UCD Mark Historic Day with Launch of BEd Programme
September 13th2023 marked an historic day in the School of Education with the launch of the new BEd in Education, Gaeilge and/or Modern Languages programme. This programme is a collaboration between UCD School of Education, UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore and UCD School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures. The team welcomed just over 50 students onto this new and innovative programme which seeks to train and develop high quality language teachers for post-primary schools.
Launch of BEd Education, Gaeilge and/or Modern Languages Programme
Our students are studying across 3 strands including (1) Education and Modern Languages (2 languages), (2) Education and Gaeilge and (3) Education, Gaeilge and Modern Languages. They can choose from Gaeilge, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese.
There are 3 pillars to the programme. The first relates to language learning where student engage in modules to develop their skills and proficiency in the language they have decided to choose. The second pillar focusses on student as initial teacher, engaging in education modules to contribute to their development as language teachers in post-primary schools. For example, students have been engaging with language pedagogy, socio-historic perspectives on education and creativity and wellbeing in/through education.
Group Language Activity
Exploring Wellbeing with Andrew McGrane
Creativity and Wellbeing with David Delaney
Creativity and Nature
This programme adopts an innovative approach to teaching and learning, with a focus on the importance of creativity and innovation as a language teacher. Most recently, the students used LEGO to produce short stop motion movies in 1 hour to explore the creative process and its role in developing creative problem solving, critical thinking and reflective practice in teaching and learning.
Stop Motion Movie Making with LEGO
Here is an example of one of the movies:
The final strand of the programme focusses on the development of our students as educators, with placement in a primary school to be undertaken in Trimester 2. All of our students are very much looking forward to this!
Further information on our programme can be found here: