The Frontline on compulsory Irish

Permabear

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Offy

donegalfella wrote: »

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I couldnt agree more, with all the non-Irish in Irish schools it seems pointless to force Irish kids to learn a language that most will never use. Either Irish is compulsory for all of compulsory for none IMO.

fifth

While I support maybe a change in how Irish is taught - I strongly oppose the aboliton of Irish in schools.

Permabear

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mike65

WestBrits go home!

PeterIanStaker

Did anyone hear the maths teacher talking about the new approach to teaching the subject in schools? It was on the radio today.

It made sense even to a mathematical dunce like myself. So, if we could teach languages in a more conversational way with less of the rote grammar stuff, it would make more sense.

Wolfe Tone

I think it should be mandatory up to the Junior cert, with a HUGE emphasis on speaking the language rather than reading incredibly rubbish poems. In Irish these days you just learn off answers.

Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam

MysticalRain

HP boss questions time spent on Irish
http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/hp-boss-questions-time-spent-on-irish-49889.html

Irish has been a millstone around the neck of Irish education for far too long.

mike65

There is no such thing as an intrinsically difficult subject only coming to it too late and/or bad teaching.

Bottle_of_Smoke

I think it should be optional. I'd even trade all primary schools being gaelscoileanna for it to be optional at second level.

Liam Byrne

I had to laugh at the interviewees....

"it's de way thah it's tawh...."

Looks like Irish should be dropped so that they have enough time to learn English properly!

Personally, I think it should be "tawh" completely differently, so that there's a focus on being able to speak and understand it.

Wade in the Sea

donegalfella wrote: »

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Should be moved along to 3rd level like Latin. Five hours a week more of Maths Science or Economics (or even just playing sport) would be five hours better spent.

bleg

Irish was a crap subject, I hated it. For me it made no sense to do it. Wouldn't be a good idea to teach our kids a useful language like German, Spanish, Hindi or Chinese and have them truely trilingual.

Kiwi_knock

Needs wholesale changes to its syllabus, at the moment too many are sacrificing Honours Irish for Higher Maths. Many will drop to pass to concentrate on maths

bleg

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

Needs wholesale changes to its syllabus, at the moment too many are sacrificing Honours Irish for Higher Maths. Many will drop to pass to concentrate on maths

OH NO!!!! Students learning something relevant rather than a dead language.

Bottle_of_Smoke

That blonde elitist woman is such a moron.

Wolfe Tone

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

Needs wholesale changes to its syllabus, at the moment too many are sacrificing Honours Irish for Higher Maths. Many will drop to pass to concentrate on maths

I did the opposite.

Wade in the Sea

It's the irony of having this debate in English that makes me laugh.

Lockstep

I loved it. I learnt in in Belgium (EU school, had to teach each EU language etc)

Although the emphasis was in oral and not written, so I can speak Irish very well but can't spell it at all.

Permabear

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Kiwi_knock

In Irish you actually never learn the basics such as grammar and verbs. You are meant to have been taught them in primary school but by 6th year you still do not have a clue. It is because we actually do not understand tenses in English so it is all not the fault of Irish teachers

Nijmegen

100 hours a year of class time they get in Irish, apparently.

14 years of Irish, 500 hours at secondary level, and most students speak their European language option better... An which will do them more good?

Education should open minds and provide useful inormation and formulation for their lives.

Make Irish optional for those who want and like it.

Spudmonkey

kickoutthejams wrote: »

I loved it. I learnt in in Belgium (EU school, had to teach each EU language etc)

Although the emphasis was in oral and not written, so I can speak Irish very well but can't spell it at all.

Which to be honest is probably more useful.

Too much emphasis is put on rote learning answers to poetry rather than actually talking the language.

bleg

Tabhair dom casur no tua go mbrisfead is go millfead an teach seo,
go ndeanfad tairseach den fhardoras 'gus urlair de na ballai,
go tiocfaidh scraith agus dion agus simleir anuas
le neart mo chuid allais...
Sin chugam anois na clair is na tairni
go dtoigfead an teach eile seo...
Ach, a Dhia, taim tuirseach!

Eliot Rosewater

I haven't been watching the programme because I've had too much TV today already with the World Cup and the PDs' programme!

Spudmonkey wrote: »

Too much emphasis is put on rote learning answers to poetry rather than actually talking the language.

I think this view has merit within the current situation where people can't actually speak the language after 14 years, and that should obviously be the priority. But I'm not averse to the idea that literature should be taught in theory, once the students have the actual language covered first. Teaching literature without any hope of fostering enthusiasm or appreciation is pointless, in my opinion.

thebman

I was saddened by this debate TBH. I would have taught at this stage there would be much more support for making the language optional.

Everyone agrees current teaching is failing us, they don't seem to acknowledge that Irish serves no purpose to most people in the country. Saying making it optional kills it out only acknowledges that it serves no purpose. If it served a purpose it wouldn't die out as people would need to know it.

Its time the Irish embraced change in our culture and acknowledged that we are now a majority English speaking nation and made Irish optional for those that have it natively or excel at it. Everyone else should be allowed cut it out of their lives IMO.

Spudmonkey

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I think this view has merit within the current situation where people can't actually speak the language after 14 years, and that should obviously be the priority. But I'm not averse to the idea that literature should be taught in theory, once the students have the actual language covered first. Teaching literature without any hope of fostering enthusiasm or appreciation is pointless, in my opinion.

The current system is just doing something for the sake of doing something. Grammer and basic tenses are thought in primary but you'd be hard pressed to find a child entering secondary who can string more than a few simple sentances together.

Teaching Irish literature is all well and good. But teaching something that students don't understand and are purely memorisng so they can regurgitate it at a later date is a complete and utter waste of time!

ballsymchugh

thebman wrote: »

Everyone agrees current teaching is failing us, they don't seem to acknowledge that Irish serves no purpose to most people in the country. Saying making it optional kills it out only acknowledges that it serves no purpose. If it served a purpose it wouldn't die out as people would need to know it.

that argument can be fairly well argued for most languages other than english these days. there's no reason to learn mandarin unless you intend to move to china. a company that wants to do business in china would save more by employing a chinese english grad than an irish person who can speak mandarin. while we learn enough german and french to get a decent grade in the leaving, the europeans are learning english and other languages that put us to shame. in switzerland there are 4 native languages that most people are competant in after school, as well as english.

irish has 11 irregular verbs. one of the lowest amounts which should make it easy to learn. if there was less time spent on the literature then it'd be a better taught subject.
the only way i'd agree to irish being optional is if english is optional too. it's that subject that was a millstone around my neck at LC time.

is brea an teanga í Gaeilge!

theredletter

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

That blonde elitist woman is such a moron.

Em. No, she's not, quite frankly. That woman, Anna Gallagher, is a highly educated woman (probably more educated than you and most Irish people). She speaks around 5 languages fluently and speaks another 2 competently. Anna brought about major change on how Irish was being taught to adult learners in Ireland (most notably through following the European Council's framework on language instruction). Because of her hundreds of people have picked up a new language (Irish) and a lot of people have gotten promotions, jobs and other things through her pioneering teaching methods.

Anna would have the same opinion about every other language under the sun. She would say the same things about French, Spanish or Dutch.

So no, she's not a moron... she's pretty much a genius.

Oh and also... I forgot to mention that Anna is an internationally-recognised scholar and teacher. Pat Kenny's bully-style interviewing skills have failed us again.

Kiwi_knock

Welcome to the thread Anna

theredletter

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

Welcome to the thread Anna

I wish!

I'm a boy.. and not as dashing as Anna!

dlofnep

I'll give it a watch and comment afterwards. Hopefully it's up on the player.

Eliot Rosewater

ballsymchugh wrote: »

that argument can be fairly well argued for most languages other than english these days.

No, it can't. If I was fluent in German I would be able to travel to Germany or Austria or Switzerland to find employment.

theredletter

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

No, it can't. If I was fluent in German I would be able to travel to Germany or Austria or Switzerland to find employment.

Having Irish can give you great employment opportunities. I've just graduated. I've already been asked to teach Irish in the EU, NYU and in Dublin. This site has all of the jobs going where Irish is a requirement. Not all jobs listed are public sector, before you decide to get ahead of yourselves:

http://www.gaelport.com/foluntais

Bottle_of_Smoke

theredletter wrote: »

Em. No, she's not, quite frankly. That woman, Anna Gallagher, is a highly educated woman (probably more educated than you and most Irish people). She speaks around 5 languages fluently and speaks another 2 competently. Anna brought about major change on how Irish was being taught to adult learners in Ireland (most notably through following the European Council's framework on language instruction). Because of her hundreds of people have picked up a new language (Irish) and a lot of people have gotten promotions, jobs and other things through her pioneering teaching methods.

Anna would have the same opinion about every other language under the sun. She would say the same things about French, Spanish or Dutch.

So no, she's not a moron... she's pretty much a genius.

Oh and also... I forgot to mention that Anna is an internationally-recognised scholar and teacher. Pat Kenny's bully-style interviewing skills have failed us again.

For all her education she still can't think in practical terms. She has ideological views that will never work in reality. Therefore she's a moron.

Eliot Rosewater

theredletter wrote: »

Having Irish can give you great employment opportunities. I've just graduated. I've already been asked to teach Irish in the EU, NYU and in Dublin. This site has all of the jobs going where Irish is a requirement. Not all jobs listed are public sector, before you decide to get ahead of yourselves:

http://www.gaelport.com/foluntais

Teaching, Irish presumably.

I was talking about basically every other type of job. I'm studying for a maths degree, for example. Being fluent in German would be very beneficial; in Irish, pointless.

P. Breathnach

bleg wrote: »

Tabhair dom casur no tua go mbrisfead is go millfead an teach seo,
go ndeanfad tairseach den fhardoras 'gus urlair de na ballai,
go tiocfaidh scraith agus dion agus simleir anuas
le neart mo chuid allais...
Sin chugam anois na clair is na tairni
go dtoigfead an teach eile seo...
Ach, a Dhia, taim tuirseach!

I like that, but you might give some credit to Caitlín Maude, who thought of it first.

It relates to a very high proportion of threads in this forum.

P. Breathnach

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

For all her education she still can't think in practical terms. She has ideological views that will never work in reality. Therefore she's a moron.

It's a bit of a cop-out to claim that anybody with whom you don't agree is a moron, and it's an ugly insult. I happen not to agree with her to any great extent, but that is no reflection on her intellectual capacity (or mine).

Eliot Rosewater

P. Breathnach wrote: »

It relates to a very high proportion of threads in this forum.

Perhaps a translation, for those of us unable to speak Irish?

theredletter

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

For all her education she still can't think in practical terms. She has ideological views that will never work in reality. Therefore she's a moron.

If a person has enough intelligence to do what she does, and even have ideological views, and if we define the term 'moron' as stupid, then you're pretty much wrong.

Also, take a look at www.teg.ie before you judge... The syllabus is actually very practical and is used to teach high standards of all European languages. Trust her, she knows what she's talking about..

ballsymchugh

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

No, it can't. If I was fluent in German I would be able to travel to Germany or Austria or Switzerland to find employment.

it depends on what you want to get employed in too. you would learn more on the total immersion when you get there than you ever would in school here. their level of english would help you at the beginning but your everyday conversation in the local dialect is what would really help. someone from Berne would speak german which would probably sound dutch to most. someone from Basel speaks in a different dialect again. and that's just two places in one small country. it's on a totally different scale to the munster/connacht/ulster dialects in irish. so the german that you are taught at second level here (hochdeutsche??) would only help you in certain places. (granted, it may be a big area like the mandarin v cantonese v naxi v manchu etc languages in china).

also, what if the average german/swiss/austrian wanted to come here and get a job in tg4 or some other gaeltacht industry? it can be argued in both ways.

Eliot Rosewater

ballsymchugh wrote: »

it depends on what you want to get employed in too. you would learn more on the total immersion when you get there than you ever would in school here.

Yes, I think that's the general rule! Although I did do German in school, I'm in a poor way with it. I was considering taking up a beginners course in it to restart the whole process. I'd be nervous traveling to a German-speaking region without having a solid grasp of the language, to be honest.

ballsymchugh wrote: »

also, what if the average german/swiss/austrian wanted to come here and get a job in tg4 or some other gaeltacht industry? it can be argued in both ways.

How many jobs in Irish are there? 5000? How many jobs with German? A couple of million! In diverse areas too.

There's also a lifestyle aspect to it. If you could speak German there's many more options open to you with respect to travel and living abroad than with Irish.

Ostrom

It is about tearing down a house, replacing it with a new structure but the author growing tired from her efforts. It is interpreted in the irish curriculum as a metaphor for patriarchy.

ballsymchugh

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Yes, I think that's the general rule! Although I did do German in school, I'm in a poor way with it. I was considering taking up a beginners course in it to restart the whole process. I'd be nervous traveling to a German-speaking region without having a solid grasp of the language, to be honest.



How many jobs in Irish are there? 5000? How many jobs with German? A couple of million! In diverse areas too.

There's also a lifestyle aspect to it. If you could speak German there's many more options open to you with respect to travel and living abroad than with Irish.

look up radio lingua podcasts. they do most languages including one minute irish!! they're a great way to learn conversational languages. you'd be pretty comfortable having a conversation if you used them. i did it for spanish last year.

ah but if i could speak german then i wouldn't impress the weather girls on tg4?:cool:

P. Breathnach

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Perhaps a translation, for those of us unable to speak Irish?

Try this one. It's not bad. http://dwellingexile.blogspot.com/2006/10/treall-caitlin-maude.html

digme

bleg wrote: »

Irish was a crap subject, I hated it. For me it made no sense to do it. Wouldn't be a good idea to teach our kids a useful language like German, Spanish, Hindi or Chinese and have them truely trilingual.

I wonder why they happen to have their own language.

dlofnep

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Teaching, Irish presumably.

I was talking about basically every other type of job. I'm studying for a maths degree, for example. Being fluent in German would be very beneficial; in Irish, pointless.

Are there an abundant amount of jobs that require Irish? No. But the jobs that are available, aren't overly competitive - creating opportunity. There are many opportunities in radio or tv for example. In the local Gaeltacht here, there is a TV production course taught entirely through Irish - with opportunities for work in TG4.

Is Irish as useful as German? Not if you wish to re-locate to Germany. If you plan on staying in Ireland, it's more useful. Now that's not to say that everyone who is proficient in Irish will work in a job that requires Irish - but opportunities are there.

I don't want to over-inflate the importance of the Irish language, but I don't think we should undercut it's importance either.

dkin

It's a pity Irish has declined to such an extent. I like languages and would really like to be able to speak Irish fluently mainly for novelty value and an intellectual interest in its unusual celtic lineage. I would be just as interested in learning many other lanaguages for the same reasons however. Learning a foreign language is a lot of work. In fact I think the mental effort I've put into learning French is larger than any other intellectual endeavour I've attempted as the learning process is incredibly tedious and time consuming (for me at least). You have to really want to learn a new language as the investment is so great and in Ireland the reality is that most of the students couldn't care less about Irish.

Understanding this we have to ask if it's right to ask thousands of students to engage in thousands of hours of enforced study every year with in the vast majority of cases negligable results. They see that it has no practical benefit and is a dead language in the vast majority of areas. So why bother going through all the hard work? Tinkering with the system and syllabus will not change the simple fact that learning Irish is a hard task and requires alot of work even if very motivated.

I would also seriously question the motives behind compulsary Irish. In my opinion it is basicly a form of enforced cultural implantation. An effort to mould and coerce students into having traits that are deemed desirable by the state despite negligable economic or social benefit. An effort to create individuals that fit a predefined criteria of Irishness which is unfortunately an idealistic and ideological one not based in everyday reality. But rather corresponds to an outdated ideal. I disagree with this level of state involvement in education and the curtailing of individual freedom. Of course you can say that school in general can be accused of this and I would agree to a large extend but the case is particularily pronounced in the case of Irish.

Peanut

Making ANY specific language compulsory beyond the student's native language is not necessarily useful.

It should be abundantly clear that some people are just not as mentally adept at languages compared to others. Likewise, those good at languages may not have certain other skills.

Trying to circle this square is a waste of both time & money, and a huge missed opportunity cost where the student could be learning something else that they are skilled in. The scale of this opportunity cost should not be underestimated.

Nijmegen

dlofnep wrote: »

Are there an abundant amount of jobs that require Irish? No. But the jobs that are available, aren't overly competitive - creating opportunity. There are many opportunities in radio or tv for example. In the local Gaeltacht here, there is a TV production course taught entirely through Irish - with opportunities for work in TG4.

Is Irish as useful as German? Not if you wish to re-locate to Germany. If you plan on staying in Ireland, it's more useful. Now that's not to say that everyone who is proficient in Irish will work in a job that requires Irish - but opportunities are there.

I don't want to over-inflate the importance of the Irish language, but I don't think we should undercut it's importance either.

There was one of the speakers on the FL going on about the economic benefits also.

Show me numbers, I say.

Otherwise it strikes me that the only jobs going in Irish are in state-sponsored areas, like TG4, like the translation of government documents, etc.

I know of no private enterprise that uses Irish, except perhaps those devoted to servicing the Irish speaking parts of the land - it's not going to dig our 1/4 young unemployed out of their hole.

Go over to jobs.ie however and look out for the jobs that require lingual skills in European languages.

Irish does nothing to help a kid get a job, unless that job is in a very narrow field.

Also, we spend the same 100 hours a year teaching to what they now call "foundation level" Irish. If it's anything like the remedial classes of old - where it was ordinary level, with the hopeless eejits put into one class to wilt - then it's not much use as a teaching exercise, and it's worth 0 points precisely, A1 or E1.

You take 100 hours of valuable class time, 500 a full leaving cert cycle, away from kids who could spend that time in a subject that is worth points? (And their options, I would believe, get less hours in total than Irish?)

English is a required subject, as one needs to be able to communicate effectively when one makes it to the workforce. Having a broad vocabulary is one aspect of this, for anyone wanting to have a go at literature in there.

Maths is a required subject, as one needs to be able to think using the logic and problem solving skills it develops.

Irish.... Is a cultural legacy placed a little above Latin in terms of its usefulness and well below in terms of utility to our students, in that an interested student can choose to learn Latin for the love of it and excel, gaining the points they need to further their careers and their lives.

Irish is time we piss away down the drain for these kids.

Make it optional.

Permabear

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