Ordinary or Foundation Irish?

mielzi

Hi,
I did 5th year last year after skipping TY but am repeating now in a new school. I have always been atrocious at Irish, and did ordinary for the JC and got a C by simply learning off phrases and crossing my fingers :P
After my time in 5th year last year I found that I was failing every test, every aural and every oral, struggling to understand even a fraction of what was being said or done...
I was born in the UK and lived there till I was 7, so do think I'm entitled to an exemption of some sort, but am wondering what are the implications of dropping down to Foundation Irish, as the stress and worry failing every test last year caused me is not something I particularly want to go through again - any ideas?

MegGustaa

I don't think you're entitled to any exemption if you came that early. I think you'd have to have come to Ireland after the age of 10 or 11 or have missed two/three years thereafter to get an exemption. Plus even if you were entitled it's probably far too late to go applying for one now!

If it's really causing you that much stress then drop to Foundation

*however I think there's an NUI exemption, rather than a Dept of Ed exemption which I was thinking of, available to people born outside Ireland.

mielzi

Yeah, I was talking about the NUI exemption
It's just that I didn't do Irish in Primary School until I was 10, for reasons unbeknownst to me, so I've just never picked it up properly

LoonyLovegood

If you only started when you were ten, you could try plead your case?

RMD

Don't need Irish for Trinity, DCU or DIT so dropping to foundation would be okay. Not sure about places outside of Dublin though.

irish_man

Drop it. Its too much hassle.

mielzi

RMD wrote: »

Don't need Irish for Trinity, DCU or DIT so dropping to foundation would be okay. Not sure about places outside of Dublin though.

Thank you so much

And thanks to everyone else, definitely gonna drop, need to focus on my other subjects!

Ms.M

Just want to give my two cents:

For writing your own scéal, you can learn 3 off. (half an A4 page each)
For the letter, you get a lot of marks from pre-learnt phrases and again, there's not much learning involved. (half an A4 page)
That's all your compositions done.

The reading comprehensions are usually a matter of matching the words.
The reading comprehensions are worth almost as much as the written compositions so will balance out marks you might lose for faulty Irish in your written composition.

For the listening, your teacher should give you a hand-out with how the questions are phrased and typical vocab you'd need. Usually weaker students won't do great at this but it's easy to get a C or D, and your other marks will lift you up a bit. Not worth as much anymore anyway because
The Oral is now worth 40%! This has long been the part of the exam where students do best in, so that's great news! You'll have a much easier time than people who did their LC two years before you.

Then, the prose and poetry are hardly worth any marks. The questions follow the same format every year and the poems are on the exam paper. If you learnt twenty sentences for each poem/prose you'd be guaranteed and A or B.

Don't stress about how difficult fifth year was last year. Teachers get the bulk of the work done then because it's such a short course. They'll also cast a wider net, with more vocab, for the sake of stronger students. Then sixth year is repetition, repetition, repetition.

I know it sounds obvious, but if you just read what you do in Irish, not sit down and swot it, but just read it in front of the tele or whatever, rather than coming back to it months later and not having a clue when you wrote it, you'll save yourself a lot of time and stress. That, is basically, the key to learning languages. Nobody can be good at it really, it's not logical in the complete sense; it's just gobbledygook. But we all learnt from babies because we just heard the same things often.

Don't let it stress you out! If you re-read rather than swot it will take up less time than any other subject. The foundation level course is easier than the ordinary level JC and there'd be no benefit dropping until at least after the Mocks in sixth year.

Hope this reassures you.

LittleMissLost

Oi Mr/Mrs, I moved to Ireland from the UK when I was 9 and did higher Irish for the LC in June, so that's no excuse

Have you thought of going to the Gaeltacht? It's probably not too late to book it to go this summer, or even next summer if you're repeating 5th year.

I had a mental block towards Irish the whole way up to 5th year and found the Gaeltacht really, REALLY helped. So much so that I got a B1 in the mocks! (I'm not showing off, just showing that it would be possible if you start to LIKE the language).

I think if you made a conscious effort to try and like the language, it would be possible for you to do OL.