Language Acquisition
The child’s acquisition of additional languages occurs in developmental stages. The child who is learning English for the first time utters one or two word phrases before he/she develops more fluency in the language. The child has to develop a sense of how English works internally before he/she can overcome the challenges associated with speaking or writing. In Irish primary and post-primary schools there has been an increase in the number of children whose home language is neither English nor Irish. The EAL guidelines have been developed to support mainstream primary school teachers in meeting the learning needs of these children, who come from a diversity of backgrounds.

Language
Language Acquisition: Introduction (PDF) download