‘Native’ language assistants valuable for schools

For more than 30 years a school in Northern Ireland has been bringing modern languages to life by welcoming native speakers into its classrooms.

Language assistants have used their “native input” to enrich French, German and Spanish classes at Regent House School in Newtownards.

While the number of language assistants across Northern Ireland has decreased over the past 15 years – new figures have shown a rise.

Language assistants have proved a success at the County Down school with pupils saying their assistant is “brilliant” and helpful”.

Diellza Berisha, from Zurich in Switzerland, is a German language assistant at three schools in Northern Ireland.

She arrived in Northern Ireland in September 2024 and is working abroad as part of her studies towards a master’s degree in education.

“The whole experience has been very valuable, I would say, not just for teaching but in general life because I learned to be independent, I learned to adapt to a new culture,” she said

“Working at three different schools actually gave me a lot of different little challenges but at some point I think I just learned how to deal with them.

“I had to get to know them a bit and know how much can I ask from them, and then at some point I realised: ‘Ok maybe with that group I need to help them a little bit more, with that group I’m free I can just speak German the whole time and they’re going to be fine.”

Regent House student Julia, who studies German for A-level, said it was great having Ms Berisha at the school.

“I suppose a lot of concerns people have around studying languages is speaking with native language speakers,” she said.

Julia said Ms Berisha had helped with preparation for oral exams by providing a “native input”.

“Just developing the confidence to be able to speak and not have to think and prepare an answer before you speak it, having the confidence to go in and say something, and if you make a mistake it’s ok, you can learn from it,” she said.

Her schoolmate Hannah followed in the footsteps of her siblings in choosing to study German.

“Both my brother and sister did German, and my sister is still doing German, it’s just good to be able to come home and speak to them sometimes,” she said.

Hannah added that learning with a native speaker had been very helpful.

In the 2024-25 academic year there were 34 language assistants in Northern Ireland.

That was is an increase from 19 in 2021-22, but lower than previous years.

In 2019-20, there were 49 language assistants and in 2011-12 there were 103.

The British Council, a charity which works to promote the English language and cultural relationships between the UK and other countries said it expected the current number of language assistants to increase as 37 schools in 2025-26.

Recovery following the impact of Covid-19, schools sharing a language assistant and flexible placement options contributed to the rise, it said.

Future uptake could be affected by rising costs, language priorities within schools and the level of student interest in languages.

Head of modern languages at Regent House School, Gavin Nicholl, said the pupils were excited to “show off their skills to someone from the country”.

“There’s really nothing more rewarding, I suppose, for them to speak the language and get a response instantaneously,” he said.

Mr Nicholl said it was quite “intricate” to set up the process of sharing a language assistant with other schools but he found it ran really smoothly.

A language assistant works alongside teachers to support language learning in mainly secondary schools.

In Northern Ireland, language assistants help with French, Spanish, German, Irish, Italian and Mandarin classes.

They spend between six to 12 months supporting students, with many arriving through the British Council.

The British Council also sends UK-based assistants overseas to teach English.

In Northern Ireland, the programme is supported by the Department of Education.

When a school decides to hire an assistant, the school is responsible for paying their salary.

Esther McKnight from the British Council Language Assistance programme said assistants were an “incredibly valuable resource for schools and for pupils”.

She said the increase in the past year was “incredibly encouraging” and showed schools were committed to modern languages and that the council was making efforts to make the programme more accessible for schools.