Have I a hope?

BoozyBabe

I see there are a few threads on this, but here's my story anyway, all advice / encouragement greatly appreciated.

I work in IT, I've a 1.1 Hons degree in IT Mgt, & I quite like the work, but I've decided I'd like to give teaching a shot. (Primary)

The usual story... I've only Ordinary Level Irish.

I've started a basic night course to get the Irish juices flowing again, & they are, I'm remembering quite a bit, but still nowhere near honours irish level.

Kilroy college offer a correspondense course in this & I'm thinking of enrolling.

Am I mad? Would I need an excellent level of Irish before doing this, or what do you think? (I can do it over 2 years. Would that not be enough time to get me up to speed?)

I find it hard to make simple sentences at the minute as I keep getting the tenses mixed up, I've no idea about where to put fadas or when to add letters to words, I can't understand Irish conversation on TG4.

Do I have a prayer, or what would you do in my case?
Any other helpful advice?
Thanks

smashey

Moved to Teaching/Lecturing. I think you might get more help there. I have left a re-direct from Mature/Non-Traditional Students. Good luck.

Trotter

BoozyBabe wrote:

I see there are a few threads on this, but here's my story anyway, all advice / encouragement greatly appreciated.

I work in IT, I've a 1.1 Hons degree in IT Mgt, & I quite like the work, but I've decided I'd like to give teaching a shot. (Primary)

The usual story... I've only Ordinary Level Irish.

I've started a basic night course to get the Irish juices flowing again, & they are, I'm remembering quite a bit, but still nowhere near honours irish level.

Kilroy college offer a correspondense course in this & I'm thinking of enrolling.

Am I mad? Would I need an excellent level of Irish before doing this, or what do you think? (I can do it over 2 years. Would that not be enough time to get me up to speed?)

I find it hard to make simple sentences at the minute as I keep getting the tenses mixed up, I've no idea about where to put fadas or when to add letters to words, I can't understand Irish conversation on TG4.

Do I have a prayer, or what would you do in my case?
Any other helpful advice?
Thanks

Of course you have a hope! Do a few days of voluntary helping out in your local school. Sit in with a couple of teachers etc. They'll be only too delighted to have your help.

Next.. if you like the idea of teaching after that, is the Irish. You need hons Irish if you want to train in Ireland. SO.. You'll need to repeat the leaving cert Irish. Check out www.nightcourses.com for a start, you might find something there.

Once you have the honours Irish sorted, you can apply to Mary I or Dublin, and Hibernia. (Theres already lots of info in this forum about those, just search for the bits and pieces).

The other option, which is popular for people who dont have the honour in Irish is to train in the UK. You can do a 9 month (1 academic year) course there called a PGCE in primary education which depending on the college you choose, is usually recognised here.

That would give you a start in the classroom, with 5 years to complete the SCG exam, which is basically a proficiency exam in all things Gaeilge.

So.. basically, either way it'll take a couple of years to get into.. so Id recommend a few days of classroom observation so you can see if its worth the hard work in getting there.

Its a good time of year to be considering the UK courses actually, they take applications around now.

The website for the group that organise the applications to all the colleges (Its like a CAO system really.. centralised etc) is http://www.gttr.ac.uk/ My advice would be to apply to a college where Irish people have already studied and qualified from, and who are now teaching in Ireland. This means that course from that college has already been accepted as valid here so you wouldnt have to go through the hassle of checking if its going to be acceptable or not to the Irish teaching council.


I hope that covers everything!