Like many other Irish expats, I've always thought about going back to 'scoil' and doing an Irish (or 'Gaelic' Irish to those of you not from Ireland!) refresher course at some stage... but low and behold our prayers have been answered as Duolingo has released a new course in Irish now!

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Duolingo is an excellent language learning app in the style of a game. It's free and really easy to use. I have my classes use it all the time for 5 minutes at the beginning or end of class and award extra points to those who are top of the leaderboard at the end of the week. As language teachers we are always trying to find ways to get our students actively involved in the language outside the class. With Duolingo it seems I have really managed to achieve this as I can see that almost all my students are using the app on their own outside class in their free time.

Of course, in my opinion at least, it is no substitute for the real live classroom or for immersing yourself in the language by going to where it is spoken. However it is a really excellent complimentary tool if you are currently studying a language or as a way of refreshing language skills you learnt a few years ago, as I've been doing for German and now, for Irish!

My students have become really interested in it and they compete against each other to see who can get to the highest level. It has been a really great way for them to learn new vocabulary and to practice grammar we are doing in class. The great this is that you can easily login with facebook and you can also follow your mates and see their progress. 

If any of you have an account please feel free to look me up and follow me:
https://www.duolingo.com/liamprinter

And now it is 't-am' for some Duolingo 'as Gaeilge'!