How to revive the Irish language.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

An Coilean wrote: »

Not really, We already know, a large majority of people think Irish is actually an important part of who we are. This coupled with Gaelscoils being a very good form of education, time and again producing good results is a reciepy for success.

That's a bit like saying that a large portion of people are sendign their kids to Catholic schools because they want their kids to receive a catholic education.

Corealation does not imply causality.

opti0nal

An Coilean wrote: »

What part of we already know why gaelscoils are successful don't you understand?

Why then, is it necessary to make Irish compulsory in non-Gaelscoils?

oldmangrub

opti0nal wrote: »

Why then, is it necessary to make Irish compulsory in non-Gaelscoils?

I would agree with non-compulsory Irish after the Junior Cert. I don't see any good in removing it from the educational curriculum altogether. I personally wouldn't like your views passed on to the next generation. I also don't take the "teaching them makes them hate it" point of view. Really, parents, educators and adults shouldn't encourage kids to hate cultures or languages and shouldn't give these views any credence. Bias and bigotry should be challenged. I also don't accept it does anything but good for kids to learn a second language in primary school and I've already explained why I think that should be Irish.
How come you find compulsory Irish objectionable, but the failure to meet the demands of parents who want to send their kids to Gaelscoils not so?
I suspect the latter are a larger number. And surely spending every hour of your child's education through English when you would prefer it through Irish is a bigger issue than spending 40 minutes four or five times a week learning Irish when you would rather they didn't learn it at all?
I think the demand for Gaelscoils needs to be met and structures put in place for foreign language teaching before you start talking about removing Irish as a subject from schools. Really, if you cared about parents' rights and didn't have your own bias towards the language you would surely be just as vocal about Gaelscoils.
Wanting to set up ghettos for Irish-speakers, remove it from the education system and remove all funding for it is a bit extreme. In the world of this thread, I'm a fanatic and your views are perfectly reasonable. I suggest you start a campaign and state your views in public.

Lord TSC

I would agree with non-compulsory Irish after the Junior Cert. I don't see any good in removing it from the educational curriculum altogether.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone has suggested a complete removal of Irish from the curriculum....

Iwasfrozen

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone has suggested a complete removal of Irish from the curriculum....

Exactly, just the removal of compulsory status would be sufficient. Preferably optional from day one but after the junior cert would be an acceptable compromise. The mandarins in the TUI won't like it though.

An Coilean

opti0nal wrote: »

Why then, is it necessary to make Irish compulsory in non-Gaelscoils?

I suppose my argument is in two parts, firstly I believe that a language should be compulsory up until the leaving cert, and secondly, I think that language should be Irish.

I think learning a language should be compulsory because I believe that second language learning is a very important part of any education system. There is a substantial body of research that has consistantly shown an improvment in learning outcomes when a second language is learned. Overall I believe it is beneficial to the children learning it. Learning a Language even if not to fluency is beneficial. It has been shown to aid cognative development and literacy in other languages.

That language should be Irish in my opinion because the infastructure is there to teach it. We could change to another language, German for arguments sake, but I dont see why compulsory German would be any less objectionable than Compulsory Irish if it is true when you say you don't have a problem with Irish in its self.

Contrary to what some people seem to think, Switching to another Languge will not benefit the economy, or the students. They will not learn German to a higher standard then they are learning Irish now, and at that level of ability they simply have no prospect of compeating with Native speakers for jobs. To teach German to a level where it might be economacally useful to students when they finish, we would have to give far more time to the learning of it in schools, around twice as much time as is given to Irish currently, this would scew the education system seveerly to achieve something that will be of economic benefit to very few, while also impinging on other subject areas.
I don't believe the demand is there to replace Irish with another language, never mind devote enough resourses to the teaching of it to make it economicly useful to some students when they finish.

LordSutch

oldmangrub wrote: »

I would agree with non-compulsory Irish after the Junior Cert. I don't see any good in removing it from the educational curriculum altogether.

Agreed, and as a parent I am with you 100% on that, but realistically will the 'non-compulsory after Junior Cert' ever happen?

dubhthach

LordSutch wrote: »

Agreed, and as a parent I am with you 100% on that, but realistically will the 'non-compulsory after Junior Cert' ever happen?

Only likely if they scrap the entire current system of exams in second level. The leaving cert isn't really fit for purpose anyways, it's just a rote system whose results show who was best at regurgitating prepared answers on the day.

Personally I wouldn't have any compulsory subjects at "senior cycle", instead universities should have relevant compulsory subjects for matriculation. So for example you want to do biology well you need to have done Biology and preferably another science/maths subject -- writing reams of prose on Hamlet shouldn't be relevant etc.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

An Coilean wrote: »

I suppose my argument is in two parts, firstly I believe that a language should be compulsory up until the leaving cert, and secondly, I think that language should be Irish.

I think learning a language should be compulsory because I believe that second language learning is a very important part of any education system. There is a substantial body of research that has consistantly shown an improvment in learning outcomes when a second language is learned. Overall I believe it is beneficial to the children learning it. Learning a Language even if not to fluency is beneficial. It has been shown to aid cognative development and literacy in other languages.

That language should be Irish in my opinion because the infastructure is there to teach it. We could change to another language, German for arguments sake, but I dont see why compulsory German would be any less objectionable than Compulsory Irish if it is true when you say you don't have a problem with Irish in its self.

Contrary to what some people seem to think, Switching to another Languge will not benefit the economy, or the students. They will not learn German to a higher standard then they are learning Irish now, and at that level of ability they simply have no prospect of compeating with Native speakers for jobs. To teach German to a level where it might be economacally useful to students when they finish, we would have to give far more time to the learning of it in schools, around twice as much time as is given to Irish currently, this would scew the education system seveerly to achieve something that will be of economic benefit to very few, while also impinging on other subject areas.
I don't believe the demand is there to replace Irish with another language, never mind devote enough resourses to the teaching of it to make it economicly useful to some students when they finish.

Sounds like a cop-out - you want Irish to be compulsory all the way up to leaveing cert, but you don't have the balls to say it.

It also sounds like you take Irish simply because it's the easiest option available. Really? That's the only reasons you can come up with?

The mistake you're making is that the infrastructure IS there to each a second langauge other than Irish. Plenty of schools offer french or German. So, that said: if a school has French and Irish available to all students, why should ALL students be automaticaly forced to pick the same language?

I would go so far as to say that, if a school can not offer a second language other that Irish, then a secodn language should not be compulsory.

opti0nal

oldmangrub wrote: »

I personally wouldn't like your views passed on to the next generation.

You mean that you would not want the next generation to share my view that children should not be forced to speak a language they don't want to speak?

Iwasfrozen

opti0nal wrote: »

You mean that you would not want the next generation to share my view that children should not be forced to speak a language they don't want to speak?

Nein, zey must speak ze language!

Tucker688

Just let the language fizzle away, we dont need in any aspect whatsoever, business or pleaseure

dd972

I've heard about youngsters going to Gaeltaecht areas and being dismissed either humorously or sometimes not so humorously for speaking ''book Irish'' by the locals.This is similar to the sort of parochialism dished out to non Dubs, Dubs, Irish people born else where, the list goes on

The notion of someone being a ''native'' Irish speaker is a bit of a myth tbh, nobody is born a native speaker of any language, we all had to learn whatever tongue we speak with, a child born in the Gaeltaecht then taken to Shanghai by two Chinese people would grow up with Chinese as their ''native'' tongue.

osarusan

dd972 wrote: »

The notion of someone being a ''native'' Irish speaker is a bit of a myth tbh, nobody is born a native speaker of any language, we all had to learn whatever tongue we speak with, a child born in the Gaeltaecht then taken to Shanghai by two Chinese people would grow up with Chinese as their ''native'' tongue.

Native language = first language, as in the first language acquired by a child, or the language they were most exposed to during the critical period of language learning.

There is no recognised link between 'native' and 'nation' anymore.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Should be renamed "how to revive the Irish langauge thread"...

Iwasfrozen

Why was this even bumped?

Iwasfrozen

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Why was this even bumped?

Because someone wanted to bump it, that's why.
No real reason, but gives everyone a chance to repeat their already stated positions!

Interest in History

Pidge96 wrote: »

If Irish was the main language taught in Primary, and other subjects taught through the medium of it (bar english), at least then people would be immersed and they'd be able to speak it grand :cool:

Actually, events are moving in the other direction. Primary school time devoted to English literacy has increased from 50 minutes a day to 90 minutes and Ruairi Quinn has emphasised the need to give more time to Maths and Science, saying that too much time is spent on Irish and Religion. In time, he aims to provide science equipment in the schools as was provided under the British.

He has also said that he will eliminate the special allowance to teachers who teach through Irish, the grants to trainee teachers to holiday in the Gaeltacht, and this year he eliminated the extra teacher numbers for Gaeilscoileanna.

Wibbs

Interest in History wrote: »

Actually, events are moving in the other direction. Primary school time devoted to English literacy has increased from 50 minutes a day to 90 minutes

Good call, especially when you see the stats that show one in four of our young men are leaving the education system barely literate in any language.

Interest in History

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Should be renamed "how to revive the Irish langauge thread"...

Nice!

It has been fascinating to watch the Revival of Irish gradually, very gradually, weaken as a national political ideology. Even the politicians in the Dáil seem to find it less useful as a patriotic feather to stick in their caps. Or it may just be that so many people came out of school with virtually no Irish that the enterpprise simply faded away.

Nobody seems to have attacked Ruairi Quinn for his campaign to reduce illiteracy, in English that is. In the past Fianna Fáil would have opposed what he is doing.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Interest in History wrote: »

Nice!

It has been fascinating to watch the Revival of Irish gradually, very gradually, weaken as a national political ideology. Even the politicians in the Dáil seem to find it less useful as a patriotic feather to stick in their caps. Or it may just be that so many people came out of school with virtually no Irish that the enterpprise simply faded away.

Nobody seems to have attacked Ruairi Quinn for his campaign to reduce illiteracy, in English that is. In the past Fianna Fáil would have opposed what he is doing.

Well, FF are not really in a position to oppose anything these days...

Interest in History

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Well, FF are not really in a position to oppose anything these days...

Well - when Young Fine Gael voted in the Spring to make Irish a subject of choice in the Laving Cert, Calleary gave them a lash for their betrayal of our-beautiful-tongue-without-which-we would-be-but-half-a-nation.

I wonder what will be the outcome of the review of the Official Languages Act? Will they try to reduce to waste on all those unnecessary translations? But very few T.D.s will express any criticism of the Revival.

Iwasfrozen

Interest in History wrote: »

Well - when Young Fine Gael voted in the Spring to make Irish a subject of choice in the Laving Cert, Calleary gave them a lash for their betrayal of our-beautiful-tongue-without-which-we would-be-but-half-a-nation.

I wonder what will be the outcome of the review of the Official Languages Act? Will they try to reduce to waste on all those unnecessary translations? But very few T.D.s will express any criticism of the Revival.

Hopefully they scrap that awful obligation on the public service to deal with people in Irish. God knows we have little money as it is without spending it on a small but vocal minority who can all speak english anyway.

An Coilean

Interest in History wrote: »

Nobody seems to have attacked Ruairi Quinn for his campaign to reduce illiteracy, in English that is. In the past Fianna Fáil would have opposed what he is doing.

All he has done so far is write a letter in the Irish Times, don't worry though should he try to implement his opinion its ridiculous, self-defeating and unsupported nature will be pointed out.

Minister Quinn has already been partially hamstrung on this issue as the NCCA have published findings that show that the teaching of Irish does not hinder the development of Literacy but infact aids it.

Interest in History

An Coilean wrote: »

All he has done so far is write a letter in the Irish Times, don't worry though should he try to implement his opinion its ridiculous, self-defeating and unsupported nature will be pointed out.

Minister Quinn has already been partially hamstrung on this issue as the NCCA have published findings that show that the teaching of Irish does not hinder the development of Literacy but infact aids it.

I'm interested in this. If you can quote the source of that NCCA reference I'd like to ferret it out.

But I think that Ruairi Quinn has actually taken some action - for example to extend the time given to learning reading and writing of English. I'd welcome confirmation or otherwise of this.

I would have assumed that an extension of time to English and to Science would mean that some time was to be taken from Irish. He has said this a few times - or from Religion and Irish to be precise. Certainly Science was removed and English was downgraded in the amount of its time and also in its grade when the Revival was launched in the 1920's. That was seen as essential for Irish to be restored.

I'm interested to get hard information on whether this is to be reversed to some extent.

Interest in History

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Hopefully they scrap that awful obligation on the public service to deal with people in Irish. God knows we have little money as it is without spending it on a small but vocal minority who can all speak english anyway.

I believe that this provision is quite unused. Apparently some letters are received which must be answered in Irish.

But I was mainly thinking about (say) the ESB and Gas Company booklets which are printed and circulated in two languages. Nobody belives that that advances the use of Irish among the population. In fact I think it was made cklear at the time that the translation activity was being invented to provide state employment for certain people. In short - it's a scam.

An Coilean

Interest in History wrote: »

I'm interested in this. If you can quote the source of that NCCA reference I'd like to ferret it out.

But I think that Ruairi Quinn has actually taken some action - for example to extend the time given to learning reading and writing of English. I'd welcome confirmation or otherwise of this.

I would have assumed that an extension of time to English and to Science would mean that some time was to be taken from Irish. He has said this a few times - or from Religion and Irish to be precise. Certainly Science was removed and English was downgraded in the amount of its time and also in its grade when the Revival was launched in the 1920's. That was seen as essential for Irish to be restored.

I'm interested to get hard information on whether this is to be reversed to some extent.

http://www.ncca.ie/en/Publications/Reports/Towards_an_Integrated_Language_Curriculum_in_Early_Childhood_and_Primary_Education_.pdf

Research has shown, however, that the potential benefits of transferring skills across languages outweigh those of interference. English and Irish share many similarities in terms of orthography and phonemes. In the process of learning Irish (or English) as an L2, children can be given opportunities to reflect on the similarities and differences between the languages and to gain a greater understanding of the structure of their L1.

stanley 2

we need to remember that the irish people were extremly sucessfull at learning a different language namly english in a very short period of time so that it was said the grandparents could not talk to there grand children . this was necesary for our very survival it was acomplashed by extreme violence but we had no choice .
unfortunatly when we decided we could now bring back the original language we used the method that had worked very well to kill it ( violence ) it was not necesary.
only love and common sence could reintroduce now ( and maybe fianacial reward )

An Coilean

stanley 2 wrote: »

we need to remember that the irish people were extremly sucessfull at learning a different language namly english in a very short period of time so that it was said the grandparents could not talk to there grand children . this was necesary for our very survival it was acomplashed by extreme violence but we had no choice .
unfortunatly when we decided we could now bring back the original language we used the method that had worked very well to kill it ( violence ) it was not necesary.
only love and common sence could reintroduce now ( and maybe fianacial reward )

I don't think its fair to say the Government tried to reintroduce Irish through Violence. No one was ever hanged because they couldent speak Irish. Corporal punishment was part of the education system, but that was true of all subjets and would have been the cse regardless of Irish.

9959

We used to find it funny at school (2nd level) when during an Irish lesson a teacher would come in to the class to have a word with our teacher, of course they would converse 'as Gaelige' in order to render their conversation impenetrable to their nosey students. It worked every time.
Irish language education, mad stuff!