Matt settling in to new city and new school role

City Lives –  Denise McNamara meets Matt Wallen, the new principal of Knocknacarra Educate Together school

Back in 2002, schools were only beginning to introduce measures to deal with the influx of international children.

That year, elementary teacher Matt Wallen emigrated from the US and he believed his lack of Irish would bar him from teaching in primary schools here. So he decided to study a masters in the University of Limerick and research the whole area of education for children whose first language was not English.

The education system had only just started hiring English language support teachers, Matt recalls.

“It was a totally new situation. There was not a whole lot of training going on. Everything was temporary. My paper led to a whole lot of attention, it was published in a journal and I was invited to speak on it in the UK.”

Not content to remain in academia, Matt enquired about the possibility of teaching with his American qualifications. He learned that his credentials were recognised but they meant he could only teach as a learning support and resource teacher or working with children with special needs. He was given five years to achieve fluency in Irish in order to become a mainstream primary school teacher.

“The irony of that was I never had experience teaching special needs. I wouldn’t be allowed to teach in that area without particular qualifications in the US,” he admits.

He got a job with the Limerick School Project, the seventh Educate Together school which was established in the city centre.

He decided to use the time spent on his long daily commute between the two cities to immerse himself in Gaelige. After an initial class in Limerick, he discovered a class in Conradh na Gaelige, where he developed a real love of the language.

“I learned more from her [the teacher] about teaching through a foreign language than years of researching it. She really helped me break through. I started doing all the exercises in the second class Irish books and worked my way up to sixth class and then onto the secondary school curriculum. I paid a girl to sit and talk to me for an hour in Irish and went to conversation classes. I also started going to the Gaeltacht.”

He chose Oideas Gael’s Irish language and cultural activity courses specially for adults in Glencolmcille in the Donegal Gaeltacht. He has high praise for the teachers and has returned four times.

His proficiency in the language in under four years while working and studying was astonishing. When it came to taking the SCG or the Irish teaching exam – the equivalent of honours leaving cert Irish – he just missed out by five marks in one of the four sections which would have qualified him to teach in the Gaeltacht.

In his practical exam, the cigire (inspector) remarked that he was a most unusual teacher. He recalls that he was observed during one of his fashion shows where all the children had to dress up.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.