The contribution will report on a review of models of bilingual education for minority language speakers in other international contexts. The purpose of the review was to inform the drafting of a new policy for Gaeltacht education in Ireland. Nine jurisdictions which were deemed to have some characteristics in common with the Gaeltacht context in Ireland were examined. Some jurisdictions were found to operate systems which were closer to one-way immersion programmes for L2 learners rather than bilingual programmes for native speakers. The review helped to highlight some strengths present in the current bilingual programmes in Ireland.
The jurisdictions that proved most fruitful in informing our recommendations were New Brunswick, Canada; Wales and the Basque Country. One of the key findings was to identify how schools might provide a linguistic refuge for native speaker pupils who have particular language education needs. Different models of provision will be presented to see how each one might develop and enrich the Irish language biliteracy skills of native speakers. The challenges in implementing these models will be examined with reference to the role of parents, management bodies and Department of Education and Skills.