Language Explorers

Language Explorers is Mother Tongues’ flagship programme for children in the early years. The Language Explorers workshops have a strong focus on language development, parent-child communication and literacy. Workshops provide a high-quality creative experience for parents and their children based on storytelling, drama, visual arts and music. English or Irish speaking or multilingual, every family is welcome to our workshops!

all children get inspired to embrace different languages and cultures

bilingual children get an enhanced interest in their mother tongue

parents become more confident in using their mother tongue

the whole family benefits from an arts-based approach to language development and community building

What people say

We absolutely love these workshops! Not just for the fun of doing crafts but also for the opportunity it affords our children to be surrounded by other children from different backgrounds and to hear them speak their own languages, while at the same time participating in the same activity. We cannot wait to go to the next workshop!

Sofia

Parent

My son Denis and I had an incredible time being part of the workshops with Fernanda. She is one in a million! She provides a space where everyone feels creative, confident and very comfortable. Her puppet theatre performances leave no child indifferent. My son has a fear of a 'blank paper' so Fernanda tried a few approaches to help him enter a creative mode. With success! She is a beautiful person and highly professional.

Svetlana

Parent

During our time attending the Language Explorers workshops, I noticed a big change in Giulia’s relationship with and use of Spanish, impacting also on her interest in Italian and Galician. I think in general she might be discovering her personal identity and it is wonderful to watch

Barbara

Parent

Facilitating creative multilingual workshops through Mother Tongues Language Explorers has amazingly changed my practice forever. Multilingual workshops open up lots of conversations and are endlessly creative.

Mark Ball

Artist

Volunteering at the Language Explorers workshops has been an enriching experience! Meeting new faces, recognising the returning families week after week, and seeing the positive effects that arts have on both the children and their parents. I have seen first-hand how Mother Tongues’ workshops are safe spaces for families that have moved to Ireland from other countries, and as a volunteer, I too have experienced these safe spaces but in my own unique way! I truly enjoyed working with the artits, engaging with the families, and praising both the children and the parents for their spectacular works of art!

Michael

Volunteer

We love the Language Explorers programme! It draws children's attention to languages in the environment and gives them the opportunity to explore language in a creative and fun way. For children who are bilingual or multilingual, it gives their home language a status in the classroom, it brings their language into everyday learning. The children further develop their sense of pride in their language and love to share it with others. For our staff, the workshops model good practice and help them to see that sharing home languages is positive, enriching and most importantly, very easy to do!

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal, St. Mary's Primary School, Dublin

Thank you so much for the really wonderful set of workshops you did for our school yesterday. The children thoroughly enjoyed their time with the ‘Language Explorers’ becoming aware of the variety of different languages spoken in our classrooms and being encouraged to embrace all languages positively! The teachers gave really great feedback and were very happy with the standard of the workshops and the level of involvement of the children. Everyone really enjoyed the day. Our school will definitely be in contact with you early in the new school year to discuss further ways we can collaborate with you all.

Aileen Lyons

Stanhope Street Primary School, Dublin

Language Explorers has been selected as one of the most impactful and scalable innovations in education for the HundrED Spotlight on Parental Engagement!