The Teaching of Irish in Schools

HorrorDude

I have a website about the Forced Teaching of Irish in Schools:
http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/stopirishnow/ .

And a Petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Conor/petition.html .

Please view my site, sign the Petition if you agree with what it represents and tell me why you agree/disagree.

Board@Work

I have to admit that I am glad that this subject is being brought up.

I say this as someone who hated it in school. Personally though i don't think that the compulsary nature of teaching Irish should be done away with. My main problem was (particularily in the leaving cert pass) the way that it was taught. I ask you what is the point of learning poems when you can barely speak the language at all. Teach it like spanish and french and then more people would probably fall in love with.

Again this brings up a larger arguement adn that is do we really what Irish to be restored as the national spoken language. if so we are definitely going about it the wrong way.

Also what a damning inditement of supposedly great education system when after 12 years learning a language most of us can't speak a word..

HorrorDude

Well, I personally do want Irish to live on. I believe this petition raises one option of how it might survive. What does everyone else here think?

Dizzyblabla

Irish was always my fav subject in school, I was never a genius at it, got a B3 in hons in the leaving cert, but I love to be able to blabber away some kind of Hektor gibberish when foreigners are around, or if I'm abroad and feel I'm being listened to!

I don't see the problem with learning it, to get into a University we are "forced" to learn a foreign language aswell, should that be ablolished too? fair enough, Irish is not spoken in every day conversation, but that's not for want of the government trying to bring it back.

It's the silly attitudes of people who think it should be abolished that are preventing it from becoming popular again (in my opinion anyway!)

astec123

I agree, if Irish was an option then people would decide to take it, would you go to work on a snowy day? or would you rather be told that you are not required to come in? I think the hope for the language lies in the fact that if it where optional people would be more inclined to learn it, I know someone (he is american) and would love to have learnt irish. There is also this lovely fact that NUIs do not allow people in if they fail irish, this is yet another reason not to do it, that is too much pressure for anyone to handle to have to proform in a subject they deem to be useless to them.

Gael

HorrorDude wrote:

Well, I personally do want Irish to live on. I believe this petition raises one option of how it might survive.

Kinda ironic that it's in the History section, and not in the Irish language section then. A Freudian slip?

KnowItAll

It should be spoken to kids when they are young. That way it is second nature when they speak it and they will love it more.

1203_axle_d3

It should be spoken to kids when they are young. That way it is second nature when they speak it and they will love it more.

Yes..It should be taught in schools more and wouldnt it be great if english became our 2nd language?!

Dave!

I won't be signing that, because I think that if it IS removed, then Irish will fade away completely. I did ordinary level Irish for my leaving cert, so I'm not great at it, but I still loved to learn it, because it gave me a sense of identity. However, I don't like the way it's taught. I don't like how there's loads of stories and poems in the curriculum. It seems like all they're doing there is to make us feel like we know more Irish than we do. It's basically modelling the Irish course off the English one, and that's not what we need. We need to put more emphasis on SPEAKING Irish, and getting more people fluent, BEFORE we move onto more advanced stuff. I would really dread the day that it's removed from schools, it'd be a sad sad day. I went to an English-speaking school, but I would much prefer to have gone to an Irish one, because I'm almost ashamed that I'm not able to speak fluently. I think that's mainly because I've nobody to talk Irish with! All it takes is practise, really. I think the government should devise a way to force us to use, or try to use, our Irish in our daily lives, like have some public services speak as Gaeilge, like maybe the Gardaí, or post offices. It'd be very nice in my eyes to hear people speaking Gaeilge as well as Bearla, in their daily endeavours.

Just my thoughts though.

1203_axle_d3 wrote:

Yes..It should be taught in schools more and wouldnt it be great if english became our 2nd language?!

Yeah, I'd love that It's still important that we maintain an English tongue, however, now that we've been using it for decades. It's necessary, unfortunately.

Capt'n Midnight

I reckon the government should BAN Irish.

Everyone will start using it then.

Dave!

lol, controversial move, but I guess it could work

Fenian

I totally agree with previous replies, in that the learning of poem's off by heart (in school) is just a waste of time, Instead of teaching practical Irish. Only recently I have bought "Teach Yourself Irish" off the net.

It's only now in life that I've realized how important and special our language is to us as a people. We are in most cases a seperate people from those across the water and our language reflects that. If we lose it, we lose who we are.

T.J.

To be honest this is my first time in this fourm but when I saw this tread I just had to respond. I think it would be a travasty to loose our national language. Even though I can speak practical none and hated it primary school I am trying to learn more now and as for this being the history fourm well the Irish language is part of our history. By the way I think it is great to see Irish get international recgonition as it is now a European language and can be used to fulfil the entry requirement for university

Dave!

^
You might wanna take a look at this thread, in that case! Slightly more inflamatory!

Lady Lola

Hello,
This is my first post here too. I hated school full stop and left early, and I managed to fail foundation Irish in my J cert before going. But now I am paying out for private lessons to learn it. I also try to speak it (in a very casual way !) to my kids at home. just little things like "do you want to go abhaile now ?"
In my opinion Bertie and the boys are slowly turning Ireland into another US state, and I would hate for my great grandkids to be sitting with their friends in history class saying: "Like, no way ! Ok so there was this, like, other language once ! Wow, thats like totally trippy !" **Shudders**
I do agree though that the way they teach it is awful - they need a major overhaul urgently ! All I can remember is getting lines for spelling mistakes !!!

Pitseleh

Personally I never liked learning Irish in school at all at all but it was more down to the teaching. I don't like the idea of it being compulsory for the Leaving Cert whereupon somebody who may be ridiculously good at maths and the sciences must carry Irish in order to do something along the lines of medicine to which there isn't a link. Make it compulsory for the Junior Cert, effectively "advertise" it in TY and than make it optional for the Leaving - I don't think it'd ever be the case where no-one would do it anymore, but resentment for it would diminish greatly.

Diorraing

Perhaps honours Irish should be given double points and made optional. That way there would still be an incentive to learn it and it wouldn't be "rammed" down peoples' throats. I don't believe that peoples' difficulties with it are a result of secondary teaching. The idea is that children come to secondary school fluent from national school and then proceed to study poetry as one would in English. The problem is that they're not fluent and therefore have to learn the language aswell as poems.

The poems, however, are amazing!!! Anyone read Cath Chéim an Fhia? Better than anything on the English course!

m1ke

It's a great language and all that etc.... It should be taught in schools. The only problem I have with it is that people are penalised by not knowing it or having done it at LC level. Penalising people trying to get into college or to get a job only helps to engender a hatred for the language.

Cronus333

Personally, I hate Irish and I think it should be made optional etc. etc etc. I'm to lazy to write the big speech but thats how I feel.