Should Irish Be Compulsory

curtains

smemon wrote:

thegoth wrote:

Hi,

I just want to say that I do not think that Irish should be Compulsory for the Leaving Cert.

Here are my reasons

1) It favors people that have a natural ability for languages

2) Anyone who is forced to learn it against there will, will in fact not learn it and never use it again

3) Unlike English and Maths, it is not required for every day living in this country. You need to have a decent understanding of English so that you can understand various documents you sign over your lifetime and you need a basic level of Maths to insure people do not screw you over with money.

4) Students that are studying Irish because they have to, even though they will not use it for ponits, now have an extra subject to study for, that they will never use again, not even for points, and have extra stress because of this

I'm not saying Irish shouldn't be taught, nor as I "Slagging", Irish off. I think it should be Compulsory until Junior Cert, then give people the choice.

I know Irish is our culture, but what good is that to the many 1,000s of students who do not like Irish and need points !!

Please state wheather you are a student or teacher if replying

agree 100%. all good points which nobody can argue against.

1) So do French, German and Spanish, yet most universities require a third language for entry, so how about reducing this to two. So does English mind you, people need to be pressurised into learning language properly, how else are we going to communicate.

2) If you were in college you might know otherwise. And yes, they will, because most state jobs and an increasing amount of private sector ones need it.

3) All government and semi-state business can be conducted through Irish if you so choose. Though, you do have a decent point there, even if it is as a result of our collective failure to speak the language rather than anything else.

4) I didn't, I did and I do. And I know plenty others who do too.


I know I must come across as an awful Gaeltacht Nazi there, and thegoth, I wasn't necessarily just trying to shoot down what were some valid points, but smemon's post annoyed me.

I have no problem with making Irish uncompulsory, but just if you do, then treat English the same way, then people can choose which language they want to become proficient in. You don't debase one national language and not the other.

JC 2K3

AlanG wrote:

The reason Ireland has more established poets and songwriters per head than pretty much any other nation is primarily because of the Irish language. Its structure and phrasing are far more artistic and colourful than English

I'm a supporter of Irish, but I'm afraid that's a load of bollocks

AlanG wrote:

knowing the language actually contributes greatly to an individuals command of the spoken word in any language.

I'd agree here to a point, but not necessarily Irish. Being multilingual generally gives you a better ability to write in any language.

AlanG wrote:

While many of those here are current leaving cert students I can assure them that most will hold a different view of their language and culture once they get out and travel the world a bit.

I agree.

declan_lgs

curtains wrote:

1) So do French, German and Spanish, yet most universities require a third language for entry, so how about reducing this to two. So does English mind you, people need to be pressurised into learning language properly, how else are we going to communicate.

By learning the languages that they actually communicate in. Here in Ireland, English would be the most important one wouldn't you agree?

2) If you were in college you might know otherwise. And yes, they will, because most state jobs and an increasing amount of private sector ones need it.

I don't think I know anybody who uses Irish for college/university. I'd be sickened if I had to do anything with it in engineering. I know I need it to get into the universities but I don't understand why.

3) All government and semi-state business can be conducted through Irish if you so choose.

But why would that be useful, when most everybody understands English much better?

I have no problem with making Irish uncompulsory, but just if you do, then treat English the same way

..wouldn't be long before a lot of college & university courses rightly clarify that they require English for the LC, which would suit me fine.

then people can choose which language they want to become proficient in. You don't debase one national language and not the other.

But Irish is NOT nearly as important as English to the typical person in this country - there's no comparison, so I don't see why we shouldn't treat them differently.

curtains

Love the way you ignored the fourth point...

I think really there is just a complete difference of opinion here. Clearly, you don't care about Irish, which is fine, and that therefore has conditioned every one of your responses. Yes, English is the most important one, and will be for as long as people treat it as a subservient language. I'm not saying it isn't in effect, but that'll never change unitl people take a diffeent attitude towards it. And, by the way, if you take a college such as NUIG, they offer a lot of their subjects through Irish, negating any requirement for English; just a thought.

Anyway, I think we have a sort of 'ideological difference'.

JC 2K3

declan_lgs wrote:

By learning the languages that they actually communicate in. Here in Ireland, English would be the most important one wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, and you need a pass in LC English to be able to communicate :rolleyes:

declan_lgs wrote:

I don't think I know anybody who uses Irish for college/university. I'd be sickened if I had to do anything with it in engineering. I know I need it to get into the universities but I don't understand why.

NUIG in particular have many courses through Irish and many universities offer courses like "Business and Irish" etc.

declan_lgs wrote:

But why would that be useful, when most everybody understands English much better?

Personal preference? Why aren't France and Germany phasing out their national languages in favour of English, which is more widespread globally and which a large amount of their people can speak fairly proficiently?

declan_lgs wrote:

..wouldn't be long before a lot of college & university courses rightly clarify that they require English for the LC, which would suit me fine.

Why would they? What aspects of the LC English course would be required for anything bar the likes of Journalism etc.?

declan_lgs wrote:

But Irish is NOT nearly as important as English to the typical person in this country - there's no comparison, so I don't see why we shouldn't treat them differently.

Like I said, what aspects of LC English are important to the "typical" person in this country?

declan_lgs

curtains wrote:

Love the way you ignored the fourth point...

I didn't have a ****ing Clue what you were trying to say so I skipped it. But I gather you know lots of people who use Irish.. in what way do they use it? For some reason I'd bet they'd be dwarfed by their uses of English.

And, by the way, if you take a college such as NUIG, they offer a lot of their subjects through Irish, negating any requirement for English; just a thought.

That's cool, but good luck getting around much of anywhere with just Irish.

JC2k3 wrote:

Yeah, and you need a pass in LC English to be able to communicate

I don't recall saying English should be compulsory. I remember using the words "suit me fine" in relation to making English optional. I'd generally shine a critical eye on ANYTHING being compulsory especially for education at my age.

NUIG in particular have many courses through Irish and many universities offer courses like "Business and Irish" etc.

That doesn't explain their requirement for Irish for entry to all courses.

Why aren't France and Germany phasing out their national languages in favour of English, which is more widespread globally and which a large amount of their people can speak fairly proficiently?

Because more of their people understand French/German with MORE proficiently, perhaps? And that's what effective communication is about. Whatever is most understood by the target audience/people, and the speaker's capable of communicating it properly enough - that's the formula I'd use.

Why would they? What aspects of the LC English course would be required for anything bar the likes of Journalism etc.?

I would hope that only "the likes of Journalism etc" would require English - that they would require only what they believe to be necessary, or perhaps very helpful, for the course. So journalism, probably law, maybe business... But there would not be an unnoticeable amount of requirement changing going about!

Like I said, what aspects of LC English are important to the "typical" person in this country?

Not too much of it, but it'd be important and helpful to a good number of folks. Nevertheless, I'm not arguing that English should be compulsory (I wouldn't), but that Irish shouldn't.

ZorbaTehZ

Ok consider the following: Irish is not part of the Second-Level course / its not compulsory.
Well what would happen? Very-very few people would be taking Irish as a subject, considering how difficult it actually is. Years would pass with the number of people taking Irish as a subject decreasing progressively.
The result?
A future where less than 1%-5% of the population are speaking/able to speak our native tongue or even worse the end of the language as a method of communication altogether.
This is our native tongue - OUR language we're talking about here. Your willing to throw away the central/core part of our heritage - that which makes us Irish, because your too lazy to learn it in school ( and don't say it doesn't boil down to that because it does).
A future where people hardly know what "Póg mo thóin" or "Slainte" means, would certainly be a sad one indeed.
THATS why its compulsory, thats why you should learn it - your keeping it "alive" in a sense.

JC 2K3

declan_lgs wrote:

I don't recall saying English should be compulsory. I remember using the words "suit me fine" in relation to making English optional. I'd generally shine a critical eye on ANYTHING being compulsory especially for education at my age.

WTF? You're twisting your own words here. You said, and I quote:

..wouldn't be long before a lot of college & university courses rightly clarify that they require English for the LC, which would suit me fine.

You said you wouldn't mind if Universities required English but not Irish for entry to courses, essentially implying you felt it should be compulsory. You certainly did not use "suit me fine" in relation to making English non-compulsory.

declan_lgs wrote:

That doesn't explain their requirement for Irish for entry to all courses.

Nor Maths nor English.

declan_lgs wrote:

I
Because more of their people understand French/German with MORE proficiently, perhaps? And that's what effective communication is about. Whatever is most understood by the target audience/people, and the speaker's capable of communicating it properly enough - that's the formula I'd use.

You have no understanding of cultural importance have you?

declan_lgs wrote:

Not too much of it, but it'd be important and helpful to a good number of folks. Nevertheless, I'm not arguing that English should be compulsory (I wouldn't), but that Irish shouldn't.

No it wouldn't and you have implied that you think English should be compulsory.

declan_lgs wrote:

I would hope that only "the likes of Journalism etc" would require English - that they would require only what they believe to be necessary, or perhaps very helpful, for the course. So journalism, probably law, maybe business... But there would not be an unnoticeable amount of requirement changing going about!

Let me direct you to this site, it seems in line with your ways of thinking:
http://www.unschooling.com

You really don't have much of a grasp of the concept of comprehensive education do you? Here in Ireland we have a good education system, not perfect and easily criticisable, but despite the criticism, it seems to work quite efficiently. It may seem "illogical" and a "waste of time" to be learning subjects you'll never use, but it gives an excellent foundation and a greater chance to discover where our interests lie and the scope of our intelligence etc. We're only 18 when we do our LC, how many people have their mind made up re:their future career by then?

Proficiency at languages is a measure of a certain type of intelligence and it is acceptable that a university should require Irish or a Europeon language.

Furthermore, there is the whole cultural aspect of it. When you go abroad it's so fulfilling to be able to speak your national language. I mean fúck patriotism, but it's nice to be able to distinguish ourselves.

oRlyYaRly

I wouldn't mind it so much if we didn't have to learn poetry. I mean, WTF? Shouldn't we become good at Irish before we start reading Irish literature? They even have to do it at pass for Christ's sake. And in the bloody JC.

declan_lgs

ZorbaTehZ wrote:

Ok consider the following: Irish is not part of the Second-Level course / its not compulsory.
Well what would happen? Very-very few people would be taking Irish as a subject, considering how difficult it actually is. Years would pass with the number of people taking Irish as a subject decreasing progressively.

Heh, that says A LOT about the subject!

We should keep it compulsory because it's such a ****ty subject it'd die out if it wasn't compulsory is what you're saying?

The result?
A future where less than 1%-5% of the population are speaking/able to speak our native tongue or even worse the end of the language as a method of communication altogether.

I've never caught anyone, outside of primary school, having a genuine conversation in Irish (the primary school teachers (not students) would speak Irish when they didn't want us to know what they were saying, heh). So the 85% or whatever of us that learned it for nearly 15 years are obviously not using it.

Things like important documents should always be translated into Irish, but making all (or nearly all) LC students take it is not on imo.

This is our native tongue - OUR language we're talking about here. Your willing to throw away the central/core part of our heritage - that which makes us Irish, because your too lazy to learn it in school ( and don't say it doesn't boil down to that because it does).

"that which makes us Irish" riiiiiiiiigh, tbh

A future where people hardly know what "Póg mo thóin" or "Slainte" means, would certainly be a sad one indeed.
THATS why its compulsory, thats why you should learn it - your keeping it "alive" in a sense.

Because it can't stand up on it's own two feet, I see.

J2k3 wrote:

WTF? You're twisting your own words here. You said, and I quote:

You said you wouldn't mind if Universities required English but not Irish for entry to courses,

for SOME courses - courses where it is genuinely a requirement or actually very helpful.

me wrote:

I would hope that only "the likes of Journalism etc" would require English - that they would require only what they believe to be necessary, or perhaps very helpful, for the course. So journalism, probably law, maybe business... But there would not be an unnoticeable amount of requirement changing going about!

J2k3 wrote:

Nor Maths nor English.

I agree.

You have no understanding of cultural importance have you?

Cultural enforcement, maybe not. Make the subject optional and let the Irish students make their own decision as to how important it is.

No it wouldn't and you have implied that you think English should be compulsory.

...I don't think I have and if I did, that was a misunderstanding. I don't think English should be compulsory, I don't think it should necessarily be required for every single NUI course. I also don't think English and Irish deserve the same respect just because they're both national languages (whatever that means, but anyhow..).

Let me direct you to this site, it seems in line with your ways of thinking:
http://www.unschooling.com

Interesting. Gotta get a good look at that someday.

You really don't have much of a grasp of the concept of comprehensive education do you?

That's like what you told me on IM, and I acknowledged in post #56 as "the first good point I've heard".

It may seem "illogical" and a "waste of time" to be learning subjects you'll never use, but it gives an excellent foundation and a greater chance to discover where our interests lie and the scope of our intelligence etc.

It seems even more illogical, as in my case, to be made study Irish and French (that's two languages, since I may wanna go to an NUI) and also have six higher level subjects you actually wanna do and are better at, that you can't give as much time to because you gotta do BOTH Irish and French blehhhhhhh.

We're only 18 when we do our LC, how many people have their mind made up re:their future career by then?

Well my guidance councillor is telling us we've got 'till Christmas next year to really find out what we wanna do (for the CAO applications I think) and that's six months before our LC soooooooooo?

JC 2K3

declan_lgs wrote:

Well my guidance councillor is telling us we've got 'till Christmas next year to really find out what we wanna do (for the CAO applications I think) and that's six months before our LC soooooooooo?

The LC starts in 5th year.

declan_lgs

JC 2K3 wrote:

The LC starts in 5th year.

Well then we'd be closer to 16/17 wouldn't we?

I think most people will know if they wanna keep or drop Irish at that stage. And a surprising amount of people might actually keep it, because if they don't they may have to pick up another subject.

In my case I already did pick up another subject, one which I like and think should be very helpful for me in the future (applied maths). Not everyone's gonna wanna do applied maths! But it'd be nice, in (otherwise) doing eight subjects (all HL except Irish), to be able to drop Irish (I know it sounds scary and all, but some of us just don't get along with the language. Besides, we'll have had 7 or so years of it done anyhow).

tolosenc

Irish favours people with a gift for languges. So. It's a language. English favours people good at it, as does maths.

I am "forced" to learn it. I will use it next year. I'm not going to study it in college, but I like it.

English is of use to you. Yes. For signing legal documents etc. But so is Irish, any contracts in this country can be in both languages. But English is more like Literature comprehension, so unless there's some underlying metaphor, or a cultural context that needs to be compared to other documents, English is useless. Irish does have literature in it, mostly at honours though. So you have a choice.
About the use of Maths: When will I ever need to know how to derive de Moivre's Theorem by induction?

I think you'll find that an awful lot of students have Irish as one of their top 6. I personally will.

In summary, I do believe that the LC Gaeilge course needs changing. I do think that it should be taught as a foreign language rather than one it is assumed you already have a fair grasp for. But I cannot support the removal of Irish as a compulsory subject without the mutual removal of both Maths and English. All 3 go or all 3 stay.

And, by the way, last year in my school a survey was taken of everyone in 5th and 6th Year where we were asked whether or not we would take Irish if it was compulsory. More than 75% said they would.

TÍR GAN TEANGA, TÍR GAN ANAM!

oRlyYaRly

Pass LC is no harder than Honours JC in Irish IMO so maybe people who do honours for JC shouldn't have to take Irish for LC.

It's a bit stupid that by getting a D in pass LC someone is apparently "keeping the language alive" whereas somebody who gets an A in honours JC (and is obviously a lot more proficient with the language) still has to do another 2 years in order to "keep the language alive".

declan_lgs

obl wrote:

Irish favours people with a gift for languges. So. It's a language. English favours people good at it, as does maths.

Naturally. But the entire system favors people who are good at languages. You have to have THREE languages to get into an NUI.

English is of use to you. Yes. For signing legal documents etc. But so is Irish, any contracts in this country can be in both languages.

If I went into a bank to get a loan which would they give me first? How many people really ask for stuff like that in Irish?

But English is more like Literature comprehension, so unless there's some underlying metaphor, or a cultural context that needs to be compared to other documents, English is useless. Irish does have literature in it, mostly at honours though. So you have a choice.

A choice to drop to OL Irish? I already did that, and it still sucks, no two ways about it. Dropping to OL helps, but it isn't an ideal solution.

About the use of Maths: When will I ever need to know how to derive de Moivre's Theorem by induction?

Drop to pass. I'd say a hellofalot more of us use maths after LC than Irish.

But I cannot support the removal of Irish as a compulsory subject without the mutual removal of both Maths and English. All 3 go or all 3 stay.

I wouldn't exactly be against all three going (especially if people will need a certain number of subjects), but I don't understand why they should need to be treated the same. Nearly 100% of the population use English everyday (probably getting a lot smaller, with people coming in from other countries. Heh, I wonder how long it'll be before Polish is more spoken (as in really spoken) than Irish?). Any work spent with it is of at least a little use.

And, by the way, last year in my school a survey was taken of everyone in 5th and 6th Year where we were asked whether or not we would take Irish if it was compulsory. More than 75% said they would.

Well that's certainly a surprise.

TÍR GAN TEANGA, TÍR GAN ANAM!

lol, if you want me to be honest, that makes no sense at all..

oRlyYaRly

"COUNTRY WITHOUT A LANGUAGE, COUNTRY A WITHOUT SOUL!"

declan_lgs

oRlyYaRly wrote:

"COUNTRY WITHOUT A LANGUAGE, COUNTRY A WITHOUT SOUL!"

(I did understand it, but anyhow)

Well thank god for English.

JC 2K3

declan_lgs wrote:

Naturally. But the entire system favors people who are good at languages.

Indeed, and as much as it písses me off it probably works better that way. Languages require effort. If the whole system was based around maths and physics I could sit around doing fúck all and come out with a B. No matter how good you are at languages, unless you've been living in another country or something, you have to work at it consistantly to do well.

curtains

Even if you do end up doing science or something, language subjects are of equal importance. You need to communicate ideas clearly, and while Shakespeare might not seem to have much to do with physics, but if you can discuss that, then you can talk about anything.

DublinWriter

oRlyYaRly wrote:

"COUNTRY WITHOUT A LANGUAGE, COUNTRY A WITHOUT SOUL!"

Country without a language is a country with cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers all called 'Ug'.

Sorry, I know what you originally meant to say, Country without it's own language, but I'd go you one further and ask wither the country that doesn't actually give a stuff about it's own language?

Take a look around you for the answer.

gaeilgegrinds

Maybe in Dublin that's what you'll find but not here in the west!!!

tolosenc

I think people just need to take things in perspective.

"Oh it's not fair. I hate Irish"
Life's not fair. Deal with it.

I do agree that an overhaul of the teaching of the language is needed, but it would be a tragedy to loose it completely. If nothing else, being exposed to a second language from so early on aids in learning other languages.

Maybe someone could clarify this for me, but I'm pretty sure that all legal documents must be "as Gaeilge" and not necisarily in English. For that reason everyone should speak it.

People with the argument that we need to speak English needn't worry though. I don't think anyone has ever suggested dropping English altogether, but rather, that we would be far better off as a bi-lingual state.

fonpokno

i dont know about it all. i love speakin irish (i used to hate it but then i went to the gaeltacht) but i absolutely hate the leaving cert course! i think it'd be better if they did it like they taught french and stuff with less of the literature cos people just learn it off and dont really care. i'd prefer if we were taught to actually speak the language and understand it rather than reel off the story of lig sinn i gcathu or an cearrbhach maccaba or whatever! they just need to reform the course and then it'd be grand!