Irish - How could it be taught differently?

glenn3ie

My subjects are maths, science and chemistry but I have a passion for Irish but I believe the current syllabus is detrimental to the learning of it and the teaching of it doesn't aid in actual speaking Irish.

IF we had a blank slate, how could we ensure that the majority of students leaving school is fluent (and I mean fluent) in Irish.

One thing I would change is that I would split the LC course into two and have a n Irish Grammar Subject and an Irish Literature Subject. I would also make Irish compulsory for every student. Foreign or not, dyslexic or not. Whether these foreign or dyslexic students would take exams in the the subject(s) would be a different thing or perhaps they could go to a dedicated Irish resource teacher/teacher who is free to do bits and pieces when their classmates are in their main steam Irish class.

Think ideal world here...

al28283

Teaching the basics of how language works in general would have been hugely helpful. No teacher in primary ever explained to us that languages aren't word for word translations of each other. Which led to us all just replacing the English words of a sentence with the Irish ones, which we had memorise.
It wasn't until we started learning French in secondary school that anyone bothered to teach us that wasn't the case and as soon as that caught on everything was much easier. 6 years of Irish lessons wasted IMO

Rosita

glenn3ie wrote: »

Think ideal world here...

Ideal world?

If real fluency is aim then declare all schools Gaeilscoileanna and have all lessons from Primary school upwards through the medium of Irish, and send students to the Gaeltacht every summer on free scholarships.

(Ideal is not an 'ideal' word! )

gubbie

Actually making students speak it. I think in Primary School they should have an Irish hour where they only speak Irish. Something along those lines

I have good Irish, but it only became good when I gained the confidence to speak it by being forced to in a Gaeltacht.

Same goes for French, German... These teachers should enter the room and primarily speak only French and German.

Rosita

gubbie wrote: »

Actually making students speak it. I think in Primary School they should have an Irish hour where they only speak Irish. Something along those lines

I have good Irish, but it only became good when I gained the confidence to speak it by being forced to in a Gaeltacht.

Same goes for French, German... These teachers should enter the room and primarily speak only French and German.

To be fair the idea that the target language is the language of the classroom is the basis is the communicative approach which currently informs language teaching, so this happeniong or should be happening - you always have to allow for the "wha?" (class laughs) approach of some students when you try to engage them in chat. (The kind of lads who'd spin this claptrap to people in 10 years that if Irish was not compulsory they'd have been great at it! :rolleyes:)

And I am not sure what people mean when they criticise the Irish 'syllabus' because it has been radically changed, at Leaving Cert level anyway, to promote spoken Irish. Students will have the minority of marks given for written Irish in the future.

glenn3ie

Rosita wrote:

And I am not sure what people mean when they criticise the Irish 'syllabus' because it has been radically changed, at Leaving Cert level anyway, to promote spoken Irish. Students will have the minority of marks given for written Irish in the future.

I've no problem with written Irish, in fact I believe that writing Irish is as important as speaking Irish (the same way it is for me for English). My problem is that so much time is taken up with poetry and novels and plays that teach abstract vocabulary and grammar that is never used in every day life.

deise go deo

Rosita wrote: »

And I am not sure what people mean when they criticise the Irish 'syllabus' because it has been radically changed, at Leaving Cert level anyway, to promote spoken Irish. Students will have the minority of marks given for written Irish in the future.

The weighting of exam marks has been changed to give more to the oral/aural component of the exam, that is not the same thing as changing the syllabus however.
The vast majority of class time is still given to Poetry, reading comprehension, writing etc.

It should also be noted that there is as yet no Oral/Aural exam component before the LC.

deise go deo

Rosita wrote: »

Ideal world?

If real fluency is aim then declare all schools Gaeilscoileanna and have all lessons from Primary school upwards through the medium of Irish, and send students to the Gaeltacht every summer on free scholarships.

(Ideal is not an 'ideal' word! )

I think that would be going beyond the ideal world too the hopelessly optomestic world.

Just declaring all schools to be Gaelscoils did not work the first time, and even in an ideal world would not work if it was done now.

who the fug

Rosita wrote: »

Ideal world?

If real fluency is aim then declare all schools Gaeilscoileanna and have all lessons from Primary school upwards through the medium of Irish, and send students to the Gaeltacht every summer on free scholarships.

(Ideal is not an 'ideal' word! )

With you untill the bit of making them Efficent grant harvesters with political connections richer

Get the kids at three , speak to them in Irish and the rest will follow

newmug

Immersion - its the only way. That was the original idea behind the requirement for a high standard of Irish with primary teachers in the first place!

When I was in primary school, we had a headmaster who was from the Gaeltacht in Cork. He was an old man, and he could barely string a sentence together in english. He taught 6th class, and most of the class was through his Cork-accented Irish. My school was by no means a Gaelscoil, but by the time the students were finished their single year with this man, we were all fluent.

professore

Having sent 3 kids to a Gaelscoil, this question makes no sense to me. They are all fluent in Irish and the youngest one is only 7.

spurious

Have teachers who love teaching it.

Love of a subject is hugely infectious, particularly with younger children.

E.T.

In an ideal world the teaching of Irish wouldn't just exist in schools. All signs in shops, posters etc would be bilingual. There has to be something outside of school hours that connects what the children are learning with the outside world in a realistic way.

Gumbi

professore wrote: »

Having sent 3 kids to a Gaelscoil, this question makes no sense to me. They are all fluent in Irish and the youngest one is only 7.

As a fluent speaker myself (born and raised), I don't fully believe this. Certainly immersion at such a young age does wonders, but I'd be wary of throwing the word "fluent" around (I'm assuming your children learned there Irish at school only, and not at home). Frankly, the standard of Irish around is generally poor. I have no doubt, however, that your children, having gone to a gaelscoil, have decent Irish.

Gumbi

Teaching the language in a better way? i think that we'd need to tackle the problems, which are many and varied.

First and foremost, I think, is the horrible stigma attached to it. This includes the resentment of people of it due to it having been beaten into them etc. The Junior/Leaving courses are horrible; they make the assumption that the student has a good grasp of the language.

We don't study literature in French, do we? And yet the standard of our foreign languages is higher than that of our Irish standard.

byhookorbycrook

Teach subjects like P.E through Irish so kids see it as living,not just a 'subject'

Gumbi

glenn3ie wrote: »

I've no problem with written Irish, in fact I believe that writing Irish is as important as speaking Irish (the same way it is for me for English). My problem is that so much time is taken up with poetry and novels and plays that teach abstract vocabulary and grammar that is never used in every day life.

What do you mean by "abstract grammar"? On the same note, I think the emphasis on literature actually detracts from the grammatical aspect of the language, in terms of having less time to spend on it.

Gumbi

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Teach subjects like P.E through Irish so kids see it as living,not just a 'subject'

It's not as simple as that. But this could certainly be part of a wider solution.

dambarude

Primary teachers' standard of Irish needs to be addressed too. The amount of mistakes I've seen on displays while in classrooms on teaching practice is shocking. Some of them are small (e.g. forgetting séimhiús) but others are more serious.

As spurious said, teachers who genuinely like the language will pass this interest on. The teachers who like it tend to be the ones who are good at it (and haven't struggled with the C3 and college exams).

glenn3ie

Gumbi wrote: »

What do you mean by "abstract grammar"? On the same note, I think the emphasis on literature actually detracts from the grammatical aspect of the language, in terms of having less time to spend on it.

The abstract was primarily describing the vocab.

cailindana

I think the students' attitude towards irish is a problem. Im finding it particularly hard this year trying to change this attitude among 1st years and all I seem to be hearing back is 'shur this is stupid why do we have to do this Ill never need this when Im finished here' etc.. very frustrating for the teacher!

glenn3ie

cailindana wrote: »

I think the students' attitude towards irish is a problem. Im finding it particularly hard this year trying to change this attitude among 1st years and all I seem to be hearing back is 'shur this is stupid why do we have to do this Ill never need this when Im finished here' etc.. very frustrating for the teacher!

It raises two very fair points.

1. As mentioned above, the students are correct. 95% will never use Irish again after school because the country as a whole isn't immersed in it e.g. menus in restaurants etc.

2. We have developed into a society who just learn things so that we can progress further in life. We don't value knowledge as being something good to have, even if you only use it rarely. E.g. I learned off the phonetic alphabet when I was younger. Why? Just to see if I could! I know chances are I'll never need it but I thought it'd be a good bit of knowledge to have.

The second point is for a different day.

The first point however, is something that we can start to change in schools. Insist that posters are made in Irish and English. Schools have moved away from 'Cultural Week' and have started to make schools more engrossed in different cultures all year round. Why not do the same with Irish?

Rosita

deise go deo wrote: »

It should also be noted that there is as yet no Oral/Aural exam component before the LC.

This is simply not accurate. There is an aural component in the Junior Cert, and there is an oral component too notwithstanding the failure to iron out the practicalities of how it would be conducted.

Rosita

glenn3ie wrote: »

I've no problem with written Irish, in fact I believe that writing Irish is as important as speaking Irish (the same way it is for me for English). My problem is that so much time is taken up with poetry and novels and plays that teach abstract vocabulary and grammar that is never used in every day life.

Are you not aware that under the new syllabus the amount of literature has been significantly reduced? (For higher level anyway - and the pass content was hardly ever back-breaking)

Rosita

Gumbi wrote: »

This includes the resentment of people of it due to it having been beaten into them etc.

We don't study literature in French, do we? And yet the standard of our foreign languages is higher than that of our Irish standard.

Two things...I imagine I speak for most teachers here when I say that I have never beaten Irish into a student either actually or metaphorically.

Yes, in Primary school myself I had my hair pulled, was punched, slapped, even kicked, but that was a teacher who was non-discriminatory. The subject did not matter. You did not, for example, want to be in a semi-circle of 10 year olds gathered around an ummarked physical map of Ireland and get the Munster Blackwater confused or you'd be seeing stars fairly quickly. Maybe some were specifically beaten over Irish in second-level but the teacher who primarily used us as a punch-bag was a teacher of two other subjects as it happened.

As for "And yet the standard of our foreign languages is higher than that of our Irish standard" - I'm not sure what your source is for this comment but the examination statistics do not back this view up. The Leaving Cert results for Irish are stronger than for French and they probably should not be as French has far less sitting the exam, and presumably avoids the really weak students.

It is time these 'I'm-crap-at-Irish-but-brilliant-at-French-and-Spanish-because-they're-so-relevant-to-me' myths were left to one side of these debates. Not saying that such a student does not exist but in my experience the student who are witheringly negative about Irish tend (broadly speaking - you'll always get the bright student who resents its difficulty/workload sometimes and will blame the language) to have a similar view to most subjects and certanly any subject that involved a bit of effort.

At let's be honest some more - most people who leave school will never use more French or Spanish than they'll see on the first couple of pages of a tourist phrasebook.

RealJohn

Rosita wrote: »

As for "And yet the standard of our foreign languages is higher than that of our Irish standard" - I'm not sure what your source is for this comment but the examination statistics do not back this view up. The Leaving Cert results for Irish are stronger than for French and they probably should not be as French has far less sitting the exam, and presumably avoids the really weak students.

And what does the Irish Leaving Cert test? The same things the english one does basically only in a different language and to a lower standard. What do the French, German and Spanish exams test? Ability to actually use the language. And that's not taking into account that a lot of people actually can speak and use Irish properly due to support at home, having gone to Gaelscoileanna etc.
No, you're deluding yourself if you think that the average kid who is learning Irish in school only in the same way he/she is learning French is coming out with a higher standard of Irish than French. It simply isn't the case.

The problem is (as has been mentioned in another thread) with the primary schools. I'm sorry but it's clear that it is. No student should be able to "learn" a language for an hour a day for eight years and still reach secondary school without being able to hold a conversation in that language. Yes, the secondary syllabus is boring and a bit out of touch but that's not the problem. The problem is that when the students reach secondary school they're expected to be able to approach Irish the same way they approach english and currently this is unrealistic because the students (usually) have a pretty good grasp of speaking english, reading english and writing english and this is not the case when it comes to Irish.

In an ideal world? All the primary schools should be Gaelscoileanna. Primary teachers are supposedly able to teach in Irish anyway and there are Irish language books for all the subjects available because of the Gaelscoileanna so, printing/distributing and financial issues (regarding actually supplying those books), theoretically every primary school in the country could go back on Monday and start teaching through Irish in every class. In theory. In practice, are the primary school teachers competent enough to do this?

Is there any good reason that primary schools shouldn't be Gaelscoileanna?

dambarude

RealJohn wrote: »

In theory. In practice, are the primary school teachers competent enough to do this?

I'd say no. If it could be phased in in some way it would be great, but there's no way it could be done in any sort of a quick manner. It would most likely have to start at initial teacher training.

RealJohn

dambarude wrote: »

I'd say no. If it could be phased in in some way it would be great, but there's no way it could be done in any sort of a quick manner. It would most likely have to start at initial teacher training.

I had an idea on this. The schools start chaing to Gaelscoileanna year by year, starting at junior infants and then working their way up. The schools select the teachers with the best combination of good Irish and how appropriate they are to teach junior infants and inform the next set of teachers that the following year, this is what they'd be doing which would give them a year to improve their Irish to the required standard.

That also gives the third group of teachers in this system two years to improve their standard and so on. Realistically, after two or three years all of the teachers should be at a level where they no longer have to select the best at Irish to teach any given group.


The other approach of course is the one I'm told they use in Scandanavia where a dedicated (in their case) english teacher comes in to teach the subject and it certainly seems to work well for them since I can tell you that in Copenhagen and Stockholm you can go into most places and start speaking english and they won't skip a beat switching from their native language to english.
I don't actually know what system they use there (though I've heard it involved a dedicated language teacher coming in) but whatever they're doing, it works.

Caraville

Yeah I have to say unfortunately a lot of the blame comes from the fact that the primary schools teachers' standard of Irish is generally pretty poor. A C3 in honours is simply not enough. Especially when the answers for that C3 can be learned off and churned out. It should be a C1 minimum, even a B3.

It's as obvious as the nose on my face which students come from which primary schools in 1st year by their standard of Irish. It's so depressing the lack of Irish that's being done in some primary schools.

One word will improve this- TALK. Teachers need to talk in Irish to their students. Forget the books, forget these signs all over the room saying "doras" and "fuinneog". Just TALK to them. Most children actually love trying out something a bit new and different- but it needs to be made feel like it's fun and not just another subject out of a book. P.E. or Art or something that they enjoy doing done through Irish is a great idea.

And finally- teachers should be talking to each other in Irish. I'm sorry to say it but any primary school teacher who would be nervous or afraid of having a basic conversation in Irish is simply unqualified to teach the subject. If you cant tell your colleague what you did last night or any news you have in your life- the basic office chitchat basically- in Irish with reasonable comfort and accuracy, then you are just not qualified and you need to improve your Irish somehow. And what's the somehow??? TALK. It's amazing how much it comes back to you with practice.

Gumbi

Rosita wrote: »

Two things...I imagine I speak for most teachers here when I say that I have never beaten Irish into a student either actually or metaphorically.

Yes, in Primary school myself I had my hair pulled, was punched, slapped, even kicked, but that was a teacher who was non-discriminatory. The subject did not matter. You did not, for example, want to be in a semi-circle of 10 year olds gathered around an ummarked physical map of Ireland and get the Munster Blackwater confused or you'd be seeing stars fairly quickly. Maybe some were specifically beaten over Irish in second-level but the teacher who primarily used us as a punch-bag was a teacher of two other subjects as it happened.

As for "And yet the standard of our foreign languages is higher than that of our Irish standard" - I'm not sure what your source is for this comment but the examination statistics do not back this view up. The Leaving Cert results for Irish are stronger than for French and they probably should not be as French has far less sitting the exam, and presumably avoids the really weak students.

It is time these 'I'm-crap-at-Irish-but-brilliant-at-French-and-Spanish-because-they're-so-relevant-to-me' myths were left to one side of these debates. Not saying that such a student does not exist but in my experience the student who are witheringly negative about Irish tend (broadly speaking - you'll always get the bright student who resents its difficulty/workload sometimes and will blame the language) to have a similar view to most subjects and certanly any subject that involved a bit of effort.

At let's be honest some more - most people who leave school will never use more French or Spanish than they'll see on the first couple of pages of a tourist phrasebook.

I'm using it an an example of something that may have aggravated the stigma already attached to it. I did not mean to imply that Irish (or any subject) is beaten into anyone in this present day.

Regarding the standards of Irish compared to a foreign language, I would say to you that it is not the statistics of the LC that matter, but the ability of a student to compose a sentence of their own. One that hasn't been pre-learned. My source for this? Having recently gone through the LC system, I am well capable of comparing the two courses, and their approaches to teaching the language, and consequently, of seeing the glaring differences.

vallo

My oldest child is just starting secondary and hates Irish. I've told her that failing it isn't an option and she better work at it and improve. I know she is able. She has taken to German like a duck to water and she is generally good academically.
I think the problem is a general sort of "woolliness" in the approach to irish and I mean right from the get-go. It has never been clear to me when they learned tenses, or new verbs. Irish homework just seemed to be a new set of crappy pictures to be labelled with nouns and some rearranging of words. The Irish textbooks seemed extra lame compared to other subjects and I really struggle to get my kids to engage with them.
When we learn other languages we get formally introduced to the sentence structure, to cases, to voices, declensions, conjugations etc. With Irish we just assume that students can see the big picture and they really don't.
I love Irish. I would love it to have the status of Welsh where people really speak it day to day and it is a source of pride and national identity.

Also - stop calling it Gaeilge. When her primary teacher told me "Oh she is not great at Gaeilge" a little bit of me died. How can we expect students to respect the structure of either language when we butcher both in one sentence.

Gumbi

vallo wrote: »

My oldest child is just starting secondary and hates Irish. I've told her that failing it isn't an option and she better work at it and improve. I know she is able. She has taken to German like a duck to water and she is generally good academically.
I think the problem is a general sort of "woolliness" in the approach to irish and I mean right from the get-go. It has never been clear to me when they learned tenses, or new verbs. Irish homework just seemed to be a new set of crappy pictures to be labelled with nouns and some rearranging of words. The Irish textbooks seemed extra lame compared to other subjects and I really struggle to get my kids to engage with them.
When we learn other languages we get formally introduced to the sentence structure, to cases, to voices, declensions, conjugations etc. With Irish we just assume that students can see the big picture and they really don't.
I love Irish. I would love it to have the status of Welsh where people really speak it day to day and it is a source of pride and national identity.

Also - stop calling it Gaeilge. When her primary teacher told me "Oh she is not great at Gaeilge" a little bit of me died. How can we expect students to respect the structure of either language when we butcher both in one sentence.

Good points. It sounds like you're supportive of both the language and your child, which is great.

Your points about grammar etc. are spot on. We never, ever studied cases like the genitive, the dative etc. in school. Masculine or feminine wasn't even mentioned during my six years in secondary school. I doubt people even know that they are an integral part of the language, just as they are any other foreign language.

ildaite

Gumbi wrote: »

Good points. It sounds like you're supportive of both the language and your child, which is great.

Your points about grammar etc. are spot on. We never, ever studied cases like the genitive, the dative etc. in school. Masculine or feminine wasn't even mentioned during my six years in secondary school. I doubt people even know that they are an integral part of the language, just as they are any other foreign language.

I totally agree. I got an a2 in the l.c honours paper, and didn't know we had masculine and feminine nouns, was completely clueless about the tenses... really terrible if you consider that I had no trouble with these things in French, having studied in for half as long, simply because they were clearly explained to us in French class, but not in Irish class.

I don't like to point fingers, but I agree that the primary schools are at fault. I also agree that higher standards for primary teaching applicants should be imposed with regard to Irish.

I must say I love the idea of making all primary schools gaelscoileanna. How realistic do you think this is, though? How does one go about making recommendations to the relevant people (and who are they?) ? I think it's a great idea, and shouldn't only stay here on a forum.

Gumbi

ildaite wrote: »

I totally agree. I got an a2 in the l.c honours paper, and didn't know we had masculine and feminine nouns, was completely clueless about the tenses... really terrible if you consider that I had no trouble with these things in French, having studied in for half as long, simply because they were clearly explained to us in French class, but not in Irish class.

I don't like to point fingers, but I agree that the primary schools are at fault. I also agree that higher standards for primary teaching applicants should be imposed with regard to Irish.

I must say I love the idea of making all primary schools gaelscoileanna. How realistic do you think this is, though? How does one go about making recommendations to the relevant people (and who are they?) ? I think it's a great idea, and shouldn't only stay here on a forum.

I'm not sure really. I went to a Gaelscoil of the highest of standards (and the most dreadful of facilities), and as such, I cannot fairly comment on whether or not a sizeable portion of the blame lies in the standard of primary schools. I am, however, sure that it's certainly an area in which the problem should be tackled.

Rosita

ildaite wrote: »

I totally agree. I got an a2 in the l.c honours paper, and didn't know we had masculine and feminine nouns, was completely clueless about the tenses... really terrible if you consider that I had no trouble with these things in French, having studied in for half as long, simply because they were clearly explained to us in French class, but not in Irish class.

It was an absolutely extraordinary feat to get an A2 in an Honours paper (in any subject) and be as clueless as you suggest e.g. not knowing he difference between the present and past tense. This is absolute exceptionalism I would suggest.

The funny thing is that in the theory of language teaching teachers are always told that big grammar lessons simply do not work - that students for the most part do not learn in that way. Based on personal experience I would - unhappily I have to say - have found that to be the case (grammar is nice and succinct as a topic and very attractive to teach in that respect).

But you can tell the average student about abstract nouns, the past imperfect or whatever and it'll be of surprisingly little consequence to their ability to function in the language. And I say that as someone who did personally benefit from labelling of grammar - but there are different learning styles.

That said I would be very surprised to be honest if anyone got to Leaving Cert without having tenses clearly explained to them in Irish. I would be surprised even if they got to Christmas in First Year never mind Leaving Cert. I'd say you were unusual.

Rosita

Gumbi wrote: »

Regarding the standards of Irish compared to a foreign language, I would say to you that it is not the statistics of the LC that matter, but the ability of a student to compose a sentence of their own. One that hasn't been pre-learned. My source for this? Having recently gone through the LC system, I am well capable of comparing the two courses, and their approaches to teaching the language, and consequently, of seeing the glaring differences.

I don't doubt the integrity of your own experience but it is your own experience only with respect. I did Honours French and Irish for my Leaving Cert and was quite good at both but was better at Irish. Composing a sentence was not really an issue in my case.

But I would not suggest for a moment that my particular experience is a valid indicator of the general experience as you appear to be doing. The reason I quoted results is that they are objective and measurable and they do not suggest that we are especially successful in European languages.

The results seem to mirror the experience with most subjects - good, bad and indifferent, which suggests that methods being used to teach in the likes of French (the funny thing is when I did the teaching Dip we were all taught the same teaching methods irrespective of the language) are not producing spectacular results.

There was a guy who did the Junior Cert in my school who failed - as it happens - two subjects, Irish and French. I spoke to his French teacher and we came to the conclusion that the guy (who did nothing consistently) failed the subjects he could not bluff. I didn't find the French teacher's experience any real way different to mine, which is why I think unscientific qualitative claims about general abilities in other languages/subjects are inadmissable in a debate about how Irish should be taught.

deise go deo

ildaite wrote: »

I must say I love the idea of making all primary schools gaelscoileanna. How realistic do you think this is, though? How does one go about making recommendations to the relevant people (and who are they?) ? I think it's a great idea, and shouldn't only stay here on a forum.

It is not realistic, the pool of teachers capable of teaching entirly through Irish to the same standard as English is simply far to small to ever do this.

Not to mention the uproar it would cause, the accusation of forcing Irish on everyone would reach a whole new level especially as doing so would be to everyones detriment as it would result in lower standards of teaching.

A gradualist, demand driven approch is far better, allowing Gaelscoils to be set up where there is demand for them will mean that the pool of teachers capable of teaching in them will be able to keep pace with their growth.

A system for allowing existing schools to switch to being a Gaelscoil should also be put in place.

Mr.Nice Guy

Some people here are arguing all school lessons in primary should be conducted in Irish. This was actually tried by the Irish State in the 30s and 40s and was a dismal failure:

The intellectual rationale for teaching infants exclusively through Irish was provided by Fr. T.J. Corcoran, SJ, Professor of Education in UCD from 1909 until 1942...an overwhelming concensus among teachers by 1941 [was] that in all subjects except singing and needlework the result was the relative retardation of the child.

From 'Ireland: 1912-1985' by J.J. Lee.

My own view is that the major problem of Irish learning is this country is a failure to learn from the approaches adopted in teaching English to foreign students, specifically the strong emphasis on speaking via the communicative approach which, for me anyway, just did not happen when I learnt Irish at school. The exception being studying for the oral exam, which I found to be the most enjoyable time I had with the language, as opposed to reading and translating Irish poems and plays which I found to be a complete waste of time.

Gumbi

Rosita wrote: »

I don't doubt the integrity of your own experience but it is your own experience only with respect. I did Honours French and Irish for my Leaving Cert and was quite good at both but was better at Irish. Composing a sentence was not really an issue in my case.

But I would not suggest for a moment that my particular experience is a valid indicator of the general experience as you appear to be doing. The reason I quoted results is that they are objective and measurable and they do not suggest that we are especially successful in European languages.

The results seem to mirror the experience with most subjects - good, bad and indifferent, which suggests that methods being used to teach in the likes of French (the funny thing is when I did the teaching Dip we were all taught the same teaching methods irrespective of the language) are not producing spectacular results.

There was a guy who did the Junior Cert in my school who failed - as it happens - two subjects, Irish and French. I spoke to his French teacher and we came to the conclusion that the guy (who did nothing consistently) failed the subjects he could not bluff. I didn't find the French teacher's experience any real way different to mine, which is why I think unscientific qualitative claims about general abilities in other languages/subjects are inadmissable in a debate about how Irish should be taught.

I'm not here to generalise, and if it sounds like I did, I apologise. At the the core of my argument, I suppose I should say, is that I believe that I am capable of comparing the two courses and how they are taught, and conclude that the courses that teach the foreign languages (French, at least, which is where I have experience) are taught more effectively with respect to actually learning a language.

professore

Rosita wrote: »

Are you not aware that under the new syllabus the amount of literature has been significantly reduced? (For higher level anyway - and the pass content was hardly ever back-breaking)

There is almost no literature for Junior Cert Irish as far as I can see.

Gumbi

Rosita wrote: »

It was an absolutely extraordinary feat to get an A2 in an Honours paper (in any subject) and be as clueless as you suggest e.g. not knowing he difference between the present and past tense. This is absolute exceptionalism I would suggest.

The funny thing is that in the theory of language teaching teachers are always told that big grammar lessons simply do not work - that students for the most part do not learn in that way. Based on personal experience I would - unhappily I have to say - have found that to be the case (grammar is nice and succinct as a topic and very attractive to teach in that respect).

But you can tell the average student about abstract nouns, the past imperfect or whatever and it'll be of surprisingly little consequence to their ability to function in the language. And I say that as someone who did personally benefit from labelling of grammar - but there are different learning styles.

That said I would be very surprised to be honest if anyone got to Leaving Cert without having tenses clearly explained to them in Irish. I would be surprised even if they got to Christmas in First Year never mind Leaving Cert. I'd say you were unusual.

This story doesn't sound as far-fetched to me. I accept that it's not the norm, but I don't think it's too far off. I personally know a girl who got an A in LC Irish the year before last (I believe it was an A2, but I'm not sure), and she cannot speak a word. My guess is that everything was rote learned, as she tended to do that for every subject. It's too easy to rote learn for the exam when there is so much literature etc.

Gumbi

professore wrote: »

There is almost no literature for Junior Cert Irish as far as I can see.

Poems and a novel, if I recall correctly. No, not too much.

professore

Rosita wrote: »

It was an absolutely extraordinary feat to get an A2 in an Honours paper (in any subject) and be as clueless as you suggest e.g. not knowing he difference between the present and past tense. This is absolute exceptionalism I would suggest.

Doesn't surprise me - the Irish secondary educational system favours people who learn by rote and have exceptional memories over people who actually try to understand what they are learning or god forbid try to be a bit creative. Not for a minute suggesting the poster getting an A2 is like this but I know of many cases of people performing well in a subject (maths and sciences being notable exceptions) without having any understanding of the topic but regurgitating stock answers.

professore

Gumbi wrote: »

As a fluent speaker myself (born and raised), I don't fully believe this. Certainly immersion at such a young age does wonders, but I'd be wary of throwing the word "fluent" around (I'm assuming your children learned there Irish at school only, and not at home). Frankly, the standard of Irish around is generally poor. I have no doubt, however, that your children, having gone to a gaelscoil, have decent Irish.

Let's put it this way, they are more fluent in Irish at 7 than I ever was, or they ever will be at whatever continental language they choose for LC, without living in the country in question. Fluent enough to have a chat away about any everyday topic or watch TG4 without needing to read the subtitles. I think that's pretty fluent. By the way having learned a European language by living in the country, I reckon it takes about 6 months to become reasonably fluent in a European language starting from scratch - sure you make mistakes but you can be understood and carry out everyday tasks. After a year you are pretty much 100% fluent and after 2 years you don't even think about it anymore.

Rosita

professore wrote: »

Doesn't surprise me - the Irish secondary educational system favours people who learn by rote and have exceptional memories over people who actually try to understand what they are learning or god forbid try to be a bit creative. Not for a minute suggesting the poster getting an A2 is like this but I know of many cases of people performing well in a subject (maths and sciences being notable exceptions) without having any understanding of the topic but regurgitating stock answers.

But I still find it fascinating that someone whose grasp of a language is supposedly so poor that they cannot tell the difference between, for example, the past and present tense but can successfully learn by rote for a range of essays to the level that they get 85%+ in an Honours paper. Being honest essay topics are not really that predictable. You might be able to force a learnt topic onto an essay title but it's unlikely to be done with virtual perfection as an A2 grade would suggest if being done purely by rote. And while much can be learnt off for the Oral Irish, to get an A2 would be getting close to native speaker proficiency. Not so easy to 'rote learn' that.

Students I have come across who are struggling with something as basic as tenses could be shown the paper in advance and still not get an A2. As a teacher of the Irish (I cannot comment about a range of other subjects or their supposed levels of difficulty or the success or otherwise of learning methods) I am amazed that someone could look at an essay title, as you say - "without having any understanding of the topic" and then be able to regurgitate the correct stock answer. In my experience students at that level struggle to understand the questions on an Honours Irish paper.

Of course the exam system - and frankly most exams systems - favour people with good memories. To be honest I don't get that upset about that aspect of it because if you cannot remember stuff you have studied you're probably not really up to much anyway! I cannot imagine there are too many undiscovered geniuses out there who fell down because they couldn't remember stuff. Sometimes we can disingenuously confuse intelligence and ability to learn with memory.

P.S. Sorry, I have just realised that Gumbi (the A2 student) described himself/herself in another post as a "born and raised speaker of the language", so all I have written about my surprise about someone struggling with the language doing so well is null and void. Why on earth would they not do very well?

Rosita

Gumbi wrote: »

Poems and a novel, if I recall correctly. No, not too much.

A few unprescribed poems and short stories.

Rosita

Gumbi wrote: »

This story doesn't sound as far-fetched to me. I accept that it's not the norm, but I don't think it's too far off. I personally know a girl who got an A in LC Irish the year before last (I believe it was an A2, but I'm not sure), and she cannot speak a word. My guess is that everything was rote learned, as she tended to do that for every subject. It's too easy to rote learn for the exam when there is so much literature etc.

Well, you have told the story as the truth that happened to you so it's hardly far-fetched. But you can be sure it's not the norm. About 88 per cent of students do not get an A1 or A2 every year. I'd say it's actually fairly far off the norm to be honest.

And sorry, not sure what etc. is meant to signify in the context of the Irish paper, but under the old Leaving Cert system 30 per cent of the exam was literature. 25 per cent was spoken/read and the rest was non-literature written material such as essays. It is simply not credible that someone like the person you describe could have achieved an A2. Someone bright could - as in most subjects - get through without a thorough understanding of what they are at. But I find an A2 simply incredible if they "cannot speak a word" given that up to 20 per cent would have been going for actually speaking. If they couldn't speak a word and even if they got 100 per cent in every other area they'd still not get an A2 (85%+).

Generally the weaker/disaffected students are the ones who cannot speak a word and they struggle in all aspects of the exam. Let's be blunt for a moment...intelligence is a generally good guide as to someone's language-learning capacity in my view. I had a Fifth Year foundation level Irish student a few years ago tell me that the roads one of the Aran Islands where he had been once were "real thin" - he didn't have the word "narrow". He was in foundation level Irish but he was brutal at English too, and wouldn't exactly be Nicola Sarkozy in French class either I'd imagine irrespective of how much more inspiring than Irish teacher the French teacher was.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt earlier but to be honest with you your claims appear to be massively exaggerated to say the least based on any consideration of such a student and how the exam marking scheme would view them. There is an obvious problem with anecdotes especially when they imply that the utterly exceptional is quite normal.

AlexderFranke

Is Gearmánach mise. Agus bhí mé in Éirinn neart amanna agus ruinne mé taithí le cumas ar an nGaeilge na n-Éireannach sa Phoblacht. Bhí comhráite éagsúla agam le hÉireannaí faoin ábhar.

Is náire é go bhfuil neart Éireannach ann gan a ndóthain Gaeilge chun cómhrá a dhéanamh agus abairtí coitianta a léamh agus a scríobh in ainneoin 12 bliain na Gaeilge ar scoil do mhórchuid na ndaltaí. Feictear dom go múintear an Ghaeilge go maith i gcuid scoileanna.

Aontaím leis an úsaideoir ar oscailt an snátha gur chóir deireadh a chur le gach saorú ón nGaeilge ar scoil. In áit, is fiú rialacha speisialta a chur isteach do na daltaí siúd a bhogann go hÉireann níos déanaí. Is daltaí le riachtanais speisialta go simplí iad le laige mór sa Ghaeilge. Roimh ghlacadh a bpáirt i gceachtanna Gaeilge, dhéanfainn scrúdú ar chumas ar an nGaeilge na ndaltaí sin.

Níor chóir téacsanna traidisiúnta mar an t-Oileánach agus dánta a chur go hiomlán as clár ábhair na gceachtanna Gaeilge. Ach is fearr níos mó téacsanna a úsáid a bhaineann leis an saol laethúil agus saol na ndéagóirí. Go cinnte, tá leabhair as Gaeilge ar fáil ar ábhair níos mó nua-aimseartha. Sna ranganna níos airde, is fiú téacsanna a chur isteach ar teangacha i mbaol agus ar cúrsaí na Gaeltachta. Ceapaim chomh maith gur fiú ábhar scoile nua a chur isteach darb ainm litríocht na Gaeilge.

Ar críoch, ba chóir i bhfad níos mó ceachtanna Gaeilge a thabhairt thar lear, go háirithe in áiteanna le mórchuid daoine le fréamh Éireannach. Mar, ní scéal neamh-choitianta é go gcaitheann Éireannaí tréimhse thar lear lena bpáistí. Más féidir ceachtanna Gaeilge a bheith ag daltaí thar lear, beidh siad in ann foghlaim na Gaeilge a leanúint in Éirinn tar éis filleadh go hÉirinn. Agus is fiú an foghlaim comhfhreagrais a chur ar bun do dhaltaí thar lear.

I am a German. And I have been in Ireland several times and have made experiences with the ability in Irish of the Irish people in the Republic. I have had several conversations on this topic with Irish persons.

It is a shame that there are Irish persons without enough Irish to have a conversation or to read and write average texts in spite of 12 years of Irish at school for most of the pupils. I seems to me that Irish is taught well in some schools.

I agree with the user who has opened this thread that every exempt from Irish at school ought to be abolished. Instead, special rules ought to be introduced for that pupils who move to Ireland later. Pupils with great weakness in Irish are simply such with special needs. I would make a test on the Irish language ability of those pupils.

Traditional texts like the Islander or poems ought not to be taken off totally from the content of Irish lessons. However it is better to use more texts that deal with the daily life and that of teenagers. Surely, there are Irish language books on more modern topics. In higher classes, it is worth introducing texts on endangered languages and Gaeltacht matters. It is also worth introducing a new subject called Irish literature.

At the end, many more Irish lessons ought to be given abroad, especially at places with great percentages of people with Irish roots. For, it is not uncommon that Irish persons spend periods abroad with their children. If they can have Irish lessons abroad, they will be able to continue studying Irish on coming back to Ireland. And it is worth setting up learning by correspondence for pupils abroad.

Alex

Jess16

spurious wrote: »

Have teachers who love teaching it.

Love of a subject is hugely infectious, particularly with younger children.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. How can we expect children to enjoy something if we approach it with an ambivalent attitude? Personally, I make every effort to make na ranganna Gaeilge current and relevant so it captures the children's interest and allows them to identify with what's going on, even if the language is unfamiliar.

Therefore, Caitheamh Aimsire is spoken about in relation to Wayne Rooney, eg. -Cé hé Wayne Rooney? Is peileadóir é! Imríonn sé le Man Utd etc. Tenses are talked about in real life contexts too, for example: An bhfaca tú X Factor oíche Dé Sathairn, Chonaic mé/Ní fhaca etc. -just simple ways of bringing Irish into the modern world that make it more enjoyable and accessible for the kids.

I like to personalise writing and make it fun by presenting it in a game-like capacity, whereby each child pulls a name from a hat and writes a one word sentence about that person until all 30 names are back in the hat. Then the children take turns in reading out the sentence whilst the others guess who the sentence is written about.

It's just a very simple way of incorporating reading, writing, listening and talking all in the one exercise and because it's a game based upon themselves the kids hardly realise they're 'doing Irish' and come in each morning looking forward to the Irish lesson instead of dreading it -and to me, enthusiasm for a lesson is everything

Tigerandahalf

I mentioned this on the thread about standards in primary school. More effort is going into oral Irish and this will improve the children's speaking ability. But their ability to read and write will be nowhere near the level of what we had when we were going into secondary school. They will really struggle with written examinations. Perhaps it's a good thing that the oral marks are being increased as at least they will have some ability in this area.
I have very mixed feelings about Irish - fantastic to be able to speak it but when do you use it. Look at the amount of young people emigrating today - what use is Irish to them. And parents are voting as seen through their attitude to the language. It's a no win situation - some are all for it, some see no point in it.

rainbowtrout

Rosita wrote: »

But I still find it fascinating that someone whose grasp of a language is supposedly so poor that they cannot tell the difference between, for example, the past and present tense but can successfully learn by rote for a range of essays to the level that they get 85%+ in an Honours paper. Being honest essay topics are not really that predictable. You might be able to force a learnt topic onto an essay title but it's unlikely to be done with virtual perfection as an A2 grade would suggest if being done purely by rote. And while much can be learnt off for the Oral Irish, to get an A2 would be getting close to native speaker proficiency. Not so easy to 'rote learn' that.

Students I have come across who are struggling with something as basic as tenses could be shown the paper in advance and still not get an A2. As a teacher of the Irish (I cannot comment about a range of other subjects or their supposed levels of difficulty or the success or otherwise of learning methods) I am amazed that someone could look at an essay title, as you say - "without having any understanding of the topic" and then be able to regurgitate the correct stock answer. In my experience students at that level struggle to understand the questions on an Honours Irish paper.

Of course the exam system - and frankly most exams systems - favour people with good memories. To be honest I don't get that upset about that aspect of it because if you cannot remember stuff you have studied you're probably not really up to much anyway! I cannot imagine there are too many undiscovered geniuses out there who fell down because they couldn't remember stuff. Sometimes we can disingenuously confuse intelligence and ability to learn with memory.

P.S. Sorry, I have just realised that Gumbi (the A2 student) described himself/herself in another post as a "born and raised speaker of the language", so all I have written about my surprise about someone struggling with the language doing so well is null and void. Why on earth would they not do very well?

I find it hard myself Rosita to belive that a person could get an A without understanding a word, but it is very possible to get a good grade with rote learning.

I wasn't a big fan of Irish at school, my Irish teacher wasn't a big fan of mine either and spent a lot of time trying to kick me out into the pass class despite the fact that I had never failed a test. Anyway, I did Higher Level Irish, French and German for my Leaving Cert.

I always thought it was odd that I could switch between 7 or 8 different tenses in French and German in conversation yet and chat away in either language, yet after 13 years of Irish I was still stuck with past, present, future and modh coinniollach, and would struggle to hold the same conversation about day to day stuff. I also found it odd that I could regurgitate an essay on unemployment, problems with alcohol, drugs etc etc, yet if I went into a supermarket my vocabulary was limited to chicken, meat, bread, milk, cake, biscuits, apples and potatoes. I'm sure there were a few more words, but everyday vocabulary seems to be very limited.

In terms of the essay point you brought up, there was always a choice of essays on the paper from what I remember, and there was nearly always a vague enough title such as 'Problems in Ireland,' 'Modern Ireland, 'The Youth of Today' where you could flake down a load of learned off paragraphs on school, college, teenage drinking etc, and cobble together some sort of essay without too much effort.

I have no idea how Irish is taught in primary school now, but when I was there was an awful lot of rote learning. We learned a short story every week of the type where Pól and Síle were going to the seaside, played on the beach, and they had ice cream, and went swimming and went home again. And we would learn off every line and repeat it parrot like each day until the end of the week where there would be a test where we would have to write out the story from memory. Rinse and repeat, every week. But we rarely learned to be creative with the language and if we were writing essays inevitably just pulled sentences from memory from learned off stories and wrote them down. That's not really learning a language.

The Ceard Teastas was still a requirement when I was doing teacher training so I had to take an Irish module in college. We had an end of term exam and I nearly burst my arse laughing when I saw the essay title 'My Summer Holidays'. The lecturer got an awful lot of 'Lá brea brothallach a bhí ann. Ni raibh aon scamall sa spéir. Shocraigh Mamaí agus Daidí dul go dtí an trá. Bhí an trá dubh le daoine. Chuaigh Pól agus Síle ag snámh. Cheannaigh Mamaí uachtar reoite.'

I'm sure that was drilled into me in third or fourth class, so much so that I still remember it more than 20 years later, but to be honest, even if I wanted to describe something else that happened at the beach, I'd be stuck for ways to express it. There'll never be a donkey ride, sand castles or shell collections in my day at the seaside story, because we only ever learned one rigid story per scenario in primary school and no vocabulary to expand on it.