Offaly County Library services will receive a European Award for Languages - the Language Label 2009 for its involvement in a languages project in Birr Library facilitated by Martina Needham, Executive Librarian in Birr. The awards ceremony will take place in Dublin on Friday 25th September 2009. This is the first time that a library has received an award for its involvement in the project.
The European Award for Languages - the Language Label (EAL) is an annual award given to projects where participants have found creative ways to improve the quality of language teaching, motivate students, and make the best of available resources. The Award, which is coordinated by the European Commission, is managed in Ireland by Léargas.
The purpose of the award is to recognise the achievements of individual language learners. This award targets learners, from any sector, who have tackled challenges head on and have emerged with significantly improved language skills.
In Offaly Libraries, the project was a collaboration between the library and Modern Language Primary Schools Initiative (MLPSI). The project was held on the 26th September 2008 (European Day of Languages)
This project invited the four primary schools in the area that had chosen to study a modern language as of MLPSI. The event - European Cultural Morning began at 10:00am and finished at 1:00pm. the event was divided into two different parts:
Part 1: Each School performed a little drama using their modern language (French or Spanish, and Irish)
Part 2: The library organised 10 different workstations to focus on 10 different skill sets. The workstations had a specific purpose and focused on the following skills
- library skills
- information retrieval
- language recognition
- language comprehension
- cultural awareness
- general knowledge
- geographical knowledge
- wordplay
- information literacy
- reference skills
Different teaching methods were used to ensure that all students benefited from the exercise.
This project was a platform to show the possibility of collaboration between schools, MLPSI and the library service.
This project showcased the library and its resources to both the primary schools - pupils, teachers, parents and the MLPSI.