in a more purposeful language learning environment. As far as I am aware, no HEI institution in the island of Ireland offers a robust ITE-based training option to develop the skills required to be an effective CLIL teacher in MFL contexts. This project will 1) research effective practices for the development of MFL CLIL teachers from across Europe as part of a scoping review of provision, 2) to co design in collaboration with students across two HEIs a 5-10 credit research informed module on CLIL pedagogy to be delivered as part of an ITE programme, 3) to pilot and evaluate its implementation with MFL teachers in both jurisdictions. To achieve this, I am looking to work with an ITE partner in NI working in MFL who could realistically implement such a module as part of a pilot study.

My research aims to investigate late immersion education, creating a profile of late immersion learners and their needs. Immersion education is a form of bilingual education in which students normally receive at least half of their subject matter instruction through an additional language (Lyster & Genesee, 2012). Late or delayed immersion refers to a later entry point to immersion education, defined by Ó Muircheartaigh and Hickey (2008) as an entry point to immersion education at post-primary level. Learners transition from English-medium primary schools to Irish-medium post-primary schools. This is often seen in Wales, where late immersion offerings assist with the nurturing of bilingualism and the revitalisation of the Welsh language (Williams, 1996). Often, early and late immersion learners are placed in the same class. While 76%-100% of learners attend a Gaelscoil in the majority of Irish-medium post-primary schools in the Republic of Ireland, less than 50% can be found in some settings (Ó Duibhir et al., 2017).

Levels of proficiency among students may create challenges for immersion teachers, with specialised and specific professional development required to support the development of language, content and literacy (Cammarata & Ó Ceallaigh, 2020). While the vision for this research project is not solely focused on schools in areas of low socio-economic status, it is important to note that 5/29 Irish-medium post-primary schools in the Republic of Ireland have DEIS status. The DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) programme was designed to give tailored support to schools who have high concentration of disadvantage to improve educational outcomes and progression (Department of Education, 2017). Additional immersion education supports are needed to address the needs of low SES immersion students (Ní Chlochasaigh et al., 2021), and further challenges may be faced by late immersion students who may not have had the opportunity to attend a Gaelscoil or who may not have the same levels of parental support as their peers in non-DEIS schools (Nelis et al., 2021).

I am interested in finding a NI partner to create a much-needed profile of the late immersion community, exploring choice, identity and pedagogy.

This research attempts to synthetize teacher knowledge in advancing plurilinguistic competencies in the elementary school classroom concurrently with an empirical definition of ‘effective practice’. Through a corpus of 87 studies forming the basis of a systematic literature review (PRISMA, 2009), a comprehensive data search exploring peer-reviewed journals, relevant modern foreign language (MFL) terminology, geographical locations and educational policies underpinning the role of teacher knowledge in the plurilinguistic classroom, helped inform and develop this study. The People Exposure Outcome Framework (PEO) was utilized as means of collecting, extracting, and interpreting such qualitative data in concordance with focus groups, reflective journals, questionnaires, observations and surveys.

The rationale for this research stemmed from the recent implementation of Ireland’s ‘Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education 2017-2026’ (DES, 2017) and has given primary school educators the opportunity to enhance plurilinguistic values and pedagogical competencies in the classroom. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate what current research unearths in relation to the demands on elementary teacher knowledge in cultivating plurilinguistic repertoires in classrooms.

Findings of this systematic literature review integrate the current evidence regarding the critical factors conducive to plurilinguistic competencies in the elementary school classroom. This paper will present a critical review of the relevant literature base and synthesize findings in an attempt to ascertain what is known from extant studies. Following on from this, the research gap will be identified and research evidence on specific factors in relation to MFL and plurilinguistic pedagogy. The paper will conclude with a discussion on re-imagining teacher knowledge, effective pedagogical practice and the development of plurilinguistic repertoires driven through new imperatives and creative responses.