Celine Healy

Dr Céline Healy is a teacher educator, lecturer and researcher in education at Maynooth University Department of Education since 2012.

She has extensive national and international experience in the field of education and has worked as a post-primary, primary, and adult education language teacher, and language teacher educator, in Ireland, France, Spain, and Sweden. She completed her PhD research and MEd studies at Trinity College Dublin and her BA and H.Dip.Ed. at University College Dublin.

Céline is at the forefront of significant curriculum design, reform and implementation, particularly in the field of international language learning, teaching and assessment. She chaired the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) Development Groups that developed the Senior Cycle Specifications for Arabic (2024), Lithuanian, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, and Portuguese (2020). She also chaired the NCCA Development Group that drafted a revised and updated Junior Cycle Modern Languages Specification (2024) in response to the NCCA Early Enactment Report.

She is an Advising Member (language expertise) on the Department of Education (DES) led Foreign Languages Advisory Group (FLAG) which oversees and advises on the implementation of Languages Connect, Ireland’s Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education (2018- ). She is also an Advising Member (initial teacher education expertise) on the FLAG Post-Primary Sub-Committee (2018- ). She is a Steering Committee Member for the Irish National Pilot Project in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) (2018- ) which plans and oversees the development of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) for Gaeilge in early years, primary and post-primary schools.

Céline developed and co-ordinates the international MU Innovation in Language Education Programme (2023- ). She has been programme co-ordinator of the MU Master in Education Programme (2018-21) and of the MU Professional Master of Education (2021-2023). She is actively involved in leading language teacher professional learning through her collaborations with Oide and Post-Primary Languages Ireland. She teaches and supervises across a range of MU education programmes.

Céline has been President of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) (2022-24) and Vice-President (2020-22). She continues to contribute to ESAI as an active Executive Committee Member.

Céline is a Council Member of the European Educational Research Association (2022- ).

She is a former Chair of the European Language Label in Ireland. She is a founder member of the Association for Drama in Education in Ireland.

Céline is active on several research projects: She is Co-PI on a Science Foundation Ireland Discovery funded study, on Human Papilloma Vaccine Communication using STEAM (Science Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths). She is PI on a research project on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in initial Teacher Education, Co-PI on a research project on an Action Oriented Approach in Language Learning, Teaching and Assessment through a Universal Design for Learning Lens, and Co-PI on a research project on sharing teacher educators’ identities through storytelling.

Her particular areas of interest are Teacher Education, Applied Linguistics, Creative and Critical Arts Pedagogies, Inclusive Education.