The creeping prominence of the Irish language

Out of interest, what would you demand that "every child in the country be forced" to spend several hours a week doing?

A less sensational way of putting this is, what would you have on the core curriculum? Would you have a core curriculum at all?

Getting off topic here, but I'd bring in philosophy and a general cultural studies course, encompasing sports, arts, langauge and mythology.

No core subjects after Junior Cert. At the point, students have enough knowledge for necessary lifeskills useage.

And I'm pretty sure you'd have a much better sense of cultrual identity than bilingual transport announcements.

Saying that children are like sponges is just a convienince. If it was true, they'd be picking it up in far larger numbers.

Idea has been shot down already for various reasons: we don't have the resources, the skills (considering we can bearly teach Irish in Irish, expanding it to other subjects sounds particualry daft) and parents aren't going to be willing to gamble their kids education against a langauge revival on the basis that they're "sponges".

You need more Irish outside of the classroom, not in it.

Teachers having Irish, and being able to teach Irish and then being able to teach other subjects in Irish are completely separate skills - and from what I hear (from Irish speakers themselves) is that the levels of Irish in primary schools is not that great.

Again - we're not teaching Irish well enough to start branching out to other subjects, and if kids were sponges, they be picking the langauge up already, woudn't they?

That last paragraph has a lot of assumption, flawed logic and what you "think" might happen to be taken seriously.

This little comment is really insightful -and funny too 😅

Simply being open enough to support others in cultural use/expression goes a long way & plays a vital part in keeping culture alive.

By partake - I’m not sure whether you mean as musicians or listeners? Certainly, as an audience the % of appreciation exceeds those who actually play - mutually beneficial.

Most good musicians picked up the passion to learn from having a great music teacher. What sparks off the passion is so important - every good beginning starts with that.

Where language & the arts meet can be quite powerful. Singing and sport : 'Amhrán na bhFiann' , can evoke tears in grown-ups who don't speak Irish daily. I think formal reading and writing could take a back-seat to singing / playing games to learn conversational skills.

This evokes in me the image of some militant minority group of 'them' forcing the whole country of kiddies to do something. 🙂 I think this argument is a bit of a non-runner - as the same could be said for any subject. I had a teacher so awful at teaching Maths in school - I'd be forced to stay in over lunch until I could grasp a new concept (some area of numeric fractions before the I got the visual concept). So I took an aversion to Maths until later in life - but bear no grudge against the maths world ...even though I found never found use in quadratic equations in practical life 😅 The curriculum pretty much demands that time is spent on learning stuff!

That said, there are schools where children decide what they want to learn based on their innate curiosity … and it goes from there (like ‘Sudbury Schools’ I think they’re called).

Wibbs:

I think you make a decent argument to support those who speak / who wish to preserve the language, since by focusing resources towards those with a passion (Irish, Sport…whatever) they can in turn ignite that in others with cascading ripple effect. Like the parable of the sower -why throw resources "...to birds... rocky ground...or thorns, when fertile soil" will bring them to fruition. Teachers who have poor Irish shouldn’t teach it. They’re the poor soil 😅That’s why I’d favour specialist Irish teachers in English medium schools (where necessary) that could at least ignite some passion in the language.

Resources spent on community groups is a good idea. Where Irish is used in learning another skill say (off the top off my head) like like boat building -relaxed atmosphere with a common goal and using the language as opposed to a ‘rang Gaeilge’ with an end result where the ‘group’ also bond - with the language as an add-on… they can sail their boat and continue speaking 🙂

Neither do I - in the sense that Dubhdubhgorm suggests in having all education - primary through to secondary Irish language.

I do support having it taught in all schools - but ONLY if it being taught by a teacher who has fluency/interest/passion in the language & makes it interactive & fun. It should not be mandatory for teachers with little confidence in a subject area to teach it (those type of teachers shouldn’t be in the system at all but, sadly …they exist). So -some form of a specialist teacher(s) in a school would be good. I'd also be open to entire school staff spending 3 days in the Gaeltacht each year, where there'd be a focus on using Irish informally coupled with some area they'd like to upskill on -taught by premiership standard teachers. Encourage some informal bilingualism in the school.

An experience can be mandatory but that doesn’t mean the experience is going to be good.

Perhaps making it mandatory for all teachers to teach something with an assumption that they’ll be good at it is foolish. It makes little sense for a teacher who has no passion in something to teach it, whatever the area! When I did my leaving, I did get some extra grinds in English it made ALL the difference - just having a teacher who was inspiring once a week transformed Shakespeare and I started to 'get' poetry and enjoy it!

REGARDING: Irish & Identity going way back ...

I'm not so sure I can agree with you here. So, just to be clear -regarding identity and culture - I'm including symbolism in the frame here as found not only in written tradition but also to the preceding oral tradition which was very strong. The orally based knowledge-bearing tradition carried with it, unaltered core-information, passed on generations before it was written. The symbology within it predates written accounts by, well - 'how long?' is anyone's guess -100's to perhaps 1000's of years? I believe the symbology carried through myth & legend appeals to our deeper psyche -language may have changed here and there but didn’t the symbolic imagery exist before the written word, which subsequently got carried through? Changes in language structure still preserved the imagery behind it. (Would love to get your opinion on this Wibb’s) 😉

It is easier for children to learn languages at a young age. The ‘like sponges’ metaphor has a lot of truth behind it. Babies and young children are hard-wired to soak in pattern and sound -that’s partly the reason even pre-speech that they like nursery rhymes: pattern, repetition, musicality of words etc...

You don’t teach a baby via English lessons…they soak it in like osmosis- accents and all ☺️ Learning language young is a big advantage!

Well this is partially true -if Irish is look upon as a subject with a focus solely on grammar, for example then sure, it’s different to teaching say, geography. But Irish is a language more so than a subject. Language can be applied to any area. You can play ‘Simon Says’ in Irish class & use it as warm up for sports & have children take over to give instructions. A story about St Brigit (history) can be Irish class & history at the same time.

The primary curriculum has a holistic view of learning by integrating subjects.

Secondary school - it’s more compartmentalised for sure.

If the conversational language taught in class can be used (& modelled) during the day, kids can ask for things like ‘can I sit next to ‘Joe’ . Can I get a drink / colour it in …. all day long they can learn to ask for things …once they’ve the structure to do so. Same goes for any regular phrase they use during the day- make it child centred and away you go! Drama is one of the best ways to learn / practice a language -little scripts -children can play around with the words a bit and pretend they’re other characters-they love that kind of activity … it actually takes the focus away from ‘I’m learning a language’ -makes a huge difference - they start to take ownership of it.

That said, you’re right in a sense that some teachers don’t have the confidence to speak Irish…let alone teach it, some use ‘the book’ as a crutch …and put that away after a lesson … tick a box and that’s Irish taught for the day & kids breathe a sigh of relief …sad 😞

👍 Child / student centered communication is key.

I wouldn’t be too worried about that. There’s different reasons for ex - their parents speaking English outside the gates - they just flip to English , but can flip back again just as easily if the environment is more conducive. The main thing is to nurture a positive attitude at a young age. In secondary school it’s cool to do your own thing - and get away with behaviour that’s not allowed in school - like speaking English - there are no sanctions outside school 🙂 Again, I think once the seed of positivity is sown it can bear fruit at a later stage.

That’s quite a good point. If Irish is being taught artificially well then that’s a problem. Having people teach it who don’t have it (like presuming all childcare workers would have a basic grasp…no way they would) - that’s artificial & ain’t gonna work.

‘They’ relates to the people with bad attitudes towards Irish.

Yep- no point wasting lots of resources on people with hardened attitudes. Some people could be be swayed to change attitudes ( like the Linda Irvine example) , but takes a lot more effort. Out of the 60% who can’t speak Irish (based on census) a percentage would be favourable, some indifferent and the rest … no interest in it.

Do you remember the Chinese couple who learned Irish (to be respectful to the culture) - applied to have their citizenship processed / granted through Irish and kept getting their application declined because, it was submitted ….. through Irish * facepalm * 😅

The bottom line is that by learning a second language at a young age it empowers children with language ability for the rest of their lives.

Children love to learn languages when they are small, it's actually fun to learn Irish phrases as a small child.

It's only when the language turns from being a mode of communication into an exam subject that anyone has an issue with it.

I'd be very interested to know how people from New Zealand would hold their own Maori language in relation to school and exams etc.

The bottom line is that this theory has been dismantled several times, most recently in the post above yours.

I suggested the no-exams idea a few pages back, but it got shot down by someone who failed to provide any reason, so I'm not sure where people feel on that issue.

It was more a case of kids 'automatically' picking up second languages. They don't. They need a set environment, as you say yourself in your second paragraph.

If it were the case, we'd have a much higher bilingual population than we do. Especially at preteen levels.

not so, the person made an uninformed statement about forgetting a language, it never goes away, a small bit of revision will always bring it back easily.

and the most important point was completely missed, learning a language empowers a child in the ability to learn a language, that’s simply irrefutable.

it Would be extremely foolish to deny a child the opportunity to develop their ability to learn a language, when they may need to learn a new language when they are older, and it will make it easier to learn another language if a person has already learned another language.

that’s only one point, plenty other reasons, but that point on its own is enough to end the debate.

Which person? I replied to a post you made that quoted no one.

I'd agree with your other points but - again - it's not automatic. We teach kids two languages for fourteen years and very little results. So teaching kids a second language is a moot point.

If I was as passionate about the Irish language as soome of the people on this thread claim to be, I'd be up in arms about that, rather than feeling smug about a few roads bilungual train announcements.

I don't think there's anything specifically Irish about either rugby or Beyonce, but whatever rocks your boat!

if kids were sponges, they be picking the langauge up already, woudn't they?

Studies into learning second languages have shown that 5,000 contact hours are required for fluency. This is why so many kids leave school without fluency in Irish. It is also why all Gaelscoil pupils who have gone the whole way through the system in that environment become fluent in Irish - maths, sports etc through Irish, these are also contact hours. As also would be TV, cinema, radio, netflix and so on.

A study carried out in the Basque country where there are three school systems - Basque, Spanish and Bilingual - found that only the Basque-language education brought about generalised fluency. Obviously the bilingual education was an improvement over Spanish as the vehicular language with Basque just as a subject. And of course, even the latter produced some fluent speakers - because some people will have contact hours outside of the school setting.

So the kids being sponges isn't sufficient - more is needed!

😂 -Had to laugh at that one! Maith Thú Ulysses!