Royal Irish Academy: Foreign language strategy urgently needed

Permabear

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Denerick

England has a similar problem with languages, despite having no silly 'native' language hangups (With the exception of the odd academic, nobody wants to learn the old Anglo Saxon languages) I don't think of it as a major issue. Being bilingual actually aids the ability to learn other languages. Not that we are ever going to be bilingual, but still.

EDIT: Its not a major issue in the sense that I don't think we'd magically become linguistically talented if we abandoned the Irish language (Something that should have really happened around the middle of the 19th century anyway) We live on an isolated island and dominated to our east by an English speaking nation and to our west by thousands of mile's of ocean.

#15

The modern languages pilot scheme has been going on for years. It really is time to implement it fully and introduce other languages across the board.

As Denerick says, it is difficult to get native speakers of English to learn other languages in as enthusiastic a fashion as others. Spanish speakers are also relatively poor when it comes to second language acquisition.

Still though, I would be strongly in favour of introducing other languages.

The real problem IMO, is what do you do to make room for new subjects in an already overcrowded curriculum?

Religion is not part of the state curriculum at primary level, so to remove religious instruction from schools and free up that extra 2 hours and 30 minutes, the patronage issue must be solved.

Irish seems the obvious target from the state curriculum subjects - but that would be a huge political battle, and not just an educational one.

irishdude11

Nevermind, learning a language so we don't have to emigrate as far, there are countless jobs in Ireland going to foreigners because they require bilingual speakers. Go to jobs.ie and stick in German as a keyword search for example. Pages and pages worth of jobs posted up in the last month. We don't have anywhere near the number of people fluent in foreign languages to fill these jobs.

All the hundreds of hours per student wasted on forcing the Irish language down the throats of students who have not interest, and it is useless for getting a job. And nearly the same amount again spent on fairytales, ie Religion. All the while we have a crisis in maths and a basically a crisis in language skills, two areas that are are very important for jobs and the economy. Yet again, we show what a joke of a country we are.

Wolfe Tone

God forbid kids should learn Irish and a third language in primary schools.

Enkidu

In order to do this, I really think we need to change how we teach languages on several levels. The no-brainer is removing Irish from being compulsory since it eats up far too much time.
(Before I get the West-Brit nonsense for this, I can read the Táin in the original, so I love Irish, but we have to be realistic.)

Secondly the way we teach languages is modeled entirely on the post 1970s style of language teaching, where "cool and relevant" characters talk about watching Lost on T.V. followed by a vocabulary list for obscure vegetables.

The most consistently successful way to learn languages is a mix of good grammar drills, relevant vocabulary, focused exercises on sentence building and repeated conversation practice. If anybody wants to see the stark contrast between this method and the current methods we use, I recommend picking up a Teach-Yourself language book from the 1960s and a modern edition. In every language I've tried you typically learn more from the first chapter of the 1960s edition than the whole book in the modern edition. (There are of course some exceptions, the 2000 Catalan book is still quite good, although not as good as the 1960s edition.)

A major step in this direction, I think, is developing a good way to teach grammatical terminology. It's difficult to teach a language when students don't really know what an adverb is.

Spudmonkey

More emphasis should be placed on speaking the language in the classroom. When it comes to using a language abroad, your experience of writing a letter to your pen-pal is not really going to stand to you.

Iwasfrozen

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

God forbid kids should learn Irish and a third language in primary schools.

God forbid Irish be dropped.

sirromo

Half-learning a foreign language that you'll probably never use is a massive waste of time. We should focus instead on improving English, Maths and Science education and devoting more time to teaching those subjects.

Thousands of people in this country have serious literacy problems. Wouldn't it make more sense for us to focus on improving our ability to communicate in our first language rather than spending time learning a foreign language?

murphaph

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

God forbid kids should learn Irish and a third language in primary schools.

They don't even learn Irish, nevermind the third language.

At least 2 of my teachers were blatant alcoholics and another one was a definite candidate. I hope things have improved since then (finished school in '96). I had a lousy Irish teacher who also doubled as a lousy German teacher who had her Duden beside her the whole time as her own vocabulary was extremely limited. I left school speaking pretty much no Irish or German. In fact, I am pretty sure I had better Irish leaving primary school than leaving secondary!

Fast forward 15 years and I managed to learn German to a level at which I can work in an office with it. Took about a year to get confident enough. It's not rocket science if it's taught properly.

Anyway, the general uselessness of Ireland at foreign languages will help me and my girlfriend should we decide to spend some time there. She's a German/Italian/English translator and it looks like (despite 450k on the dole) that Ireland will be an easy place for her to pick up a job. Fcuking crazy world really.

murphaph

Enkidu wrote: »

In order to do this, I really think we need to change how we teach languages on several levels. The no-brainer is removing Irish from being compulsory since it eats up far too much time.
(Before I get the West-Brit nonsense for this, I can read the Táin in the original, so I love Irish, but we have to be realistic.)

Secondly the way we teach languages is modeled entirely on the post 1970s style of language teaching, where "cool and relevant" characters talk about watching Lost on T.V. followed by a vocabulary list for obscure vegetables.

The most consistently successful way to learn languages is a mix of good grammar drills, relevant vocabulary, focused exercises on sentence building and repeated conversation practice. If anybody wants to see the stark contrast between this method and the current methods we use, I recommend picking up a Teach-Yourself language book from the 1960s and a modern edition. In every language I've tried you typically learn more from the first chapter of the 1960s edition than the whole book in the modern edition. (There are of course some exceptions, the 2000 Catalan book is still quite good, although not as good as the 1960s edition.)

A major step in this direction, I think, is developing a good way to teach grammatical terminology. It's difficult to teach a language when students don't really know what an adverb is.

Great post. I don't remember even learning English grammar at school, certainly not in detail. It was all friggin poetry and Shakespeare (I mean, we couldn't understand Hamlet without a book with notes in the margin explaining it all-totally irrelevant today). When a student doesn't understand the grammar of their own language, they will find it more difficult than needs be to understand the grammar of a foreign one.

Grammar is the foundation of most languages. You can't hide it or pretend it doesn't exist. Once you understand the grammar you add to it with vocabulary and it just works. I believe the Linguaphone books are excellent too. Plenty of grammar and exercises to drill it into your head.

I didn't know that whom was dative case until I learned it in German (wem)! English is a Germanic language with vocabulary from all over Europe thrown in. My GF is a native German speaker who learned English and Italian as second and third languages. She can hold a conversation in Italian and I haven't a clue but when we were on holidays in Italy in July I could still understand a good deal more of the written stuff because of the vocabulary overlap with English that doesn't exist with German.

As English speakers we have huge advantages in learning both Germanic and Romance languages, we just don't. A real waste if you ask me.

deise go deo

The major problem with second language learning in this country is simply lack of incentive. This is true of all of the English Speaking world, there is an attuide in English speaking countries that English is the 'World Language' and because of this learning a second language is at worst a waste of time, and at best only of limited use.

I think the perception of English being the only language you will ever need should be challenged in school. Students should be taught the benefits of learning a second and even third language from a cognative, cultural and economic point of view.


Trying to blame Irish is lazy and pointless. Its not going anywhere, get over it. I find it interesting that those who have come out against compulsory Irish in the past, because compulsion is wrong, are not so quick to speak out against this proposal from the RIA.

Personally I think they are spot on, we really do need to improve how languages are tought in this country, and would like to see the EU best practice of Mother tounge +2 adopted here.

Kinski

murphaph wrote: »

Great post. I don't remember even learning English grammar at school, certainly not in detail. It was all friggin poetry and Shakespeare (I mean, we couldn't understand Hamlet without a book with notes in the margin explaining it all-totally irrelevant today). When a student doesn't understand the grammar of their own language, they will find it more difficult than needs be to understand the grammar of a foreign one.

But how detailed does English grammar instruction for schoolchildren need to be? A native speaker's grasp of English grammar should be largely intuitive. The study of our language's rich literary heritage isn't included on the curriculum as some kind of complement to foreign language instruction, and its relevance shouldn't be judged in relation to that.

goose2005

Permabear wrote: »

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No, it's not got anything to do with Irish. Language learning is appalling, I got an A1 in Higher French with only passable French, and there are people who do 14 years of Irish and 6 of German without the ability to read a newspaper.

goose2005

murphaph wrote: »

I didn't know that whom was dative case until I learned it in German (wem)! English is a Germanic language with vocabulary from all over Europe thrown in. My GF is a native German speaker who learned English and Italian as second and third languages. She can hold a conversation in Italian and I haven't a clue but when we were on holidays in Italy in July I could still understand a good deal more of the written stuff because of the vocabulary overlap with English that doesn't exist with German.

I was sketchy on gender in Irish, and cases, until 6th year. And in English, despite all the poetry, no-one taught us about meter.

sirromo

deise go deo wrote: »

there is an attuide in English speaking countries that English is the 'World Language' and because of this learning a second language is at worst a waste of time, and at best only of limited use.

This would be my view. I think the benefits of learning a second language are massively exaggerated.

Students should be taught the benefits of learning a second and even third language from a cognative, cultural and economic point of view.

The benefits need to be weighed against the costs. How much will it cost us in time and money to improve our foreign language learning standards and what will be the benefits compared with the alternative uses of that time and money?

Personally, I'd prefer if we focused our energies on improving our standards of English, Science and Maths.

#15

Enkidu wrote: »

Secondly the way we teach languages is modeled entirely on the post 1970s style of language teaching, where "cool and relevant" characters talk about watching Lost on T.V. followed by a vocabulary list for obscure vegetables.

The most consistently successful way to learn languages is a mix of good grammar drills, relevant vocabulary, focused exercises on sentence building and repeated conversation practice.

This is all in the revised primary curriculum for Irish. There is no need to change it - it's all based on a communicative approach.

There seems to be a disconnect between primary and secondary level methodologies when it comes to language learning though.

Permabear

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Permabear

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#15

Permabear wrote: »

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The first point is not true.
Irish children have more instruction time than children in most other countries. This has been mentioned repeatedly on these message boards.

The problem is more to do with the allocation of time per subject.

The second point is your opinion, yet is asserted as fact. There is not a consensus among educationalists that more instruction time = better outcomes
Otherwise Finnish children would be the worst performing students in international assessments. They spend less time in school than children in almost every other country in the OECD.

Permabear

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#15

Permabear wrote: »

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No, there are other countries in the same range as Ireland when it comes to the length of the school year.

If we go by the number of days in a school year, then Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Hungary, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the US all have the same or less days of instruction per year at primary level. Finland has 5 extra days of instruction in the classroom.
I haven't got the data for secondary schools at the minute but I believe that they do have one of the lowest number of days per year.

If we go by the block of time allocated to summer holidays, then Irish primary schools received 8 and a half weeks holiday time. I think secondary schools received approx 12 weeks but I am open to correction on that. For comparison, the countries that fall into the 8-12 week range for summer holidays include France (range of 7-8 weeks), Hungary (10-11), Italy (12-13), Spain (11), Sweden (10), and some US states. Korea also has a 10 week long holiday but it is not in summer. Those lengths can vary from year to year, as in Ireland.

Maybe you could specify if you are talking about primary or secondary level in future, and we would not have to go through this again.

You're correct, or at least not far off, if you are talking about secondary schools.
You are incorrect if you are talking about primary schools.

PB, I cannot read your mind so if you simply state ''schools'' and if you do not specify the level, then I can only take it you mean all schools.

it seems important to focus on continuity of the educational experience rather than just raw hours of instruction time.

I have no argument with that statement. You are arguing for a different distribution of teaching days, which is a little different to the original point:

Permabear wrote:

Children should be spending more time in school

My bold. That suggests extra days of instruction, rather than just a different distribution.

Again, it's not quite so simple as claiming that instructional time is not correlated with outcomes.

Tbf, I didn't claim that there was no correlation.

I'm saying that it's not definite that there is a causation.

It's patently obvious that someone who received 80 hours of instructional time a year would generally underperform someone who received 800 hours.

Yeah, and somone receiving 1 hour will be worse off than someone receiving 500. Not very helpful in the real world though.

Let us look at an example that is not a caricature:
What about someone receiving 1100 hours instruction time (The American) and someone receiving 800 hours instruction time (The Finn)?

It's not the person receiving 1100 hours.

Which means there is more to improving outcomes than the simple solution (your words) of increasing instruction time.

By all means, if we know that the length of the school year is the determining factor in improving outcomes, then I would be in favour of it.
But I suspect there are other factors that need to be dealt with first: increasing days of instruction is a misdirected attempt to improve outcomes IMO.

deise go deo

sirromo wrote: »

This would be my view. I think the benefits of learning a second language are massively exaggerated.

Well then I think it should be pointed out that there is no 'World Language' English is not enough to survive in all parts of the world, its not enough to survive in all parts of Europe, or even most of it.

As for it being a widely known and useful language, yes it is, but no business person would be deluded enough to think they can ignore languages other than English and be successful on an international stage.




As for the benefits of learning a Second language, What do you think they are and how do you think they are exaggerated?

The benefits need to be weighed against the costs. How much will it cost us in time and money to improve our foreign language learning standards and what will be the benefits compared with the alternative uses of that time and money?

Personally, I'd prefer if we focused our energies on improving our standards of English, Science and Maths.

So you say the Costs and Benefits need to be weighed against each other, yet seem prepared to go an regardless with English Maths and Science with out this? Or am I mistaken, perhaps your preference is based on a cost benefit analysis that you are hiding from us?


Given that you want English to be improved, then learning a second language would be a good way to go, learning a second language has cognitive benefits, one of which is that it improves the learners ability to use their mother tongue.

eVeNtInE

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Permabear

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deise go deo

Permabear wrote: »

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There are many benefits that can be gained regardless of the language learned.