Dr Ingeborg Birnie
Senior Lecturer
Education
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.
Publications
Research Interests
My interests in promoting (minority) language use resulted in a £25,000 research grant from Bòrd na Gàidhlig which looked at the extent to which spoken Gaelic is used in public community settings. The findings of this study have contributed to the successful establishment of the social enterprise An Taigh Ceilidh (the meeting place) in Stornoway (Comhairle nan Eilean Siar), a designated social space where individuals can come and use Gaelic to socialise, meet, sing, share stories, strengthen community and social networks and create new friendships.
The promotion of social networks to use minority or endangered languages is also at the heart of my research in the use of social media and other technologies to support the use of minority languages. I am the Chair of Working Group 4 of the COST+ Action Language in the Human Machine Era (LITHME), where I am involved in organising workshops, international whole action group conferences, and the training school, where I have also delivered input on the role of current and future technologies on the continued use of minority or endangered language and sustaining language diversity.
The promotion of Gaelic in a range of different domains to sustain its use has also resulted in my involvement as co-investigator with the Diversity in Science towards Social Inclusion Erasmus+ project (worth €108,000 to the University of Strathclyde). This has allowed me to create a holistic view of language and culture that goes beyond the traditional bounded notions of identity through the creation of culturally sensitive activities within the sociology of science paradigm. The success of this project resulted in a further, funded project (£10,000 from the Royal Society of Chemistry) called Rannsachadh àrainn eucoir – am Puffin bochd) to further develop these notions and situate these in contemporary society.
I have also been successful in attracting funding (£3,000 Soillse) for an innovative cross-disciplinary project that brought together academics, researchers, practitioners and members of the public through a collaboration between three universities (University of Edinburgh, Stirling and Strathclyde) to explore the impact of bilingualism and language loss on patients and their caregivers. This results formed the basis of a The Conversation article which has, to date, attracted over 25,000 readers.
Professional Activities
Projects
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.
1. How do newly qualified and more established languages teachers link the principles set out in the National Framework for Languages to current and / or future classroom practices?
2. What kind of professional education do they consider most valuable in developing the competences they need to do this effectively?
Contact
Dr
Ingeborg
Birnie
Senior Lecturer
Education
Email: ingeborg.birnie@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 444 8088