The Use of Plurilingual Strategies to Enhance Students’ A1/A2 English Speaking Skills: Teachers’ Perspectives

The present study investigated the current status of language support provision for migrant children in Irish schools and the role of English as an Additional Language (henceforth EAL) teachers in this process. The focus was on the potential of plurilingual strategies in the EAL classroom. EAL teachers were interviewed, in relation to their attitudes to the use of L1, plurilingualism and the implementation of plurilingual pedagogies to enhance A1/A2 CEFR level speaking skills.A mixed methods approach was adopted involving a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews. Findings here have shown that plurilingualism was encouraged by more than half of the sample interviewed.The research showed the specific ways EAL teachers supported the use of L1 in the classroom, the ways in which they tried to break psychological barriers before teaching and the role of L1 in the creation of a low anxiety atmosphere for both the learners and the teachers. This study also reports on how teachers compared and contrasted L1 and L2 to enrich metacognition in the students’ approach towards foreign languages and how teachers were able to use plurilingualism in the EAL classroom.