Biography
Dr. Deirdre Ní Loingsigh, Stiúrthóir na Gaeilge, Ollscoil Luimnigh is the Director of Aonad na Gaeilge, the Irish Language Centre, at the University of Limerick. She is Course Director of the Dioplóma sa Ghaeilge Fheidhmeach programme and she also leads the Gaeilge strand on the Professional Master of Education (Languages). She teaches on language pedagogy and applied Irish modules.She is a Knowledge for Change (K4C) Mentor with UL Engage having completed the Mentor Training Programme at the University of Victoria, Canada. She currently leads the Languages and Culture portfolio at the Knowledge for Change (K4C) UNESCO Hub in Limerick.
Her early career teaching Physical Education and Irish, and her background in the disciplines of History and Local Studies, and Folklore inform her teaching, research, and engagement activities. Before joining UL as a member of Faculty in 2001, she taught at GMIT (Castlebar Campus) and worked with Meitheal Mhaigh Eo Teo, the Area Based Partnership for Co. Mayo, on a rural development initiative in the Erris Gaeltacht.
She has led many innovations and projects relating to Irish language support, advising, promotion and pedagogy over the last twenty years. More recently, in her role as K4C Mentor, she has led the design and production of COMHRÁ, a teaching and learning resource on Community-Based Participatory Research. This ten-part video vignette series was produced for UL Engage/K4C Hub in 2021.
She has been actively involved in the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) Language for Work project since 2017. In October 2021 she was the Irish coordinator of the ECML Training and Consultancy two-day event for member states Language for Work: Supporting Work-Related Second Language Learning.
Her research areas of expertise are Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha (An Seabhac); Advising in Language Learning (ALL); Language for Work; Language and Wellbeing; Adult Education, and Participatory Research. She is currently supervising four PhD students working in the field of the Psychology of Language Learning.
Key Responsibilities
Stiúrthóir, Aonad na Gaeilge [The Irish Language Centre at UL] https://ulsites.ul.ie/aonadnagaeilge/about-aonad-na-gaeilge
Course Director: Dioplóma sa Ghaeilge Fheidhmeach
Subject Leader - Gaeilge: Professional Master of Education (Languages)
UL Knowledge for Change (K4C) Mentor (Languages and Culture Portfolio)
School Placement Tutor
Module Coordinator: GA4006 Gaeilge Ghairmiúil
Module Coordinator: LP6012/LP6015 (Language Pedagogy).
Research Interests
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR); adult learners; transformative learning; work-based language learning; Advising for Language Learning (ALL); language policy and organisational change; language anxiety; language networks; new speakerness; problem-based learning; language teacher education, and the life and work of An Seabhac. My training as a Knowledge for Change (K4C) mentor in 2019 and my involvement in the UNESCO Knowledge for Change (K4C) initiative at UL has triggered a new interest in arts-based research methods also.The title of my doctoral thesis was 'Minority Language Learning in the Workplace: Contextual Practices, Relational Knowing, Mandate, and Change'. I proposed a framework of language advising for the mandated and minority language context in this work. I also mapped the spatial and contextual practices of members of a Language Support Network, a Network which I established as a forum where issues of language anxiety in the professional context might be explored. The findings of this Participatory Action Research (PAR) study inform current practice in language support initiatives at Aonad na Gaeilge, UL.
I am currently coordinating BLÁTHÚ, a PAR project entitled An Rannpháirtíocht Phobail, Líonrú agus an Tacaíocht Teanga do Nuachainteoirí na Gaeilge i bpobail lasmuigh den Ghaeltacht [Public Engagement, Networking and Language Support for New Speakers of Irish in Communities outside of An Ghaeltacht]
Professional Activities
Education
- 2019 University of Victoria, Canada - Knowledge for Change Mentor
- 2015 NUIM - Doctor of Education
- 2003 UL - MA History and Local Studies
- 1999 NUIG - MA sa Nua-Ghaeilge
- 1993 UL - BA Corpoideachas le Gaeilge
Committee
- Coiste na Gaeilge, UL ,
- UL Official Languages Act Implementation Group ,
- An Coiste Seasta um Cháilíocht Teanga, NUIG,
- University Teacher Education Board,
- UL Engage University Working Group,
Association
- Rúnaí Ballraíochta / Membership Secretary 2001-2014, Cumann Merriman
- Appointed member (2000-2003), Irish Water Safety (IWS) National Education Commission
- Member of Executive Committee (1997-1999), Physical Education Association of Ireland [PEAI]
- Rúnaí Feidhmeach (2005-2006), Coiste na nOifigeach agus na Stiúrthóirí Gaeilge Ollscoile
- Member, The International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning (IAPLL)
Other
- External Examiner: Dioplóma i Múineadh na Gaeilge (Daoine Fásta)
Maynooth University, NUI Maynooth.
Outreach
- I lead the Knowledge for Change (K4C) Language and Culture portfolio for UL. K4C is UNESCO initiative which aims to train the next generation of Community-Based Participatory Research researchers and promote authentic university-community research partnerships The K4C programme was officially launched at St Munchin's Community Centre, Kileely on 11 Feb. 2020,
Research Collaborators
- Marina Mozzon- Mc Pherson - Joint Publication -England -Currently collaborating on journal article on language advising for newspeakerness
- European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) Language for Work Network - Joint Programme -Austria -European Centre for Modern Languages Network (ECML) I will be hosting a national workshop in Limerick in October 2020 to disseminated the ECML Language for Work project materials and meet other needs relating to LFW in the Irish context.
- COST Action New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe - Other -Member of Working Group 8 on the New Speakers Network Speakerness: Subjectivities, Trajectories, Space
- Dr. TJ Ó Ceallaigh - Co-supervision of PhD -Student: Emily-Anne Rennison
- Carsten Quell - Outgoing Visitor -Canada Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Ottawa. (Project on Linguistic Insecurity) Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat / Government of Canada
- Budd Hall/Rajesh Tandon - International Collaboration Type -Univerisity of Victoria, Canada & PRIA, India UNESCO Co-Chairs on Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education)
- Language Management Interdisciplinary Group - International Collaboration Type - University of Ottawa -Canada -Invited member of The Language Management Interdisciplinary Research Group (GRIGL https://ccerbal.uottawa.ca/lmirg/members