The way Irish is taught.

Troxck · 10-07-2010 02:42PM #1

I found out I am doing pass Irish and the reason I think is the system in Primary Schools for teaching it is not good enough. When we left primary we could barely have a full conversation and I was thought barely any grammar. Most of the Irish I learnt was in First year. We should learn full conversations and small stories and delve into literature in Second year. The whole system of how its though should be like how we learnt German/French in First year. Anyone agree.

Luno · 10-07-2010 02:45PM

Troxck wrote: »

I found out I am doing pass Irish and the reason I think is the system in Primary Schools for teaching it is not good enough. When we left primary we could barely have a full conversation and I was thought barely any grammar. Most of the Irish I learnt was in First year. We should learn full conversations and small stories and delve into literature in Second year. The whole system of how its though should be like how we learnt German/French in First year. Anyone agree.

Primary school is completely different to secondary. It's up to the teacher to give you a decent level of Irish. My primary school teachers were excellent and we did a lot of Irish..

Troxck · 10-07-2010 05:53PM

Yes it is up to your teacher in primary school. I still think the way Irish is taught should be revise.

Luno · 10-07-2010 05:55PM

Troxck wrote: »

Yes it is up to your teacher in primary school. I still think the way Irish is taught should be revise.

Yeah I agree, most of the country do. They are trying to change it (not successful yet) but I'd say it'll be all different in a few years!

dlofnep · 10-07-2010 05:59PM

I say this as someone who has learned Irish over the past 3 years, by meeting up with a few people once a week in the pub. Irish in schools is destined to fail, until they create an immersion environment. They need to stop wasting time with poetry, and focus more on spoken Irish - and encouraging students to use it. They need to teach at least one extra subject through Irish for immersion to really work.

I couldn't speak a word of Irish after school. Today, after 3 years of only meeting one night a week - I can have a fairly substantial conversation in Irish.

suitcasepink · 10-07-2010 06:27PM

I remember day 1 of Irish in first year the teacher told us to go to page 2 and do that comprehension..
I had never done anything like an Irish comprehension before and was completely outta my debt.. I also had no clue about all the different tenses and irregular verbs and that, basically I was going into 1st year with very little Irish.
But yerra I worked at it(and tbf not that much) and I'd a brilliant teacher in 1st year and I was in the high honours class the last 2 years and am probs hoping for a C/B in the J.C

So yea some primary schools are really bad for doing Irish and I really should have been able for more going into secondary but if you really work at it, it is possible for you to move up to honours

Troxck · 10-07-2010 07:32PM

Well my Irish teacher thought I would do better so they are putting me in honours until the midterm and if I can scrape a B I can keep it on for atleast Second year.

Luno · 10-07-2010 08:04PM

Troxck wrote: »

Well my Irish teacher thought I would do better so they are putting me in honours until the midterm and if I can scrape a B I can keep it on for atleast Second year.

Why do you have to just get a B to stay in honours?

amacachi · 10-07-2010 08:09PM

Jesus, reading this thread I have a newfound respect for my primary school teachers. My experience was that my level of Irish went way, way down in secondary school. It's ok dlofnep for you to use the method you did, you wanted to learn Irish, everyone who was there was interested and trying.

Troxck · 10-07-2010 08:54PM

M&S* wrote: »

Why do you have to just get a B to stay in honours?

Well they want to know if I can reach a high enough level to keep on honours

dlofnep · 10-07-2010 09:02PM

amacachi wrote: »

It's ok dlofnep for you to use the method you did, you wanted to learn Irish, everyone who was there was interested and trying.

I don't think that was pertinent to my learning. Obviously it helped in the context that I was no longer in school, and required a certain drive to learn the language - but if a student is in school, they are already learning the language - so it matters less.

If we are to teach the Irish language, so that people can speak it - we need to get our priorities straight. In my opinion, getting students to remember poetry of a language that they cannot speak - is wrong. And not that I'm anti-poetry, but just that we need to build a strong foundation before we go stressing out students with excessive work.

I've given my views on this issue on a number of occasions, so there's really no need for me to go indepth here again. But in summary - I would advocate teaching being divided, with heavy focus on spoken Irish - and for teachers to encourage students to use the Irish language, regardless of whether they make mistakes or not. Students need to build courage, and with that - will come fluency.

unknown13 · 10-07-2010 10:56PM

I went into Secondary with a good grasp of Irish. It was the teacher I had in first year was the main problem because I had the ability to do honours if I had a half decent teacher in first year but that wasn't the case.

I wouldn't start criticising the system of primary school teaching, just because you have had a bad experience.

Chasing Dreams · 10-07-2010 11:06PM

I had an amazing Irish teacher in sixth class - she spoke almost exclusively Irish. Now, I hated it at the time and didn't always know what she was on about. Though, in first year, I really appreciated what she had done.

It's true though, no wonder the Irish language is nearly dead. They are filling our minds with pointless poetry and stories. It would be much more beneficial if they thought us more "real-life" Irish, such as to be able to hold a proper conversation in Irish.

Troxck wrote: »

Well they want to know if I can reach a high enough level to keep on honours

Wouldn't a C be good enough like?

Troxck · 11-07-2010 09:34AM

Chasing Dreams wrote: »

I had an amazing Irish teacher in sixth class - she spoke almost exclusively Irish. Now, I hated it at the time and didn't always know what she was on about. Though, in first year, I really appreciated what she had done.

It's true though, no wonder the Irish language is nearly dead. They are filling our minds with pointless poetry and stories. It would be much more beneficial if they thought us more "real-life" Irish, such as to be able to hold a proper conversation in Irish.

Wouldn't a C be good enough like?

Yeah but I want to have good standards and a B is that.

Chuchoter · 22-07-2010 12:17PM

Personally I think a lot of people use the 'omg my primary school was so bad' 'Irish is taught so badly' as an excuse not to study. You have books like the rest of us, go study.

BloodRedRose · 07-08-2010 03:57PM

Languages in general are my bad sbjects. But thanks to a really good french teacher in first year I learned basic french. For 2nd and 3rd year my teacher was crap, our whole class suffered. I basically had to teach myself french for those two years. And I got myself up to a mid to high B level. But for Irish my primary school teacher rarely did irish and when he did noone ever learned anything. My secondary teacher was a good teacher but I could never learn by her methods and i'm sure they're the same for most teachers. I think if you like a subject and have an interest in it you will learn more. I think it's up to teachers to generate this interest but i think this is a very hard job given the current silabis and I think it needs to be changed and soon!

Monsieur Folie · 07-08-2010 07:31PM

I had the worst Irish teacher for the Junior Cert. It wasn't her knowledge on the subject that was lacking, she was just extremely boring in her methods and what little enthusiasm I had left for Irish was waned in that classroom.

I really do believe that immersion is the only viable way to teach this language, as it is already difficult enough to learn. Sitting down for three years drilling poetry, short stories and ready-made essays into our heads is going to do us no good. I mean, I went into the exam barely knowing my tenses and grammar, all I was able to do was rattle off answers and essays that my teacher had prepared for us.

Irish is one of the least enjoyable subjects, it could really do with some work to make at the very least, bearable. As aforementioned, immersion in the subject is the only way to go. Acting out dramas, speaking a lot more Irish as opposed to all of the written stuff, and to actually work the aural so that the language is being learned, instead of having spew off a phrase from the sentence that sounds most like the question.

The way Irish is taught.

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