Drop to OL Irish or stick with HL

MightyMandarin

Started 5th year after TY last week and overall finding its grand except for Irish. Always been generally crap at Irish, failed mocks and somehow managed a C by memorising a load of stuff but as regards to learning the language, no chance. Just wondering is HL Irish unbelievably difficult as it seems to be or is it a case of work,work,work and hopefully results will come although OL Irish looks to be an absolute joke anyhow...

ray2012

work work work and then the good results. :P If you're only going for a pass in the subject it shouldn't be too difficult, saying that, you still have to work for it!

Squidgy Black

Ordinary Irish is so much easier. I dropped just after the mocks in my junior cert and went on to get an A in the exams. As for Leaving Cert, you get the same aural, same sraith pictuir etc, same poems and sceals, but the questions on them are ten times easier.

ScummyMan

Drop man drop!

Im presuming you dont want to use Irish in college, ie an Irish related course, you only need a pass.

i was in the same boat as you, i did HL up to the end of 5th year and rote learned my way to low Cs. I dropped back to pass at the start of this year and I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Pass Irish requires little to no work, i need a good result in HL maths so this is after taking a huge workload off my back. I have much more time now for other subjects.

So my point is, imo its not worth the effort!

rosiee

dont drop! I'd keep on the higher! the oral is soo easy and is 40%..
I was fairly bad at irish in the JC did absolutely nothing
kept on the HL in LC last year & somehow managed to get a B3!
Points wise its a good idea to keep it on!

mhangasor

I did HL Irish last year and always found it terribly hard. In the end I made up an essay on the spot, didn't study the play, stories or poems so I had to use my own limited knowledge of Irish there and just went on about the stupidest stuff in my oral. Ended up with a B3 so no, do not drop, it's a relatively easy subject to do half well in even without any effort.

jilybilysily

Stick it out!! Dont drop its a horrible idea!! Youve only just started, have a chat to your teacher or parents, help is available just ask!!

0mega

Well, with the old course I would have said drop.. but now you still have the 40% going for the oral, the aural examination, the poems and prós..

It's basically the same except for the drama and the essay (which you have an abundance of time to plan and write.) If you're looking for high points, I'd say keep it up until at least 6th year. Lots of people just 'shut off' when it comes to Irish because they think it is pointless and too hard. Stick with it, I say.

DestructiveApe

I dropped to OL 2 weeks in to 5th year and regret it so much, just work hard in Irish and you'll find it very rewarding! It was actually my favourite subject

MightyMandarin

Well considering I'm doing Japanese and Music as extra subjects I really don't need Irish and OL I've heard is ticking boxes and matching pictures sounds lovely....

Whatsernamex33

Ticking boxes and all is Foundation Irish. :O
I'd say stick with Higher tbh, the oral being 40% makes it a lot easier to achieve a higher mark without a hard amount of work.

MightyMandarin

Whatsernamex33 wrote: »

Ticking boxes and all is Foundation Irish. :O
I'd say stick with Higher tbh, the oral being 40% makes it a lot easier to achieve a higher mark without a hard amount of work.

Well my friends doing OL and he's in the same boat as me (looking at high points and doing extra subj. but still crap at Irish) and his class has just been matching pictures to sentences and a load of 2nd year work basically.

DestructiveApe

MightyMandarin wrote: »

Well my friends doing OL and he's in the same boat as me (looking at high points and doing extra subj. but still crap at Irish) and his class has just been matching pictures to sentences and a load of 2nd year work basically.

There's a lot more to OL Irish than just matching sentence and pictures, you have the poetry, prose, letter, stories and the Oral and Listening, It would be no bother if you did well in your Junior Cert paper, If you have good Oral Irish stick to the Higher

Power Cord of Justice

I failed JC mocks and dropped to OL and I got an A for JC. I'm glad I did OL to be honest.
With the amount of time I would've had to put in for a C3 or something in HL Irish, I got a lot of HL Bs in other subjects. Now I'm thinking of dropping Irish and doing HL History by myself which should definetly get me more points..

It's up to you

MightyMandarin

Power Cord of Justice wrote: »

I failed JC mocks and dropped to OL and I got an A for JC. I'm glad I did OL to be honest.
With the amount of time I would've had to put in for a C3 or something in HL Irish, I got a lot of HL Bs in other subjects. Now I'm thinking of dropping Irish and doing HL History by myself which should definetly get me more points..

It's up to you

HL History by yourself sounds like a lot, lot of work Historys easy enough got an A in the JC but by yourself makes it 10 times harder so much easier with a teacher

MightyMandarin

There's a lot more to OL Irish than just matching sentence and pictures, you have the poetry, prose, letter, stories and the Oral and Listening, It would be no bother if you did well in your Junior Cert paper, If you have good Oral Irish stick to the Higher[/Quote]
Yeah thats the thing my vocab is terrible and never went to gaeltacht. imo the gaeltacht is just a money grabbing scam most people I know learned all the Irish at the classes which proves the pointlessness of it all.

curly135

I dropped down to OL just before the pres in 3rd year, i'm in 6th year now... I'm glad I did it, way more time to focus on the subjects that are more important to me

DestructiveApe

MightyMandarin wrote: »

There's a lot more to OL Irish than just matching sentence and pictures, you have the poetry, prose, letter, stories and the Oral and Listening, It would be no bother if you did well in your Junior Cert paper, If you have good Oral Irish stick to the Higher

Yeah thats the thing my vocab is terrible and never went to gaeltacht. imo the gaeltacht is just a money grabbing scam most people I know learned all the Irish at the classes which proves the pointlessness of it all.[/QUOTE]

I went 3 times to the gaeltacht and i think that the immersion in Irish does improve your Oral a lot but if you don't really want to keep it at higher level and you can get what you want with your other subjects than drop it to lighten the load

bobjimmy

Mandarin are you wanting to do primary teaching? If not and you say everything is going grand bar irish, i would drop it. The effort put into irish at higher will significantly effect your grades in other subjects. I dropped Irish in my repeat year and it showed in my other results. All my subjects increased by about 3 grades.

MightyMandarin

bobjimmy wrote: »

Mandarin are you wanting to do primary teaching? If not and you say everything is going grand bar irish, i would drop it. The effort put into irish at higher will significantly effect your grades in other subjects. I dropped Irish in my repeat year and it showed in my other results. All my subjects increased by about 3 grades.

Jaysus thats a big impact. Yeah I made the choice in JC back when I was way behind in Maths because I was unlucky to have gotten in the top class with a teacher who just flew through the book. Good for people who are great at maths but didn't suit me, so when I failed my mocks I went all out, got grinds but was focusing waaaay too much on maths and unfortunately I ended up with too many B's in the JC in subjects where I should've gotten A's but got a B in Maths in the end so it wasn't all bad but I really don't want to make that mistake again so I'll probably drop to OL soon.