Michaíl’s Story

English as the minority language

Michaíl, aged 4, was born in Greece. His dad, Ian, is Irish and his mum is Greek.  Michaíl attended the Language Explorers workshop with Ian while on holiday in Ireland. For Michaíl English is his home language because he lives in Greece where Greek is the majority language. He is fluent in both Greek and English but he was very shy to speak during the workshop. His favourite part was undeniably doing arts and crafts to create his family box with his dad.

In his family box, he created two spaces, one of the spaces represented Ireland and the other represented the Greek island he lives in.

“Michaíl notices a cultural shift when he visits Ireland and because of Covid we hadn’t been in Ireland for a while.” Says Ian, “I think he has used his family box to express and process the changes he’s experiencing travelling from Greece to Ireland to visit his grandparents.” 

Micheal

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