Extramural digital practices of minoritised language learners

Résumé fourni par la source

The tensions surrounding the development of pluriliteracies in Irish-medium education (IME) highlight the challenge of protecting Irish as a vulnerable language while recognising learners’ wider plurilingual and digital lifeworlds. This chapter explores how extramural digital practices – those that learners engage in informally outside formal school settings – shape IME learners’ pluriliteracies and their pluriliterate identities and how these support their disciplinary learning in school. Drawing on survey data from 124 post-primary students, it examines their reported digital engagement in Irish and English, the disciplinary content areas these practices connect to, and the value learners place on them for school-based learning. Findings reveal that learners’ engagement with digital technology in and outside of school differs significantly. Moreover, the content areas that they engage in in English and Irish also differ. Additionally, learners attach relatively little importance to how their out-of-school digital activities support their disciplinary learning in school. The chapter concludes by suggesting that IME curricula need to actively harness learners’ plurilingual and pluriliterate realities, leveraging their extramural practices as assets for disciplinary literacies and for sustaining Irish beyond the classroom.

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