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Irish in schools
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22-07-2001 8:07pm#1
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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Lucy_la_morte:
Reason why I am exempt is due to the fact I didn't start schooling in Ireland till I was 11.
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Same here.
.. actually not totally true. I just happend to be out of the country for a couple of years.
[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited 23-07-2001).]0 -
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Although I hated Irish with a passion while in school and I know I'll be lucky to above a d in the leaving, I would still like to learn Irish.
The problem I see with Irish, is that they still have the same attidute to teaching it as they had 50 years ago. They can all **** off if they think thats going to keep working, Irish is taught as a language such as english so if you do honours you have to give your thoughts and your opinions (which if you do honours you deserve to be put through
) but thats not on, pass is crappy enough if could actually teach it properily take off the pressure of it being compulsory I'd be confident that Irish but do alot better. 0 -
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LOL. And be damned with that stupid compulsory ENGLISH!<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I'm in favour of Irish being learned to LC level </font>
Ok sorry
Id like to point out that in my experience all languages are taught with equal incompetence. The same inept standard is also used in the design of the material used (in terms of the books and prioritising of the use of the subject - aural/oral/written).
Irish is just picked on because it has less practical use than any other commonly taught language.0 -
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This may sound like a deliberate trolling attempt, but its not. Its an honest opinion.
I believe the government is right to insist on Irish being compulsory, I just wish they would change the manner in which is is taught, which is nothing short of pathetic.
Under the constitution, Irish and English are equally our "national languages". To say that one of these is not compulsory in school would actually be against our constitution.
Now, obviously, this means that if you feel Irish should not be mandatory, then we should change our constitution. This would, IMHO, be denying a very significant part of our heritage.
Most people I know who dislike Irish dislike it not because they see no benefit in the language, but because it is such a crap subject in school. In this I agree fully. I learned most of my Irish outside school, and I think the language is beautiful. I am also proud that despite hundreds of years of oppression, we still have managed to retain our national language, and that I can speak it (albeit a bit rustily now).
It has been useful to me in non-tangible ways, and its always a good conversation maker when in foreign bars I would argue that it has been far more useful to me than, say, the history or non-irish geography I learned in school. These too were compulsory.
The biggest problem I have always seen with the teaching of irish, by the way, is not even how its taught, but who is teaching it.
Due to my dad working in ESB, I moved around a lot in my youth. The number of teachers I had (always when I lived in cities, not towns) who TOLD students something to the effect of "Yes, this is no use, you dont want to learn it, but I have to teach it" was terrifying. According to my dad, my level of ability in Irish was good when I lived in a town, and then became far worse when I moved to a city. I even dimly recall *teaching* a teacher the difference between De Luan and An Luan when I was in about 1st class in primary, as they had never even heard of the former.
You get taught by someone with that level of ability, and an enthusiasm to match, and its no wonder you grow up hating the language and thinking its crap.
If you have a good teacher, it aint so bad. If the curriculum was changed to teach it properly, it would be even better.
Expecting secondary school students to be able to read Peig and Jimin in the vernacular is silly. Not only is it NOT written in the irish taught in schools, it is written in an old form of the irish spoken in the regions they hail from. This is stupid - especially since the level of difficulty far surpasses anything which you would have been taught up until then.
Improve the teachers. Improve the curriculum. Leave it mandatory. I think it would be a crying shame to turn away from such a key part of our national heritage, and turn us into just another english-speaking nation.
Just my 2c.
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I'm not gonna bother with the argument of ITS OUR LANGUAGE and blah blah blah.
but i love the irish language and im **** at it because the way it is thought is just not working.
I think it should be introduced at an older age and school irish trips should be used.
m3h i could make nmore of a fight but im tired
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At first I was gonna agree that it should'nt be compulsory, but the real problem is in the way its thought. If it was'nt compulsory, 99% of students would turn away from it straight away, thereby killing the language.
I'm starting my leaving cert course in september. And I'm absolutely dreading Irish, mainly because its sooo damn hard. They treat it far too seriously. Its similar to maths in that resepct, boring with no colour to it all (literally, most of the books are in black and white
).
I reckon they need to make the course a lot easier, take a more relaxed approach to the subject, rather than trying to beat it into students (not literally, but you know what I mean).
The current system is producing seconday school graduates with little or no knowledge of Irish. Make the course easier, and people will be graduating with a far more confident command of basic Irish. If they wish, they can then proceed to learn the full thing, but at least everybody will have a secure basis of Irish.
And it should'nt be thought in primary school, languages are difficult for kids to grasp, especially when they might not have fully mastered their spoken language.0 -
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IMO the ideal situation would be for it to be non-compulsory but be taken by everyone anyway. That's what everybody here thinks though
From first year you have to chose some subjects to take outside the compulsory ones. How do kids pick what subjects to take? Well I had a vague notion of mech. eng. back in those days so I took physics, drawing and engineering over home ec, geophraphy and wood work, but the vast majority of kids pick subjects they think will be easiest, and of course no one sees Irish in this way.
It's a shame cos somehow I do love Irish. The novel we did for the LC was A Thig Na Thit Orm and it's the only LC book I didn't throw out. The teacher we had loved the language and had a impressive knowledge of the history of the language. You could tell he wasn't just reading what he told us in a book and reciting it verbatim but giving us his own opionion and helping us form our own. He helped us understand the poems and other material rather than just translating it.
I honestly don't give a damn if the language dies out or not. I can't see how it's part of our heritage\identity if nobody actually speaks it. What would annoy me is that I did enjoy doing Irish and there's no reason why everybody else shouldn't too.
They'd probably have to change the course to do that but sure wouldn't a bunch of senior teachers love a bit of extra dosh to re-do the curriculum. Having it compulsory and trying to force it down our throats is definitly not the way to go. If was optional and seen as a fun\easy option it'd be far better.
I don't know how easy it would be - they actually teach Irish in some university in Paris. It's quite a popular course because it's so difficult! People try to get good marks in it to impress their professors. It's quite possible that more french people speak good Irish than Irish people.
...but any language is easy to learn if taught properly.
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Recent discussion on this over on the Gaeilge board:
http://www.boards.ie/bulletin/Forum25/HTML/000035.html
By the way... I find it a little strange that you start topics like this on Humanities rather than Gaeilge because "not many people read that board". If people like your good self, Stephen, posted interesting topics like this to Gaeilge then more people *would* read it... then you wouldn't have that reason to post topics about Irish here
...just a thought
Bard
Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.0 -
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Well the odds are - if you hated Irish in school, you won't be even remotely interested in reading that board.<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bard:
Why?</font>
The only reason I went to it in the first place was to start up that topic :P
I think it's open to a more diverse audience here.
I'm not getting into this again, god knows I've written enough about it on that other thread... suffice it to say I 100% agree with what Paladin has posted in this thread.
Either embrace the language fully, or let it go... half-ass'edness will get us nowhere.
[This message has been edited by Dead{o}Santa (edited 27-07-2001).]0 -
This is cross-posted from the Gaeilge board:
Ok! Enough about culture and identity! Who cares, right? You are who you are and maybe you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
What most seem to agree on is the importance of choice and self-determination. And compelling children to learn a dying language is contrary to that principle, right?
Wrong.
In fact, the best justification to continue with compulsory Irish-language policies is precisely to support the idea of "choice."
Start with the following assumption:
People who wish to learn and to use Irish in their daily lives should have the right to do so.
Besides being democratic, this principle is supported by the Eureopean Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which has been ratified not only by the Republic of Ireland but by the United Kingdom as well.
Unless I'm mistaken, the pending Language Bill that has been drafted by the Department of Arts, Heritage, Islands and the Gaeltacht would specify that Irish-language users have a right to obtain services in Irish from the State (or at least from certain departments).
Subsequently, the State would require an adequate pool of civil servants who are fluent in Irish to provide these services, translate official state documents, etc. This is not a choice. This is an obligation on the part of the government.
Thus, the State not only would have a valid interest in promoting Irish-language education but they have a duty to do so, as a signatory to the charter. Just as the state has an interest in promoting math and sciences in order to produce techically skilled graduates, a compulsory language policy is necessary to produce an adequate pool of prospective civil servants.
As citizens, you have the right to throw aside the langauge if you choose to do so, unless you're working as a civil servant and you're called up to provide services in Irish--then it's part of your job (or it should be). However, as citizens, you also have certain duties to the state which are part of the reciprocal "social contract."
Finally, if you want to be good Europeans, then you're honor-bound to acknowledge the conventions of Europe, which include minority language rights.
And, if you don't want to be good Europeans, then clearly there's something wrong with y'all! 0 -
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