The way Irish is taught?

Car99

I went to primary in the 80's and secondary in the 80's/90's , I had irish for 13 years in school and by the time left school I still couldn't hold a normal everyday real world conversation in Irish.
I had learned poetry and about Peig but I wasnt able to converse in Irish and I would say 90+ per cent of my peers couldn't either.
Fast forward 30 years and I see my 8 year olds prospects of learing Irish to a good standard no better than my own prospects when I was her age.
When you consider the many thousands of teaching hours given to teaching our language every year shouldnt we expect a better return for that investment.
With technology where it is and learing platforms such as duolingo available surely we should focus on getting kids to converse in Irish rather than just learning to pass exams or even forget about the exams.
I know teachers can only use the curriculum prescribed by the department of education but can they see any better way to teach Irish to make it more useful in everyday life and fun for the kids?
Young kids no matter what have a great ability to learn languages quickly if we miss the chance in their early years to get them speaking Irish then it's not going to happen .
Just look at europe , countries like Holland their kids can speak brilliant english ( better in some cases than our kids) from a young age and they dont invest anymore in that teaching than we do in Irish.
What do teachers think of the way Irish is taught in Irish primary schools?

dory

I don't know about primary - but as a secondary teacher of Irish I can tell you the government have just brought out a new draft spec (what they're calling syllabus these days) for Leaving Cert and it has more literature and less marks for the oral. People need to write to them and say how crazy that is. They've just added a novel to junior cert, and it makes the students really hate the subject. The people in the NCCA who make these plans are fluent, and don't get how others aren't. The current LC has 40% oral and the students generally have a pretty good level afterwards. But the NCCA are going to put a stop to that! I don't have the link but they're looking for opinions on the new draft spec at the moment.

RealJohn

OP, you’re definitely right that the system is broken (same for maths, by the way), but while the way things are being done is definitely an issue, the poor level of Irish among primary teachers is a big issue. Even with the best system and the best syllabus in the world, we won’t produce students who are comfortable with the language if they’re being taught by teachers who aren’t comfortable with the language, and that’s the situation currently.

You’re not wrong about most of Europe learning English like we learn Irish and having a better command of it, but I’ll be they are being taught with decent English and no negative attitude to it, for the most part.

Dory, I agree that reducing the marks for the oral is a regressive step to some extent, but the fact is that secondary school Irish teachers aren’t the problem, and secondary school Irish students ought to be able to handle a novel at junior cycle and plenty of literature at leaving. The fact that they do eight years of Irish at primary and often start secondary as a blank slate anyway is the problem. Until that changes, secondary teachers don’t have a chance.

RealJohn

Car99 wrote: »

Fast forward 30 years and I see my 8 year olds prospects of learing Irish to a good standard no better than my own prospects when I was her age.

This isn’t really true though. Yes, the primary school system will probably continue to let her down, but if you want her to learn Irish, there are many more resources available to her than there were for you 30 years ago.

anais

I'm sorry, but where is the evidence that the primary system 'lets people down'?!
We spend an hour a day everyday teaching Irish, speak throughout the day and kill ourselves coming up with varied 'fun' and engaging techniques , aided by improved technology and resources online. It is my experience that it is at home where the children pick up negative attitudes towards the language - either because the parents don't see the point, have forgotten, or can't help at all as they are originally from a different country. This is the case in more than half of my classes for the last 5 years. Lockdown proved to me that Irish is the one subject where the kids regressed the most, a large number of parents expressed concern to me, and that the only exposure/experience is in the classroom. The minute my daughter went to second level, she had to analyse poems, stories and drama and was marked on her grammar and vocab in a similar way to English. There is no continuation ot communication between primary and secondary. Again, in my experience

pandoraj09

RealJohn wrote: »

OP, you’re definitely right that the system is broken (same for maths, by the way), but while the way things are being done is definitely an issue, the poor level of Irish among primary teachers is a big issue. Even with the best system and the best syllabus in the world, we won’t produce students who are comfortable with the language if they’re being taught by teachers who aren’t comfortable with the language, and that’s the situation currently.

You’re not wrong about most of Europe learning English like we learn Irish and having a better command of it, but I’ll be they are being taught with decent English and no negative attitude to it, for the most part.

Dory, I agree that reducing the marks for the oral is a regressive step to some extent, but the fact is that secondary school Irish teachers aren’t the problem, and secondary school Irish students ought to be able to handle a novel at junior cycle and plenty of literature at leaving. The fact that they do eight years of Irish at primary and often start secondary as a blank slate anyway is the problem. Until that changes, secondary teachers don’t have a chance.

Excellent points above and I totally agree. A lot of trainee Primary teachers only aspire to "passing" their final Irish exams in college. Very few really try to get a handle on the language and therefore they are simply not capable of teaching it. When it comes to secondary teachers of Irish, we all have a degree in the subject, well most of us, so we are competent in the language. However in saying that I had a H Dip a few years ago with Home Ec as her main subject and Irish as her second. Her Irish was atrocious and she used to call down to me at the bottom of the class and ask me to translate very simple words. Having taught Irish for 30 years in a Deis school, every year without fail we start from scratch and students don't even have the basics like how to say "I have" etc. I encouraged my daughter to send my grand daughter to a Primary Gaelscoil so Irish wouldn't be a cement block on her shoulders all her school life. She's great at chatting in the language and it's lovely listening to her.

French Toast

All literature needs to be dropped at LC level - poetry, prose, the lot.

Greater emphasis on conversational Irish needed. Should be taught the same as French/German.

Cosmo Kramer

I can't speak for how it is taught now, but during my schooling in the 80s and 90s the teaching of Irish I experienced was just hopeless, and despite taking extra classes outside of school and having a parent who is enthusiastic about the language, I left school with a B at honours level, yet barely able to converse in the language.

It was a crying shame considering the amount of time that was spent on the subject, but as a student there was only so much Peig and the modh coinníollach I could take and I grew to resent it.

I'd like to think things have improved since then but if the focus is still on poetry and grammar moreso than the spoken word then it's still probably a complete waste of time for most students. The whole point of it should be about keeping the language alive, but the way it was taught to me it was like they were purposely trying to kill it off.

pandoraj09

French Toast wrote: »

All literature needs to be dropped at LC level - poetry, prose, the lot.

Greater emphasis on conversational Irish needed. Should be taught the same as French/German.

There really isn't that much literature on the OL course. 5 poems, 2 of them really short. 5 stories of which summaries are sufficient for OL. Very few marks for them really. I spend very little time on literature and most of the time on Oral work. There are 100 marks for basically word matching on 2 comprehensions at OL and even at HL the word matching is all they're looking for for questions 1 to 5 on the HL paper. There used to be questions on the HL about the meter of the poems etc but now HL has questions like "Do you like the poem and why?" "Who wrote the poem and write 2 things about them." It has been totally dumbed down. I have corrected the HL for 30 years and it's got easier and easier. I actually like teaching LC Irish as I spend most of the time on Oral Work. Its the JC course I hate teaching.

jrmb

French Toast wrote: »

All literature needs to be dropped at LC level - poetry, prose, the lot.

Greater emphasis on conversational Irish needed. Should be taught the same as French/German.

Yeah, the trend in MFL is towards communication. I'd love to see what would happen if we could separate language from literature like they do in other countries. We might be seeing the beginning of that with separate Irish specifications for Gaelcholáistí.

RealJohn

anais wrote: »

I'm sorry, but where is the evidence that the primary system 'lets people down'?

The fact that you can do an hour a day for eight years and produce only a small minority who can have a basic conversation?
(And I’d talk about maths too but this thread is about Irish.)

am_zarathustra

I'd be of the opinion you start at the beginning of maths and Irish in secondary in urban areas I've worked in. I've had to teach times-tables to 12 year olds and we have kids coming from primary not able to say their name in Irish. The general standard of Irish even amound secondary teachers would be very much regional, the further down the country the better the Irish in general. Only 4/5 members of our teaching staff would even have gotten an honours in their LC in the subject and only one of two of us would speak it if we went into an Irish class.

I agree the attitude comes from home often due to the parents bad experiences. The course is much less literature heavy, as other posters have said, but still quiet sullen. Maths is easier to convince the kids to learn even at a later date, it's use is more obvious and everyone in their lives reinforces that it's important so that also helps.

Treppen

French Toast wrote: »

All literature needs to be dropped at LC level - poetry, prose, the lot.

Greater emphasis on conversational Irish needed. Should be taught the same as French/German.

Needs a literature element to be counted as a national language.

jrmb

Treppen wrote: »

Needs a literature element to be counted as a national language.

I would retain literature but separate it from communicative skills, or find some way to give itemised results like international language exams usually do. At the moment, someone could be a great communicator but it wouldn't necessarily be obvious from their overall subject results.

derb12

A bugbear of mine is the way that the Irish text books have no English in them at all.
French/Spanish/German books have translations and explain the grammar in English.

am_zarathustra

derb12 wrote: »

A bugbear of mine is the way that the Irish text books have no English in them at all.
French/Spanish/German books have translations and explain the grammar in English.

Irish classes should be fully in Irish in secondary and for a good chunk of the end of primary. This is very rare in urban areas, standard just isn't there. I had an Irish teacher that I'd never heard speak English until I met them outside school. My understanding of Irish is excellent as a result even if my spoken can be rusty.

It's a very dry course, large class size make individual correction of oral work difficult, it's easier to correct written work.

jimmycrackcorm

I called in with a friend for a visit a while back. His son attends a Gaelscoil and as I was in the house was on his Playstation playing online with his friends and their whole conversation was as Gaeilge.

jrmb

derb12 wrote: »

A bugbear of mine is the way that the Irish text books have no English in them at all.
French/Spanish/German books have translations and explain the grammar in English.

English in MFL textbooks is actually discouraged but even with translations and explanations, many students struggle.

Jim2007

Car99 wrote: »

Just look at europe , countries like Holland their kids can speak brilliant english ( better in some cases than our kids) from a young age and they dont invest anymore in that teaching than we do in Irish.
What do teachers think of the way Irish is taught in Irish primary schools?

Can you explain to a kid in practical terms why they need to learn Irish? Is there anything in practical terms that they can’t do unless they learn Irish? Kids are just like everyone else - don’t expect them waste their time learning something that brings no utility.

Of course European kids are highly motivated to learn English, they see a practical use for it several times everyday. Until my daughter was 8, she always spoke to me in German and I always responded in English, it worked for her until she wanted to stay over in Ireland with her cousins. Suddenly she had a reason and she worked hard at talking English to me.

We have four languages here in Switzerland of which Romansh has gone the way of Irish for the exact same reason - no utility. At school they learn two national languages and most kids also take English. But when say the under 40s meet up they use English rather than a national language because it’s the one they kept up because they found utility in doing so.

The majority of people learn a language because they need it so the can do other things - work, socialize, go about their daily life etc.. We spent at least a hundred years trying to encourage the speaking of Irish and failed. And no matter how you present it, another 100 years will change nothing. Unless you can show people a practical purpose for learning Irish it will remain at best a minority interest.

Jim2007

derb12 wrote: »

A bugbear of mine is the way that the Irish text books have no English in them at all.
French/Spanish/German books have translations and explain the grammar in English.

I have never come across a German book with English translations in it, perhaps it’s available as an addition. And in any case it’s a really bad idea because there is no one on one translation for many language constructs.

Sometimes I tell my kids to tell their mother something, and when I hear what they say it is often not remotely close to a translation - yes they will have expressed my intention, but how they said it was completely different.

A one stage I took Germany classes with an Italian and a South American, we had no language in common but the one were trying to learn. It worked very well because people did not drop into another language for explanation.

You did not learn your first language with a grammar book and a translation!

am_zarathustra

My German is surprisingly good from school but some of this is down to repetitive rules in HochDeutsch and the generally simpler verb structure. Irish is quite difficult to learn, there's a reason they make you repeat liom, leat, leis etc ad nauseum. There is very little formalization and verb act and sound completely different depending on context. Listening and speaking is really the only way to gain fluency in these.

It would be interesting to see something akin to the Welsh model implemented here, very successful in turning it from a very dead language (worse than Irish) back into something young people were interested in.

Utility is absolutely an issue though. I teach very necessary and utilitarian subjects, it's glaringly clear why you need to learn what I'm teaching and there's no point saying that doesn't make it easier to get kids motivated. I love Irish but when I was 15 I'd have quit it if I'd had the option to study something I perceived as more useful

French Toast

Treppen wrote: »

Needs a literature element to be counted as a national language.

Never knew that condition existed. Disaster.

You end up with kids who can barely distinguish between the tenses having to write about poetry of the islanders. Not heavily weighted, thankfully, but frustrating for students.

noplacehere

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I called in with a friend for a visit a while back. His son attends a Gaelscoil and as I was in the house was on his Playstation playing online with his friends and their whole conversation was as Gaeilge.

I sent my son to a gaelscoil despite hating Irish in secondary school. Honestly I hated it most because I knew it was my weakest subject. I loved listening to fluent speakers.

My working knowledge has improved enormously in just two years never mind his. The school ran some basic classes which did work on the orders parents give ‘put on your coat’ etc and my two year old now understands most of these as I’ve implemented them. He drops Irish words into conversations without a thought and that’s despite missing large amounts of junior and senior infants due to covid.

I also did Duolingo during this lockdown. First level of everything and gold up to castle 3. I can honestly say I did not have a clue of Irish having done that now. Lots came back, but my fundamentals structures were very wrong

byhookorbycrook

I will start by saying I teach in a Gaelscoil, but when I began teaching “ up the country,” I was in a small , rural school where the other teacher and most of the parents told me that the children hated Irish . I started with songs and rhymes , teaching art and PE through Irish and teaching them playground games like O’ Grady says” in Irish . Within 2 months , the parents were asking how to improve their own rusty Irish and the children all reported they loved Irish .

It can be done, if the will exists , but I do see that the standard of Irish many recent graduates at primary level is basic at best. They don’t have any of the richer language that I would have picked up from native speakers in college ( lecturers and students alike) and from working for what were frankly slave wages as a helper on Gaeltacht summer colleges . We have quite a number of past pupils on staff as they would obviously have a high standard .

In our town , there are pre-schools, before and after school care and a secondary school all working through the medium of Irish as well as a local football club and a hurling/camogie club where there are people with an interest in using Irish when they come into us to coach - which spills over into training outside the school day.
This time of the year , our 6th class would normally be heading to the Erris Gaeltacht for a few nights and our boys/girls football team not long back from an overnight tournament in Rath Cairn in Meath.

jrmb

I got a copy of a new Junior Cycle French book today. It only has questions translated into English for the first few units of first year.

dory

derb12 wrote: »

A bugbear of mine is the way that the Irish text books have no English in them at all.
French/Spanish/German books have translations and explain the grammar in English.

Yes, it can be very hard for adults who want to go back and learn. I often read grammar books for various languages in English. But very few exist for Irish. Some people on Instagram are trying to remedy the situation, explaining Irish grammar through English. Do a search for #múinteoirgaeilge or #learnirish to find some of them.