Secondary school Irish teacher

EmilyJane2812

I’ve just began the PME (Professional Master of Education), previously known as the hdip. One of my subjects is Irish and for the first month we are observing. But in October I’m supposed to stand at the top of the classroom and begin teaching. I did Irish in UCC and I literally learnt nothing that can help me with Irish today (well the grammar tutorials were amazing, but conversation classes were shocking). I obviously have a great knowledge of the subject but I do lack an awful lot of confidence in speaking the language. I have no issue understanding someone, it’s responding. I find myself always second guessing. How do I boost my confidence? How do I improve my fluency? Should I be reading an Irish novel or something? I literally have two weeks to be able to stand up in front of 30 students and not speak a word of english

happywithlife

have as much conversational Irish as you can - a school I worked in had a conversational Irish club meet once a week for 15 mins at lunch time. Nothing too structured just encourgaging to speak as gaelige over a cuppa. it was stressed it wasn't a departmental meeting, nor class for student orals etc. just regular lunch. as gaelige. something like that might help

Noveight

Do you know what years you'll be teaching? First year in the NUIG PME I only taught Irish to 1st years. Spent about a fortnight on their house, their pets and the counties of Ireland so that wasn't taxing :pac:

However if you find you're struggling remember that you only have to be 1 page ahead of them. Whatever you plan to do on Tuesday, have a leaf through it Monday night and figure out any difficulties you have.

Work smart, not hard.

Edit: Ah sorry, thought you were worried about your level of Irish but re-reading the op I now see it's more the confidence aspect. I'll leave this here anyways.

EmilyJane2812

I’ll betwaching second year higher level Irish. I’m just worried about speaking irish for the 40 minuets, my tutor who’ll be inspecting me, told us today that the class should be 90% in Irish. My co-operating teacher speaks to them in English the whole time so then I’m also worried about them not understanding what’s going on in the classroom

pandoraj09

It takes a long time before any language teacher is ultra-confident in front of a class. We all dreaded the question we wouldn't be able to answer. Becoming a confident language teacher takes time and perseverance. You need to prepare your classes very well and get to the class before the students if possible to write on the board. Its good to be at the top of the class and see all the heads down writing as it takes the focus off you for a while. There's no magic wand to suddenly make you a super-confident teacher. Your inspector will know this. Prepare phrases to use in class and make sure they're correct. Its not oscail na leabhair, its osclaígí bhúr leabhair. Get a simple grammer book and start going through it. Get some leaving cert honours textbooks and read them. See if the Leaving Cert teachers use Dréimire. Its superb in terms of vocab. Practice the class at home. Literally talk out loud in Irish. Master the Tuiseal Ginideach and use it. "I ndiaidh a chéile a dhéantar na caisleáin!!!!"

EmilyJane2812

You have helped me so much thank you!

fed_u

As a poster said write out / prepare phrases to help you!! Like prep for any oral. Also do a piece to introduce yourself at the beginning. You could also print and laminate some phrases to stick on the walls to help students if they are used to the teacher speaking English just as the teacher before sticking anything up!! Good luck

atilladehun

It's always ok to say I'm not sure, or I don't remember. Everyone can forget normal bits of information when they are concentrating on something else.

If the information returns to you during the class then you're completely grand.

If you need to look it up while the students are working on something, no harm.

If you need to look it up later or you remember later, make a note of it and answer the student the next day. You'll probably have to remind them the whole context of how they asked the question but it will show you care.

mtoutlemonde

PM sent

dory

EmilyJane2812 wrote: »

I obviously have a great knowledge of the subject

(Hoping I don't get slated for this....but...)

I've worked with a lot of language PME students and the single biggest issue we have is them thinking they're amazing at the language and refusing to go back to basics and just practice speaking it. We've no problem whatsoever with PME students not being great at whatever language they teach, but they all think they're great! And they all have a litany of excuses as to why they're normally wonderful, just on an off day (most recent being "I'm great at Spanish usually just listened to some Catalan the other day so got muddled). Not trying to be harsh, just stay humble and be prepared to improve. Confidence will come with time and with work your language skills.


Read as much as you can, work through grammar books, write things on a website like italki and have it corrected. Maybe go to those Pop-up Gaeltacht nights or do a conversation course in an Irish language place. I've done grinds for PME students who just want to sit, drink tea and chat as Gaeilge. Maybe look someone up in your area? Best of luck with it.

RealJohn

Agree with dory, and not just when it comes to languages. Many PME students (not all, but many) think they know it all when it comes to their subjects and it’s rarely the case that they actually do because when it comes to teaching, it really is about knowing the course and the areas related to it, not your overall knowledge of the subject, and PMEs would do well to remember that.