Leaving Cert Irish syllabus criticised

� LUAIN — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:00:23 GMT

A DECISION by Minister for Education Mary Coughlan not to add a new Irish language subject to the Leaving Cert curriculum will lead to �cultural impoverishment�, a leading educationalist has warned.

A campaign to introduce the subject was launched by �ine N� Ghallch�ir of NUI Maynooth after it emerged that a revised Leaving syllabus being introduced this September included a reduced volume of literature for higher level-students. Instead, the new syllabus has a greater focus on spoken and aural examinations with 40 per cent of the marks to be allotted to the oral examination, and 10 per cent for the aural examination.

The syllabus no longer contains an entire novel and students are only required to read seven chapters of Maidhc Dain�n�s A Thig N� Tit Orm and specified excerpts from T�ra�ocht Diarmuid agus Gr�inne . The history of the Irish language has also been removed as an element of the course.

Meitheal na Gaeilge ATAL, comprising representatives from Gaelscoileanna Teoranta, Eagra�ocht na Scoileanna Gaeltachta and An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscola�ochta, was formed to lobby the department for the introduction of a new literature-oriented subject.

Lobbyists say the revised syllabus does not recognise the existence of native Irish speakers, gaelscoileanna, or students of higher proficiency who may wish to attain a high standard of education in the Irish language at second level.

Citing duplication of resources and the �possible inequity� for students without a high proficiency in Irish �in terms of CAO access�, the department said Ms Coughlan �is not convinced� of the merits of introducing a new Irish subject.

Ms N� Ghallch�ir, who heads NUI Maynooth�s Language Centre, said it was introduced with �scant regard� for good practice and would lead to �lower levels of communicative competence and cultural impoverishment�.

The syllabus will continue, the department said, but the T�naiste has directed the National Council of Curriculum and Assessment to review its implementation, as is normally the practice.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...277973888.html

Question: Anyone know where to get Irish lessons that are not exam based?

Conchuir � Raidaigh — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:36:35 GMT

I'm in third year and doing higher level Irish for my Junior Cert, yet after 11 years of learning the language I struggle to speak and write the language. In the current system we are given long passages to learn off based on poems, our novel and stories, we have yet to be taught one thing about the rules of the lanuage accept for the basci tenses of verbs. I want to know where I can get courses in Irish that will lead to some levle of fluency. I'm 15 and would like if the courses were not based around passing the Junior Cert but towards improving my standard in oral and written Irish .

GRMA
:ham:

Announcement: Irish Language classes in Belfast!

brendanhughes1980 — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:41:09 GMT

Beginners Irish Language classes are under way in Maddens bar, Belfast. They begin at 8pm upstairs, they are held every Wednesday night and are free to attend, although numbers may become limited if the classes prove popular.

Once again, The lessons are free, they start at 8pm upstairs, Wednesday nights. Maddens Bar.

Could a mod relocate this thread appropriately?

Could Clare Island be the next gaeltacht?

Haze — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 12:29:17 GMT

Clare Island has been suggested as a testing ground for a pilot project on the Irish language. It may sound like silly-season headline grabbing, but residents of the island are all for it.

A Century ago Clare Island, in Co Mayo, proved the perfect laboratory for the groundbreaking Clare Island Survey led by naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger. Frank Feighan, Fine Gael TD and shadow spokesman on the Gaeltacht, says the island would be a perfect testing ground for reintroducing the Irish language

The island�s postmaster, longtime community activist Padraic O�Malley, is positive but cautious about Feighan�s proposal.

�The Government would have to develop a realistic and achievable proposal to carry out such an ambitious project. It would have to be about speaking the language.

�After all, I went to school and was taught Irish for 14 years and still left without being able to speak Irish,� says O�Malley.

�It wouldn�t take a huge shift to transform the national school into a Gaelscoil. And we�re always looking to increase the population, so scholarships could be offered to families who want to resettle here and learn Irish.�

He recalls a pithy observation made by his late uncle Mikey James Moran about his maternal grandmother, who came from a north Mayo Gaeltacht and taught lace-making and crocheting on the island during the early decades of the last century.

�Occasionally another woman from the island who was also a native speaker would come to visit my grandmother, and they would chat and converse away with each other. But if the children came within listening distance they were shooed away lest they pick up the Irish.

�My uncle believed their logic was that Irish would be no use to them when they were forced to emigrate to the UK or the United States,� says O�Malley.

Feighan says we need to think outside the box if the 20-year Strategy for the Irish Language, which aims to increase the number of speakers from 87,000 to 250,000, is to be successful. He said after his recent visit to the Clew Bay island, which during summer months has a population of up to 160, that he was struck by how suitable it was for a pilot project on the Irish language, as it is situated between the Gaeltachts of Achill and Connemara.

Dr Peter Gill, part-time island resident and professor of education at the University of Gavle, in Sweden, agrees with Feighan. He refers to the Royal Irish Academy�s New Survey of Clare Island, launched by former taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1991.

Gill says: �In the new survey it is remarkable that more Irish place names of the fields and rocks, coves and crannies were recorded than in the original [carried out from 1909-1911 by Eoin MacNeill, Michael McDowell�s grandfather] . . . Under the surface of the visible culture is the invisible one.

�This has been clearly shown recently with the resurgence of traditional music and sean-n�s dancing and singing on the island. For myriad reasons the island is a perfect laboratory to reintroduce the language. The parameters of the project can be easily defined and its progress monitored,� Gill says.

Gill recorded some of these lyrical place names in a bilingual love poem he often recites at island gatherings: �So I despaired of winning your heart and put mine idir a dh� cliath / But you went and stole it that day from Creag�n L�im an Mhadr�* [the field of the jumping dog].�

The higgledy-piggledy Rundale or Clach�n farming system of the densely populated pre-famine Clare Island � when the population surged to over 1,600 � contributed to the colourful patchwork pastiche of place names.

According to the longtime principal of St Patrick�s National School, Mary McCabe, Irish words still pepper the island dialest. Children are still gas�rs, and side roads are b�ithr�ns. When the dog is ordered to direct the hens out of the newly sown potato patch the owner will shout a menacing �cearc, cearc, cearc�, and if the mutt�s excited enthusiasm leads to feathers flying, the order becomes a scolding �a�mhadaigh, a�mhadaigh, a�mhadaigh� (pronounced �waddy, waddy, waddy�).

�An island is probably the best place to carry out such a pilot study, since the people are in touch with their heritage and culture, and effectively the native language is the missing link in this,� McCabe says.

�Over the years our school has promoted a strong Irish cultural ethos, and we now have a St Patrick�s National School c�il�* band. Children from the age of six and seven upwards play fiddles, accordions, banjos and concertinas.

�They often join in sessions with the older island musicians and all during the summer we have had a regular cultural evening � through the local Comhltas Ceolt�ir�* group � where the children also join in,� she says.

�The school is the obvious place to implement this, and, like the gaelscoils throughout the country, the adults would learn from the children. Of course there would have to be a programme of formal classes for the adults as well.�

She continues: �I�ve noticed over the years that when we attend the Oireachtas na Samhna . . . the island children and their parents often say they would have liked to understand the Irish-speaking all around them. There is a willingness there and a love of the language, but the resources would have to be put in place by government. The obvious way to implement it would be by linking the initiative with a university � say NUIG.�

Gr�inne O�Malley, an 18-year-old secondary student on the island, has a more pragmatic attitude: �Since Irish is compulsory for the Leaving Cert, it would be great to be fluent and to be able to pick up all those extra points.�

�No respect for Irish because of the way it�s taught�

Despite efforts to invigorate the Irish language, its use is still in decline. Of 55,783 Leaving Cert students this year, only 45,984 took the Irish exam, a decrease of about 600 a year since 2006.

The most recent figures on Irish speakers show a continued downward trajectory for the language, in decline for a number of decades: 598,485 people aged 15 to 34 are able to speak Irish, but that doesn�t indicate how many speak fluently or use Irish regularly. Only 0.44 per cent � about one in 200 people � speak the language daily outside of education.

Audrey Donohue, a 22-year-old from Glenamaddy, Co Galway, is fluent in Irish but doesn�t regard herself as a native Irish speaker, as she�s not from a Gaeltacht. She blames the education system for the language�s lack of popularity and says that if it was no longer compulsory those who want to speak Irish would take it up voluntarily. �A national language shouldnt be learned at school, she says: we should grow up speaking it,� she says.

The numbers sitting Irish for the Leaving Cert will renew debate about exemptions from the subject. Timmy Crowley, an 18-year-old Dubliner who sat the Leaving this year, and says that although he didn�t mind learning Irish, he doesn�t imagine he will ever use it again. �Culture and history aside, there is no point in making students learn a subject when obviously there is a large number of people that don�t want to learn it.�

Fl�ine N� Chathall�in, a 22-year-old from Coimn, near Ballyferriter in Co Kerry, is a native speaker. Having grown up in a Gaeltacht, she says that she has been speaking Irish since she was four and that it is part of her identity. All her education was through Irish, and she is now doing a master�s degree. �Most young people don�t have any respect for the Irish language because of the way it�s taught in school,� she says. �Most people can only speak a c�pla focal after years of learning the language, which doesn�t say much for the education system.�

Connie McGinty, a 30-year-old from Letterkenny, Co Donegal, says changes need to be made to the way Irish is taught in secondary schools because the language is dying out as a result. He remembers being a relatively good Irish speaker before secondary school but felt forced to learn a subject that was badly delivered and had no practical application.

Alan Power, a 25-year-old from Rathfarnham, in Dublin, did higher level Irish in secondary school and got a good grade, but he has had little use for his Irish professionally. �Keeping the language alive is important in maintaining a degree of our own national identity, but that argument is often based on sentimentality and not practicality.�

hxxp://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0821/1224277289612.html

Translation help

port glasgow — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:29:58 GMT

Could i have this in Irish please-

Ireland United Gaelic and Free

Thanks in advance

Liam O'Maonlai Irish Lesson - Introducing Yourself

Dioluin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:50:35 GMT

Lesson 1. Introducing Yourself

15 Basic Irish Lessons

Dioluin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:59:59 GMT

Just thought i'd put them all in one place.
1. People

2. Basic Conversation

3. Numbers

4. The Hotel

5. Directions

6. Colours

7. Clothes

8. The Body

9. Dates & Times

10. Food

11. Eating Out

12. Directions

13. Travel

14. Places

15. General Phrases

An B�obla Naofa

Haze — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:56:01 GMT

For those that are interested. The 1981 Irish translation of the Bible 'An B�obla Naofa' is available online.

http://www.anbioblanaofa.org

The Irish Republican Forum - As Gaeilge