June 5, Saturday

Déirdre Kirwan was principal of a linguistically diverse primary school, Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní), Blanchardstown, Ireland, from 1987 to 2015. She led the development of an integrated approach to language teaching and learning that supported the use of immigrant pupils’ home languages in the classroom. She was nominated European Ambassador for Languages (Léargas) in 2008 and awarded her PhD by Trinity College Dublin in 2009. She has contributed to the new Primary Language Curriculum (Ireland) and the Early Language Learning project of the European Centre for Modern Languages, Graz. With David Little she co-authored Engaging with Linguistic Diversity: A Study of Educational Inclusion in an Irish Primary School (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).

Sigitas Lūžys is a lecturer of Latin at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania) since 1990. Education: Faculty of Philology at Vilnius University (Lithuania) in 1986. Qualification: philologist, teacher of the Lithuanian language and literature (classical philology). Sigitas Lūžys is a council member of the Research Cluster on the Grand Duchy of the Lithuanian State and Society Development, a member of the Research Cluster on Plurilingual Competence Development, a lecturer and junior researcher at the Institute of Foreign Languages at Vytautas Magnus University Institute. In 2018, Sigitas Lūžys was awarded The Prize of Martynas Mažvydas for his translation of Didysis artilerijos menas (Art of the Great Artillery) part 1 by Kazimieras Semenavičiaus from Latin into Lithuanian and significant scientific research within a five-year period on the ancient Lithuanian literary and written heritage, literary and cultural activities of Lithuanian cultural figures, Lithuanian books and the press.