H.L Irish

Help1997

Im currently doing higher level Irish for my leaving cert. I'm in 5th year but I find it very hard. I got a D in the jc and I feel like I need to drop to o.l. But my teacher thinks I'm really good at Irish and that I will acheive an honour in my lc. I'm really worried cause I was looking at courses and what I'm going for is at least 400 points but it's not primary teaching. I was wondering if it's possible to achieve more then that if I drop down to ordinary?

missguided

How many subjects are you studying, and are you in honours in everything at the moment?

Help1997

missguided wrote: »

How many subjects are you studying, and are you in honours in everything at the moment?

Yes I'm currently doing all honours in 8 subjects including lcvp.

Meangadh

Hi OP- I'm an Irish teacher. My advice would be just to stick with it till the mocks next year, unless you feel like it's completely interfering with your other subjects. You may as well keep your options open, especially with the oral worth 40%.

I would say that it will be hard work to reach honours level if you just got a D for the Junior Cert; but it's certainly not impossible, especially if you really work on the oral stuff.

Even if you do drop to ordinary, you'll find it a major benefit to you that you stayed with honours for as long as possible.

Help1997

Meangadh wrote: »

Hi OP- I'm an Irish teacher. My advice would be just to stick with it till the mocks next year, unless you feel like it's completely interfering with your other subjects. You may as well keep your options open, especially with the oral worth 40%.

I would say that it will be hard work to reach honours level if you just got a D for the Junior Cert; but it's certainly not impossible, especially if you really work on the oral stuff.

Even if you do drop to ordinary, you'll find it a major benefit to you that you stayed with honours for as long as possible.

I now think I should stay for as long as possible.. Thank you.. Is their any advice you could give me or what areas of Irish should I mainly focus on this year?

Meangadh

Well that would depend I suppose on what your teacher is doing with you- definitely keep up with that as best you can.

I'd be keeping a vocabulary copy and putting in every new word you come across into it, even if your teacher doesn't do specific vocab with you, it's a good habit to get into for yourself. Don't just leave them in the copy to look good though- learn them and test yourself regularly. Or even ask someone at home to call out the English and you spell back the Irish. Seems babyish and basic maybe, but it works!

Brush up on your verbs- get your hands on the "Briathra na Gaeilge" book (https://www.folens.ie/books/briathra-na-gaeilge) which you can get online or in any school bookshop- take a page a week/fortnight and learn them off. You'll probably know a lot of them already anyway so don't worry if it seems a lot! Again, test yourself on them like you would the vocab.

Of course the best practice you can do is speak Irish as much as you can, which I know isn't easy to do because other people have to be on board for it, but if there is any way at all that you can- it'll really stand to you.

By getting vocab and verbs sorted anyway, you're on the right track for a good oral, good essay and good aural- which is 2/3 of your marks. The reading comprehensions, poems, stories and extra literature piece are all only worth 1/3, which is important, but certainly not as important as the other 2/3.

Help1997

Meangadh wrote: »

Well that would depend I suppose on what your teacher is doing with you- definitely keep up with that as best you can.

I'd be keeping a vocabulary copy and putting in every new word you come across into it, even if your teacher doesn't do specific vocab with you, it's a good habit to get into for yourself. Don't just leave them in the copy to look good though- learn them and test yourself regularly. Or even ask someone at home to call out the English and you spell back the Irish. Seems babyish and basic maybe, but it works!

Brush up on your verbs- get your hands on the "Briathra na Gaeilge" book (https://www.folens.ie/books/briathra-na-gaeilge) which you can get online or in any school bookshop- take a page a week/fortnight and learn them off. You'll probably know a lot of them already anyway so don't worry if it seems a lot! Again, test yourself on them like you would the vocab.

Of course the best practice you can do is speak Irish as much as you can, which I know isn't easy to do because other people have to be on board for it, but if there is any way at all that you can- it'll really stand to you.

By getting vocab and verbs sorted anyway, you're on the right track for a good oral, good essay and good aural- which is 2/3 of your marks. The reading comprehensions, poems, stories and extra literature piece are all only worth 1/3, which is important, but certainly not as important as the other 2/3.

Thank you so much for the advice. I will try my best to take it on board.

Days 298

Up to you. I know people going for and probably will get medicine doing pass. 400 is achievable. More people do pass than honours. Dropping to pass was the best thing I did for 6th year. You have to think it over. I'm not going to say drop down but you need to consider the workload difference in getting an A in pass (60 points) and the extra workload involved in getting 60+ points in higher which could be spent on other subjects.