RECENT research carried out by Dr Judith Wylie and Dr Gerry Mulhern from Queen's University'S School of Psychology indicating that there are significant underlying advantages to children who are being educated in Irish-medium Schools has been warmly welcomed by the Principal of Gaelscoil an Chaistil, Ballycastle.
Aside from the obvious cultural and social benefits of bilingualism, their research shows that there are real cognitive gains from being bilingual.
The research the first of its kind involving the Irish-medium sector looks at short term memory and w
orking memory performance in primary school children.
Dr Wylie explained Short memory and working memory are centrally important in all learning, indeed everyday tasks such as reading, reasoning and mental arithmetic rely heavily on these processes. Using standardised tests of verbal and visual memory, our research compared groups of children from Irish-medium schools with children from the more usual English-only schools in Northern Ireland.
Results indicated that children who attended Irish-medium schools significantly outperformed those from the English-medium sector. On average, 8-year-old and 10-year-old children from Irish-medium schools were found to outperform children of a similar age from English-only schools. However the most dramatic finding was that 8-year-old Irish-medium children performed at least as well as, and in several areas better than, 10-year-olds from English-only schools.
Brdn N Dhonnghaile Principal of the Ballycastle school said: "This research by Queen's University is groundbreaking and adds further evidence to the increasingly indisputable body of science that shows that children who are educated in Irish-medium schools are not only receiving the benefit of two languages but are also receiving tangible educational advantages.
"Earlier this year, Key Stage 2 assessments (Primary 7), which focus on the areas of English and maths, demonstrated that for the last three years attainment in Irish-medium education has been higher than the Northern Ireland average. What the Queens research provides is a deeper insight into the mechanisms at work in the superior performance by Irish-medium children when compared to the more usual English language schools."
Brdn continued: "It is great for our school to be associated with the work of Queens University indeed, Dr Wylie and her colleagues have been here with us in the last week continuing with other aspects of this work.
"This research has a direct and relevant impact into the childrens education as it gives us the teachers baseline information and indeed greater insights into the effectiveness of our teaching.
"These results are of the highest quality and have been presented at international conferences all over the world. It is a real pleasure for our school community, the children, my staff and their parents to be associated with such exciting work. It is the strongest affirmation that Gaelic-medium Education which is providing children with the highest levels of attainment as well as fluency in English and Gaeilge."
Gaelscoil an Chaistil can be contacted on 02820768883
