Gael and her family come from a rich multilingual background. Her children speak Spanish with their mother, Irish with their father, and English in their daily lives in Dublin. As they have grown up, they have sometimes shown a preference for one language over another, particularly favouring English or Irish due to their school and their wider environment.

While searching for language activities for her children, Gael discovered our Language Explorers workshops. Unlike most of her other activities, our workshops are not language-specific. With these workshops we aim to create an environment where multilingual families are normalised and celebrated. Gael has since used the workshops as a supplementary activity for her children, where no single language is expected and all languages are celebrated.

As her children grew older, Gael found that the workshops became an important tool in reinforcing positive associations between language and identity. Being surrounded by other families using different languages helped her children see that multilingualism is not unusual, but something to be proud of.

This became particularly important during a phase when her children began questioning the value of their other languages and showing resistance to using them. The workshops provided a supportive environment where they could see and hear other children using a variety of languages, helping to reduce this resistance and build confidence in their own linguistic identity.