ADAPT All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad awarded the European Language Label

The ADAPT All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad (AILO) has been awarded the prestigious 2020 European Language Label (ELL) for the “AILO at Home” project. The ELL award was presented by Léargas at an online awards ceremony today.

AILO at Home, which is led by Dr Cara Greene of the ADAPT EPE team, provides bite-size information on a little-known language on social media and links to a related linguistic problem-solving puzzle. The initiative was devised just after secondary schools closed in March in order to continue to communicate with AILO students, their parents and engage with the public.  The initiative scored highly, with 14 points out of 15. The jury considered the project “in a class of its own” and commended AILO at Home for its “quantum leap” over the last few months. Referring to AILO’s “very successful transition to online AILO”, the award highlights how AILO successfully ran the Preliminary round online and pivoted to running remotely just ahead the Covid-19 lockdown with students doing the National Final from their schools for the first time. 

Building on Online AILO in the new school year, ADAPT Centre researchers will run free online problem-solving workshops from November to January to help students and teachers with problem-solving strategy and help prepare them for AILO 2021. The season will be able to run fully online if necessary, with students able to take part in all parts of the competition from their own school.