National Council for Curriculum and Assessment : Ireland
The National Council for Curriculum & Assessment in Ireland is devoted to improving the quality of education in Ireland by reforming assessment and curriculum. In 2007, in a scheme initiated by the Irish Minister for Education, Learnosity worked with the NCCA to investigate the use of Information and Communication Technology in the teaching and learning of Gaeilge (Irish).
RTÉ news story on Learnosity/ NCCA project broadcast 16th November 2009.
Project Background: Reforming Gaeilge Education in Ireland
The way in which to educate Irish students in their native tongue is a subject that has long caused controversy. Politicians and pundits alike have accused educators of neglecting to teach Irish (Gaeilge) in a way that appeals and impacts on Irish teenagers. They argue that this apparent lack of enthusiasm towards the Irish language is ultimately leading to the cessation of conversational Irish amongst young people and the language is slowly dying out with each new generation. More
Phase One: Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) Project, 2007
Presentation: Early MALL Project Overview
Watch the Learnosity CEO Gavin Cooney give a presentation at the EdTech2007 conference in DIT Bolton St., Dublin. The presentation given weeks into the first NCCA MALL project in 2007, gives an early look at the project. The title of the presentation was Use of Mobile Phones for language learning and formative assessment, a pilot project.
More about: Watch our CEO Gavin Cooney give a presentation about this project at the EdTech 2007 conference in DIT Bolton St., Dublin.
Project Results
The reports from the first MALL project showed that this technology increased student's motivation, confidence, and language speaking abilities; that teachers enjoyed the ability to be more interactive with all of the students and provide more individual feedback; that the classroom experience was much more enjoyable, with more participation and energy.
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Phase Two: 2008-2009 FÓN Project
In October 2008 Learnosity successfully completed the deployment of its ground breaking language learning platform in the second phase of this strategic project with the NCCA, NCTE and Foras na Gaeilge.
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European Award for Languages (Language Label)
NCCA and Ratoath College have been awarded the 2009 European Award for Languages- The Language Label for the FÓN project. The European Award for Languages is presented in recognition of a project's ability to engage language learners in a manner that is both meaningful and productive, while at the same time promoting a positive attitude towards both the learning and use of the target language. More
Project Components
The projects have the following main components:
- Voice Response: Students use a regular mobile phone to dial into the system and verbally answer a series of questions. This is later listened to by the teacher in a web interface, who provides the student feedback. More about Voice Response
- Text Chat: Students login to a web interface and are matched with another student. They then have a text-based conversation with the other student in a teacher-moderated way. Students later receive feedback from their teacher on the text-chat conversation. More about Text Chat
- SMS Vocabulary Builder: Each day, one Irish word or phrase was sent by SMS to the students' phones. The text messages, scheduled to arrive during Irish classes, were selected by teachers from a range of topics. Students were required to incorporate the word or phrase into Irish conversations during their school day. More about SMS For Vocabulary Learning
- Voice Chat: In the second phase of the project (the FÓN Project), Students dial into the system and get connected to another student of a similar ability. They then participate in a conference call based role-play with the other student. Teachers then listen to the conversation and provide feedback to the two students. As you can see below, teachers can visually see who is speaking at any one time. More about Voice Chat
Student Feedback
- I think using mobile phones to teach teenagers is a good idea because most teenagers are always stuck to their phone and they couldn't live without it!
- I liked it because it put a lot of fun into learning Irish and I think it was beneficial to me for my Junior Cert.