Dr Fíodhna Gardiner-Hyland, Project Leader, TEAL

Dr Fíodhna Gardiner-Hyland, B Ed, TEFL, MA (Ed) & PhD, is a lecturer in language and literacy education at Mary Immaculate College and leader of the TEAL Project.

Fíodhna is currently involved in collaborative research, focusing on teachers' perceptions of supporting language and literacy development of pupils with EAL in Irish Primary Schools. Since 2019, Fíodhna has been leading a community of practice of teachers of EAL learners in DEIS primary schools in Limerick. This community of practice (CoP TEAL), which is the TED (Transforming Education through Education) EAL project, is funded by the TED project and the Curriculum Development Unit  in Mary Immaculate College. The TEAL project is a teacher development project which embraces the whole EAL child. It has three main areas of focus; integrating home languages into the classroom, maximising language and literacy skills in English, and tapping into benefits of linguistic/ cultural diversity for all pupils. Fíodhna is presently engaged in writing a handbook for teachers and schools who work with EAL learners.