Dr Ingeborg Birnie

Senior Lecturer

Strathclyde Institute of Education

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Personal statement

I am a senior lecturer in the School of Education. My research interests are focussed on (minority) languages in and for teaching that go beyond the bounded notions of identity and culture. I lead the Council of Europe's European Centre for Modern Languages PALINGUI - language learning pathways of young children – making language learning visible - project and I am the co-chair of the Scottish Council of Deans of Education Languages Group which is responsible for the National Framework for Languages and associated resources as well as the Plurilingual Classrooms in Action MOOC (hosted through FutureLearn) - for which I created the content for the diversity and intercultural awareness section. The promotion of social networks (real and virtual) for the use of (minority) language(s) is at the heart of my research and I am the Chair of Working Group 4 of the COST+ Action Language in the Human Machine Era (LITHME) and also influences my work with the Erasmus+ project Diversity in Science towards Social Inclusion. I lead and teach on a range of different modules across the School of Education, many focussed on the teaching and learning of languages or on the Early Years and Childhood practice. I supervise a large number of doctoral students, typically with a focus on language learning and teaching. I am currently the chair and Editor in Chief of the Northern Scotland Journal (Edinburgh University Press). I am registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) and am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Institute. I have acted as an external examiner for EdD and PhD doctoral thesis and I was invited to be external expert on an initial teacher education reaccreditation panel. I hold a number of external examiner positions at different Universities. I regularly appear on BBC programmes, including news contributions and input to current affairs programmes to talk about my work in Gaelic and education.

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Teaching

Dr Birnie leads and teaches on a range of different modules across the Institute of Education, many focussed on the teaching and learning of languages or on the Early Years and Childhood practice. She is the course leader for the BA (Hons) Primary Education with Gaelic Medium Education, and was previously (2018 - 2020) course leader of the Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Issues and Impact, delivered face-to-face in Pakistan, and the MEd (blended pathway).

She supervises a large number of doctoral students, typically with a focus on language learning and teaching. 

 

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Research Interests

Dr Birnie's research interests are focussing on minority languages, both within and outside of the educational domain - in real and virtual spaces. She has received research grants from Bòrd na Gàidhlig to evaluate the use of spoken Gaelic in public settings within different communities as a measure of the vitality of the language.  The findings of this study have resulted in the establishment of a charity (An Taigh Ceilidh) which promotes Gaelic social network through the creation of a physical 'breathing space' for the language. Her research has also evaluated the use of Gaelic in social media and how these can contribute to creating networks of communal practice.

More recently her work has also focussed on new technologies, and in particular the use of generative Artificial Intelligence in and for minority languages and aligning these developments with human rights, democratic principles, and ethical data use. 

 

 

Professional Activities

Monitoring Visit to Slovenia by the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities
Consultant
2/3/2026
Technocamps Scotland: Coimpiutaireachd sa Ghàidhlig
Contributor
28/2/2026
What now for Gaelic education in Scotland's Schools
Contributor
19/2/2026
International forum on the preservation and promotion of Indigenous and Minority Languages
Keynote/plenary speaker
9/2/2026
The Council of Europe (External organisation)
Advisor
9/2/2026
Cànanan a' lùghdachadh buaidh na h-aoise
Interviewee
11/11/2025

More professional activities

Projects

Technocamps Scotland: Coimpiutaireachd sa Ghàidhlig
Clift, Lee (Principal Investigator) Birnie, Inge (Co-investigator)
28-Jan-2025 - 28-Jan-2026
Erasmus+ Project: Integrating primary and pre-school virtual exchange projects into language teacher education
De Britos, Angela (Co-investigator) Birnie, Inge (Principal Investigator) Mouat, Clare (Co-investigator)
Ongoing consultancy for the INVITED project (integrating primary and pre-school virtual exchange projects into language teacher education) seeks to promote the use of virtual exchange (VE) projects in primary and pre-school language education and to develop teachers' competences regarding VE by integrating VE projects with young learners into pre- and in-service language teacher education. Project members are teacher educators from five different universities in Europe in cooperation with local schools.

Outputs:
The project is going to implement a survey on teachers´ experiences with VE in pre-school and primary language education to find out about teachers´ needs.
A community for teachers interested in VE is created in the form of an e-twinning group to exchange experiences and materials and display good practice.
A teacher education module that includes the implementation of a VE project in a local school is developed, adapted for a professional development course and made available on the ESEC platform.

The project provides opportunities for pre- and in-service teachers to connect through the online community and offers support for their VE projects. It develops a teacher education module that will be part of the partners´ curricula and made available as an online training course. These outcomes will help promote the use of VE in young learner language education, develop teachers´ competences regarding VE and foster children´s and teachers´ cultural, linguistic and digital competences.
01-Jan-2023 - 01-Jan-2026
“Delivering 1 + 2 Languages” – pre-service teachers’ perspectives
De Britos, Angela (Co-investigator) Birnie, Inge (Principal Investigator)
This study aims to build on a previous study conducted by Birnie (2021) to evaluate the experiences and attitudes of new entrants to the teaching profession in Scotland towards languages in order to support these students’ pre-service provision in line with the latest Scottish Government short-life working group recommendations on the 1 + 2 policy. Furthermore, this study will aim to identify the attitudes of student teachers towards languages themselves; an important indicator of how they will conceptualise this in the classroom but also their perceived confidence and competence in different languages. Where teachers feel confident and competent in the delivery of a curricular area, they are more likely to be able to deliver this successfully (Valdera Gil & Crichton, 2020) and therefore any measures that can be taken to support student teachers pre-service will impact on the delivery of this area of the curriculum in primary schools. This will guide future development on the post- and under-graduate Initial Teacher Education Programmes and provide a valuable insight into the future support needs of early-career teachers.
01-Jan-2022
Rannsachadh Àrainn Eucoir: Am Puffin Bochd (English: Crime Science Investigation: The Poor Puffin)
Ross, Kirsty (Principal Investigator) Birnie, Inge (Co-investigator) Essex, Jane (Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2023
Plurilingualism in Action - FutureLearn Massive Open Online Course
Birnie, Inge (Academic)
MOOC to develop teachers' understanding of learning and teaching languages to explore the transformative role of languages in education.
01-Jan-2021
Diversity in Science towards Social Inclusion
Essex, Jane (Principal Investigator) Ross, Kirsty (Co-investigator) Salehjee, Saima (Co-investigator) Birnie, Inge (Research Co-investigator)
An Erasmus+ project that seeks to explore teaching strategies that could overcome barriers to full involvement of science by school pupils with a range of personal characteristics.
15-Jan-2020 - 14-Jan-2023

More projects

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Contact

Dr Ingeborg Birnie
Senior Lecturer
Strathclyde Institute of Education

Email: ingeborg.birnie@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 444 8088