Multilingualism in the early years
BABO Multiplier event
On Saturday, November 9th, we gathered at the Tara Building in Dublin to host the multiplier event exploring the tools we’ve developed through the Erasmus+ Project BABO: Bilingual And Bicultural Outlook.
Dr Francesca La Morgia, Director of Mother Tongues, took us through our current projects, goals, and key partnerships. She emphasized how Mother Tongues strives to support linguistically responsive environments in schools and communities, sharing stories of our work and how it contributes to building inclusive spaces for families and educators. The BABO project is one of the initiatives we are proud to have been involved in, developing resources that make a difference for multilingual children in Ireland.
BABO: Bilingual And Bicultural Outlook
Juan Ruiz Subirán, Director of Baby Erasmus, took the stage to introduce BABO: Bilingual And Bicultural Outlook. He provided an in-depth look at the project’s mission to make bilingual learning accessible and engaging for young children through educational resources and activities. Juan explained how BABO’s interactive tools, like educational games, cartoons, and activities based on Multiple Intelligences Theory, are designed to support language learning in the early years. His presentation sparked a lot of interest, especially among educators eager to see these tools in action. Some of the educators who had tested the resources in their settings attended the event, and told us that the games and cartoons were valuable in their practice and highly enjoyed by the children.
On November 7th and 8th, we held our final transnational meeting to wrap up all the resources and take care of the administrative details. It was a pleasure to host our partners: the coordinators Baby Erasmus and the Research Group Nodo Educativo from the University of Extremadura (Spain), Smartmaking (Spain), MTU (Ireland), Tecnologias Imaginadas (Portugal), Superlexi (Belgium) and La Rueda (Austria). Particularly interesting for all the partners was the presentation by artist Fernanda Ferrari, who talked about her work with Mother Tongues over the past two years and the development of the Language Explorers programme.
Experiencing BABO: An Interactive Session with Caroline Walters
Primary school teacher and Mother Tongues’ Board member Caroline Walters led an interactive session that allowed attendees to experience one of the BABO’s games firsthand. Participants had the chance to try out some of the activities developed through the BABO project, including flash cards and educational cartoons in Spanish, designed to promote vocabulary learning in fun, engaging ways. Caroline’s session gave everyone a hands-on understanding of how BABO’s resources can be used by educators to teach children English as a second language to newcomer children in schools and by parents to keep up their mother tongue(s) at home.
Multilingualism in the Early Years: Introduction to OWL and OWLet
Dr Christina Egan Marnell, an Early Years Specialist from Early Childhood Ireland, introduced the two resources they developed in partnership with Mother Tongues: OWL (Our World of Languages) and OWLET. Both tools aim to strengthen linguistically responsive pedagogy in preschool and help early years educators embrace linguistic diversity in their classrooms. Christina’s insights on the benefits of fostering multilingualism from an early age were inspiring, and her presentation showed how these tools can help create inclusive and welcoming spaces for children of all language backgrounds. You can download the OWL provocation pack here.
OWLET: Lullabies of the World is a project aimed at supporting babies and young children to practice language, develop their own positive identity and develop an understanding of others. learn more and listen to the playlist here.
Mother Tongues Resources for Parents and Educators
To wrap up the day, our Director Dr Francesca La Morgia talked about some of the various resources for parents and educators that Mother Tongues has developed to support multilingualism in the early years. These include our Learning Hub, the Language Explorers programme and other free, digital tools designed to help families and teachers foster a love for languages, acceptance and appreciation for diversity, at home and in educational settings.
Thank you once again to everyone who attended, participated, and supported us. We want to extend a special thank you to Juan Ruiz Subirán, Rosa Fernández Sánchez and Jesús Valverde Berrocoso, the coordinators of the BABO project, for travelling to Dublin to share their knowledge and experience with us. Their leadership in this project has been invaluable, and we’re so grateful to have such passionate partners in Baby Erasmus and the other organisations involved in BABO. Special thanks also go out to our Chairperson, Tríona Cummins, and board members Vincenza Paladino, Maria Golpe Varela and Caroline Walters for their support on this occasion. Our Language Explorers artists, volunteers, parents, Languages Connect and all the supporters of Mother Tongues who came along to the Tara Building played a crucial role in making the event a success.
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