Knowledge Zone

Dr Geraldine French is a leader in language, literacy and early childhood education in Ireland.

Portobello Institute’s Early Years department’s upcoming webinar on Monday, February 7th will be led by Dr Geraldine French, who will speak about Supporting Language and Literacy Development in Early Childhood. Register here.

This webinar is free to attend and those who join live on the night will receive an eCertificate of attendance from Portobello Institute.

Geraldine is an Associate Professor, the Head of School of Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education, the Programme Chair of the Master of Education in Early Childhood Education and Senior Fellow of Advance HE at Dublin City University. 

She is a specialist in early childhood education. Her doctoral thesis is in the area of pedagogical interactions between adults and very young children in early childhood settings with a particular focus on educational inequality.  

She has worked for a variety of governmental and voluntary organisations, national and international, in conducting continued professional development, research, needs analysis, evaluations and consultancy for strategic planning.  

Commissioning bodies have included: The Arts Council, Barnardos, Better Start, Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education, Childhood Development Initiative, Children's Books Ireland, European Programme to Combat Social Exclusion, Fingal Libraries, Katharine Howard Foundation, National Council for Curriculum and Assessment among others.

Geraldine has lectured at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the area of early childhood education at the Dublin Institute of Technology and Froebel College of Education.  

She has published in the areas of parenting and the experience of poverty amongst families with very young children.  

In the context of early childhood settings, Geraldine has published on quality professional practice, supporting early language, literacy and numeracy and nurturing babies’ learning and development.

More recently Geraldine has been focusing on examining interactions through video analysis of practice through dialogue founded in reflection and collaboration. 

What will you gain from the event? 

Portobello Institute's Early Years Department series of free expert-led webinars give you the opportunity to hear from leaders in early years education. They will discuss their research, experience and offer you free access to their wealth of knowledge. If you attend the webinar live on the night you will receive an e-certificate of attendance. If you cannot join live on the night you will not receive a certificate but you can watch it back from our YouTube channel at a later date.

Don't forget to register and spread the word 

We look forward to welcoming you to the Portobello webinar experience, please register today and come along to share the knowledge from these experts in early childhood education. Don't forget to share this event with your friends, colleagues and in the social media groups to the benefit of your fellow early years practitioners and colleagues.

Register here. 

If you have any problems with the online registration process please email michelle.hogan@portobelloinstitute.com for assistance.

You can follow Dr Geraldine French on Twitter here.

Check out our Early Years Knowledge Zone here. 

Follow @portobelloinstitute on Instagram here.  

Like our Facebook page here.