We must rid ourselves of our ludicrous language laws

zeffabelli

Grudaire wrote: »

Does this argument not apply to all subjects?

Yes it does.

But the Irish curriculum or design seems to ignore this.

zeffabelli

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

It is going to come to a **** or get off the pot where the denial will have to be faced.

As education will have to transform from analogue to digital and it is already behind on this, both the cost and pointlessness of Irish will really come to the fore when the civil servants try to find wit Irish words for IPad, and when they have to hire developers to design things in Irish specific for a limited market and this is going to cost a fortune.


The farce will be undeniable at that stage.

The Corinthian

dubhthach wrote: »

Good for you, hope the good burghers of Zurich enjoy your tax.

As did the Revenue Commissioners in Ireland, where I still paid more than you. So you can drop this dick measuring contest at this stage because mine is way bigger than yours no matter how you want to measure it.

The unions couldn't give a fig what their members spend 3.5 hours a week at as long as they don't loose out on 800million a year in payrole. My point quite simply is that there is minimum saving from removing Irish from curriculum when it comes to current budget of Department of Education.

So what you're saying is your point was, well, pointless.

I thought it was fairly obvious that I suggested that Irish should be "banned" from core curriculum of english speaking schools. Again if Bearloirí parents want it they can have their children in extra-curricular classes or send them to Gaelscoil.

Cretinous melodramatic argument that you introduced simply for effect, as with the unions point. No one has suggested banning the language other than you - all that has been suggested is that it is no longer obligatory; either in or outside of school.

Are you against removing Irish from the core curriculum of english speaking schools?

Oh, no longer a ban, just a removal from the core subjects... backtracking, I see.

Sounds lot easier to just remove it from the standard school day and than have it as optional module during out of school hours (eg. from 2.45pm etc.)

Shall we remove all optional subjects then? Or are you just offering another daft argument for effect?

TBH, you've actually not contributed anything even vaguely useful for the last few pages in this discussion. A few strawmen, some melodramatic claims and a bit of bellyaching about how the majority here don't agree with the Irish language's position at present.

Shep_Dog

Grudaire wrote: »

Does this argument not apply to all subjects?

Compulsory Irish is problematical because it's a direct attack on the language rights and culture of the child and its family. It's taught by way of assault on the self-esteem of English-speakers. The results of this disasterous and immoral policy speak (literally) for themselves.

The fact that the language being taught is functionally useless, just adds insult to injury.

AnLonDubh

The vast majority of students in both English schools and the Gaelscoileanna do not really speak* Irish upon exiting secondary school. Given the low practical utility of the language, it is obvious that it should become optional.

More broadly however, I am unsure of how to tackle the problem of language learning in Ireland. It would certainly be useful for children here to know French, German or Spanish. However aside from "Jaysus Ted, a bit of the auld Chinese'd be useful" that's often spouted, we know that students don't currently learn their other language in school correctly. Hell, I know university students with degrees in Spanish can often leave not knowing how to operate even half confidently in Spanish. (They know a lot about the literary themes of Don Quixotic though).

I think we need a major change from the 19th century "learn the following list of 47 vegetables" crap that passes for language teaching here. Something more along the lines of the various learning methods developed by the US government for its military students or methods developed in polyglot circles. There has been a huge advance in language teaching research in the last twenty years but virtually none of it has penetrated to the primary/secondary level classroom.

*I can bring up the multiple studies that show that the majority of Gaelscoil students do not correctly speak the language.

PopePalpatine

AnLonDubh wrote: »

I think we need a major change from the 19th century "learn the following list of 47 vegetables" crap that passes for language teaching here. Something more along the lines of the various learning methods developed by the US government for its military students or methods developed in polyglot circles. There has been a huge advance in language teaching research in the last twenty years but virtually none of it has penetrated to the primary/secondary level classroom.

What are these methods you're talking about?

Carlos Orange

PopePalpatine wrote: »

What are these methods you're talking about?

I just had to google the Irish for potato so I'm pretty sure I don't know what he is talking about.

AnLonDubh

PopePalpatine wrote: »

What are these methods you're talking about?

Do you want just their names or papers describing them?

PopePalpatine

A name and a brief description would do.

katydid

AnLonDubh wrote: »

The vast majority of students in both English schools and the Gaelscoileanna do not really speak* Irish upon exiting secondary school. Given the low practical utility of the language, it is obvious that it should become optional.

More broadly however, I am unsure of how to tackle the problem of language learning in Ireland. It would certainly be useful for children here to know French, German or Spanish. However aside from "Jaysus Ted, a bit of the auld Chinese'd be useful" that's often spouted, we know that students don't currently learn their other language in school correctly. Hell, I know university students with degrees in Spanish can often leave not knowing how to operate even half confidently in Spanish. (They know a lot about the literary themes of Don Quixotic though).

I think we need a major change from the 19th century "learn the following list of 47 vegetables" crap that passes for language teaching here. Something more along the lines of the various learning methods developed by the US government for its military students or methods developed in polyglot circles. There has been a huge advance in language teaching research in the last twenty years but virtually none of it has penetrated to the primary/secondary level classroom.

*I can bring up the multiple studies that show that the majority of Gaelscoil students do not correctly speak the language.

Language teaching has gone a long way from learning lists of vocabulary. Students are no longer expected to read literature in the language (except in Irish), and the focus in both written and oral is on using language in the real world. It's all very well to talk about language teaching in situations like the US military, where people can be subjected to intense immersion in the language - we're talking here about people being exposed to classes three or four times a week for approximately 40 minutes each time. It is impossible to replicate the intense or total immersion that other language learning systems involves.

I'm not sure what methods you refer to that have been developed in polyglot circles, but again, I would suggest that not all methods are suitable to the structure of learning I outline above.

I have taught French and German in Ireland, and taught English to foreign students in Ireland and abroad, and the main difference is relevance and motivation. I was quite surprise when I taught in Germany how old-fashioned the methodology and the textbooks were in comparison to Ireland, and that was twenty years ago. It was indeed vocabulary lists and grammar; any kind of interactive learning was frowned upon. But the students acquired a good standard of English very quickly, because they wanted to learn it.

On the other hand, teaching the same kind of students in Ireland, you were faced with the inevitable "Why do we have to learn this, doesn't everyone speak English?" factor, and the total failure to understand, for example, why it is important to observe conventions of the gender or declension of nouns.

When people want to learn - for example, in the night classes I teach - it's a whole different story. I can make more progress in a ten week evening class than in an entire year with a class of first years.

iusedmename

I imagine that one of the methods Anlondubh was referring to is MAO. It originally showed promising signs of success, but subsequently was criticised as being essentially unreproducible.

Largely because, as the thinking goes, if you tell a soldier "learn this or you are more likely to die", they learn.

Calina

AnLonDubh wrote: »

The vast majority of students in both English schools and the Gaelscoileanna do not really speak* Irish upon exiting secondary school. Given the low practical utility of the language, it is obvious that it should become optional.

More broadly however, I am unsure of how to tackle the problem of language learning in Ireland. It would certainly be useful for children here to know French, German or Spanish. However aside from "Jaysus Ted, a bit of the auld Chinese'd be useful" that's often spouted, we know that students don't currently learn their other language in school correctly. Hell, I know university students with degrees in Spanish can often leave not knowing how to operate even half confidently in Spanish. (They know a lot about the literary themes of Don Quixotic though).

I think we need a major change from the 19th century "learn the following list of 47 vegetables" crap that passes for language teaching here. Something more along the lines of the various learning methods developed by the US government for its military students or methods developed in polyglot circles. There has been a huge advance in language teaching research in the last twenty years but virtually none of it has penetrated to the primary/secondary level classroom.

*I can bring up the multiple studies that show that the majority of Gaelscoil students do not correctly speak the language.

The absolute core issue with language learning in Ireland is not the 19th century crap you're talking about. It is the fact that there is a tendency in Ireland to do as little as you can get away with no matter what the objective. It's the constant looking for an easy way to do stuff. It is why our maths skills had to be bought off by increased CAO points and it is specifically why we are lousy at languages. Motivation, as pointed out, is a massive issue in Ireland. Sure everyone speaks English.

Here's an interesting point: learning Irish actually opens a bunch of phonemes that make learning to pronounce and speak a bunch of other languages easier. Of course, we don't benefit from it because we operate on a superficial basis of sure when will Irish ever be useful and don't recognise the utility it provides in enabling us to learn other stuff because we're too lazy to try and learn either it or any other language. Sure everyone speaks English anyway.

Learning any language requires effort. You can attempt to Duolingo your way to fluency in another language all you like but at some point, you are going to have to learn the names of the vegetables anyway. There isn't a magic bullet way to do that. It takes time and effort regardless what methodology you apply. And that requires motivation.

The Corinthian

Calina wrote: »

It is why our maths skills had to be bought off by increased CAO points and it is specifically why we are lousy at languages. Motivation, as pointed out, is a massive issue in Ireland. Sure everyone speaks English.

Were that the case we should all be fluent in the language. After all, we're 'bought off' to learn Irish with bonus marks if we do our LC through the language, and unlike maths we're also penalized in that we need it to get into an NUI college. Given the lamentable state of Irish in those who have done in through the schooling system, your 'bought off' theory does not hold up to scrutiny, I'm afraid.

That we are poor in other languages is largely because we do not start learning them until secondary school, unlike in much of the continent. Additionally we suffer the same problem as other anglophones in that we already speak English, which is the principle foreign language learned abroad - the British are no better than us in this regard.

Here's an interesting point: learning Irish actually opens a bunch of phonemes that make learning to pronounce and speak a bunch of other languages easier.

Bit excessive to learn a language to learn a bunch of phonemes (which incidentally are pretty different to most other European languages, so I'd question how useful this would be). You'd be better off learning German, Italian or Spanish for those phonemes, and you'd also be left with a language that is actually used. So, you're proposing a rather weak benefit, TBH.

Learning any language requires effort.

Indeed. And the amount of effort we can expend is finite. In primary school Irish was taught every morning to me. When I think of what that time could have been used on instead, such as maths which was not remedial compared to many other countries at that age, I almost weep.

katydid

Calina wrote: »

Here's an interesting point: learning Irish actually opens a bunch of phonemes that make learning to pronounce and speak a bunch of other languages easier. Of course, we don't benefit from it because we operate on a superficial basis of sure when will Irish ever be useful and don't recognise the utility it provides in enabling us to learn other stuff because we're too lazy to try and learn either it or any other language. . .

So we should learn Irish because it'll help us learn other languages? Hmm.

Certainly, learning ANY second language will help us learn a third and a fourth, but I don't think that we should be suggesting that the reason to learn Irish is to help us with our pronunciation of other languages. We can learn phonemes by learning other languages directly - it's not rocket science.

zeffabelli

Generally speaking second language teaching is pretty backwards.

Students will be motivated by necessity and by learning about subject matter they are interested in.

If the squishy ion is transmitted through the body that memory will stick.

If you gave them mine craft books in the foreign language you inspire much greater motivation . Or cooking classes or done via an activity.

The Irish homework that comes home us ridiculous. You will never ever learn a language this way. It's hopeless.

zeffabelli

Calina wrote: »

The absolute core issue with language learning in Ireland is not the 19th century crap you're talking about. It is the fact that there is a tendency in Ireland to do as little as you can get away with no matter what the objective. It's the constant looking for an easy way to do stuff. It is why our maths skills had to be bought off by increased CAO points and it is specifically why we are lousy at languages. Motivation, as pointed out, is a massive issue in Ireland. Sure everyone speaks English.

Here's an interesting point: learning Irish actually opens a bunch of phonemes that make learning to pronounce and speak a bunch of other languages easier. Of course, we don't benefit from it because we operate on a superficial basis of sure when will Irish ever be useful and don't recognise the utility it provides in enabling us to learn other stuff because we're too lazy to try and learn either it or any other language. Sure everyone speaks English anyway.

Learning any language requires effort. You can attempt to Duolingo your way to fluency in another language all you like but at some point, you are going to have to learn the names of the vegetables anyway. There isn't a magic bullet way to do that. It takes time and effort regardless what methodology you apply. And that requires motivation.

Why would anyone be motivated to learn it?

Seriously you expect this to set fire to my dopamine synapses you are deluding yourself.

It's not lazy not to invest energy in a subject that has no value, it's smart to keep your focus on the subjects that matter and count and not allow the curriculum to eat at your self esteem.

katydid

zeffabelli wrote: »

Generally speaking second language teaching is pretty backwards.

Students will be motivated by necessity and by learning about subject matter they are interested in.

If the squishy ion is transmitted through the body that memory will stick.

If you gave them mine craft books in the foreign language you inspire much greater motivation . Or cooking classes or done via an activity.

The Irish homework that comes home us ridiculous. You will never ever learn a language this way. It's hopeless.

I agree that this is the ideal, but language teachers have to work within the limits of the school environment and curriculum. Given those limitations, they do their best. It's all very well to talk about Minecraft or cookery, but you're talking about one teacher and twenty something students in a classroom.

People in other countries learn English in similar settings to Irish students who learn Irish or foreign languages, and learn them very well. Eastern Europeans who learn English in school learn it through grammar, vocabulary lists and translation. Not through Minecraft and cooking. They learn it because they have a strong motivation to.

zeffabelli

katydid wrote: »

I agree that this is the ideal, but language teachers have to work within the limits of the school environment and curriculum. Given those limitations, they do their best. It's all very well to talk about Minecraft or cookery, but you're talking about one teacher and twenty something students in a classroom.

People in other countries learn English in similar settings to Irish students who learn Irish or foreign languages, and learn them very well. Eastern Europeans who learn English in school learn it through grammar, vocabulary lists and translation. Not through Minecraft and cooking. They learn it because they have a strong motivation to.

They don't learn it either unless through immersion. Or because they can access English through its exports, exports that are interesting.

Irish doesn't produce anything... Not med journals, not porn, not special interest magazines.... Not really good television... Nada...

They study it... But they don't learn it. It's a huge blind spot in language teaching.

I've learned more French through French magazines and France musique than I did in 9 years of school French.

katydid

zeffabelli wrote: »

They don't learn it either unless through immersion. Or because they can access English through its exports, exports that are interesting.

Irish doesn't produce anything... Not med journals, not porn, not special interest magazines.... Not really good television... Nada...

They study it... But they don't learn it. It's a huge blind spot in language teaching.

I've learned more French through French magazines and France musique than I did in 9 years of school French.

Yes, they do learn it without immersion. They can become much more comfortable when immersed in the target language, but they can and do certainly learn it effectively using "old-fashioned" methods. I have taught in Germany, and, as I said elsewhere, the textbooks and teaching methods were more old fashioned than I had expected, but the competency was very good. Because motivation is sky high.

My husband is German. He comes from East Germany, so had to learn Russian in school, much the same way as we have to learn Irish. He also learned English, but the emphasis was on Russian, for obvious reasons. Although he had little access to English growing up, his motivation was very high (English films, music, the lure of "the West"), and even before he moved to Ireland his English was excellent. He studied Russian in secondary school and in college - it was mandatory in college no matter what your main area of study was, and visited Russia on business a couple of times. But his Russian is almost gone; he never wanted to learn it, had no interest in it, and saw it as something imposed on him.

I agree about Irish - but that comes down to motivation. If you don't see a relevance for something, you find it more difficult to motivate yourself.

zeffabelli

katydid wrote: »

Yes, they do learn it without immersion. They can become much more comfortable when immersed in the target language, but they can and do certainly learn it effectively using "old-fashioned" methods. I have taught in Germany, and, as I said elsewhere, the textbooks and teaching methods were more old fashioned than I had expected, but the competency was very good. Because motivation is sky high.

My husband is German. He comes from East Germany, so had to learn Russian in school, much the same way as we have to learn Irish. He also learned English, but the emphasis was on Russian, for obvious reasons. Although he had little access to English growing up, his motivation was very high (English films, music, the lure of "the West"), and even before he moved to Ireland his English was excellent. He studied Russian in secondary school and in college - it was mandatory in college no matter what your main area of study was, and visited Russia on business a couple of times. But his Russian is almost gone; he never wanted to learn it, had no interest in it, and saw it as something imposed on him.

I agree about Irish - but that comes down to motivation. If you don't see a relevance for something, you find it more difficult to motivate yourself.

You can't compare English with other second languages.

It exports a lot, it creates a lot, and it's integral to the Internet, advanced in technology and the purchasing power of the US.

Its relevant, it's part of commerce and trade, it dominates.

There isn't a hope that any other language can motivate in the same way, especially Irish, or Latin or Greek.

Classics departments are tiny now and are often only there as tokenistic gestures. And back in the day when we had to study Latin they only made us learn to read it because it's not spoken anymore.

There is zero motivation for Irish unless your a language aficionado who likes languages, but most of us are not that. The denial around the functionality of Irish is mesmerising.

Motivation is complicated and educators can't just say "motivate yourself," it doesn't work that way.

The first job of a teacher is to impart the passion..., that's their part of the deal and if they can't do that then... Forget it.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

katydid wrote: »

I agree about Irish - but that comes down to motivation. If you don't see a relevance for something, you find it more difficult to motivate yourself.

This isn't news to any of us - the question is how people think that the current policies of forcing it upon people and dramatically over-emphasising it's usage in public lives inspires motivation.

katydid

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

This isn't news to any of us - the question is how people think that the current policies of forcing it upon people and dramatically over-emphasising it's usage in public lives inspires motivation.

It may not be news to anyone. But it wasn't in the context of it being news that I was writing. It was in the context of a suggestion that different teaching methodologies would in any way improve the learning outcome.

katydid

zeffabelli wrote: »

You can't compare English with other second languages.

It exports a lot, it creates a lot, and it's integral to the Internet, advanced in technology and the purchasing power of the US.

Its relevant, it's part of commerce and trade, it dominates.

There isn't a hope that any other language can motivate in the same way, especially Irish, or Latin or Greek.


Motivation is complicated and educators can't just say "motivate yourself," it doesn't work that way.

The first job of a teacher is to impart the passion..., that's their part of the deal and if they can't do that then... Forget it.

You can compare English to any second language in that for a learner to acquire it, they have to make an effort. The effort for English is less because of the motivational aspects you mention, but it's relevant to look at it as a second language to explain why other languages are not so successful. Language learning is the same no matter what the second language is; it is factors such as motivation that make the difference.

No, educators can't just say "motivate themselves"; neither can they force a motivation if it doesn't exist. You can use all the innovative techniques you want, but in in the context of a classroom situation at primary or secondary level, you have to work with the material and the people you have. You just have to work within those limitations

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

katydid wrote: »

It may not be news to anyone. But it wasn't in the context of it being news that I was writing. It was in the context of a suggestion that different teaching methodologies would in any way improve the learning outcome.

I see your point, but arguing methodologies when there is so much pressure from fundamantalist Gaelgiori to resist any form of change is akin to the rhetorical rearranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic.

katydid wrote: »

You can compare English to any second language in that for a learner to acquire it, they have to make an effort. The effort for English is less because of the motivational aspects you mention, but it's relevant to look at it as a second language to explain why other languages are not so successful. Language learning is the same no matter what the second language is; it is factors such as motivation that make the difference.

No, educators can't just say "motivate themselves"; neither can they force a motivation if it doesn't exist. You can use all the innovative techniques you want, but in in the context of a classroom situation at primary or secondary level, you have to work with the material and the people you have. You just have to work within those limitations

This kinda contrdicts your point above..

"... a free man ought not to learn anything under duress. Compulsory physical exercise does no harm to the body, but compulsory learning never sticks to the mind.'
- Plato

So we return to my initial question: how are current policies designed to inspire motivation even before the langauge even gets to the classroom?

katydid

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I see your point, but arguing methodologies when there is so much pressure from fundamantalist Gaelgiori to resist any form of change is akin to the rhetorical rearranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic.



This kinda contrdicts your point above..

"... a free man ought not to learn anything under duress. Compulsory physical exercise does no harm to the body, but compulsory learning never sticks to the mind.'
- Plato

But we come back to the initial question: how are current policies inspire motivation even before the langauge even gets to the classroom?

I don't think fundamentalist Gaelgeoraí have much influence on the teaching of the language in the classroom, which has changed a lot in recent years. In the senior cycle, the teachers are still stuck with literature, but other than that, methods and the curriculum itself has definitely changed.

How does my second point contradict anything?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

katydid wrote: »

I don't think fundamentalist Gaelgeoraí have much influence on the teaching of the language in the classroom, which has changed a lot in recent years. In the senior cycle, the teachers are still stuck with literature, but other than that, methods and the curriculum itself has definitely changed.

How does my second point contradict anything?

In the first part, you;re promoting the use teaching methodologies, in the secdond, you're saying teachers are stuck with what they have.

Also, your point above confirms what I said: irrespective of what medhods a teachers employs, if they are stuck teaching literature to kids who are barely able to speak the langauge and are already demotivated, this is just dumb and returns us to the question of how exactly it's supposed to inspire motivation.

Because to any sane mind, that's just pushing them further away.

katydid

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

In the first part, you;re promoting the use teaching methodologies, in the secdond, you're saying teachers are stuck with what they have.

Also, your point above confirms what I said: irrespective of what medhods a teachers employs, if they are stuck teaching literature to kids who are barely able to speak the langauge and are already demotivated, this is just dumb and returns us to the question of how exactly it's supposed to inspire motivation.

Because to any sane mind, that's just pushing them further away.

Yes; they aren't contradicting one another. I'm just saying that in fairness to the teachers, they are trying. They are not just sticking to the old methodologies.

I agree with the rest

Shep_Dog

katydid wrote: »

Yes; they aren't contradicting one another. I'm just saying that in fairness to the teachers, they are trying. They are not just sticking to the old methodologies.

If the teachers are normal, sensible people and are not members of the radical political lobby group, Conradh na Gaeilge, which wants to reinstate Irish as our main language, I think the teachers themselves lack the motivation to impose Irish on their students.

katydid

Shep_Dog wrote: »

If the teachers are normal, sensible people and are not members of the radical political lobby group, Conradh na Gaeilge, which wants to reinstate Irish as our main language, I think the teachers themselves lack the motivation to impose Irish on their students.

Impose?

gananam

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Also, your point above confirms what I said: irrespective of what medhods a teachers employs, if they are stuck teaching literature to kids who are barely able to speak the langauge and are already demotivated, this is just dumb and returns us to the question of how exactly it's supposed to inspire motivation.

Well this at least is being resolved, the Dept. have finally listened to the so called 'fundementalist Gaelgiori' and are developing a proper curriculum for Gaeltacht schools. There was a public consultation over the summer and the dept. have invited people to take part in public meetings to discuss the proposals. The fact that Gaeltacht schools up to now had to teach the one size fits all course was one of the main reasons that literature was such a significant part of the course. The result was that you had one course being taught to two vastly different groups of students, native speakers of the language and those who could barely tell you the time in Irish. The course was not really fit for purpose for either group in reallity.
Once the Gaeltacht course is in place, the standard course can be made to further focus on developing spoken Irish for learners in English medium schools, people are already talking about the necessary reforms.