foreign nationals and irish

metrovelvet

Are children who are not Irish citizens forced to take Irish or are they exempt?

byhookorbycrook

depends what age they land in Ireland at.

TheColl

yeh i think if they're 11 or younger then they won't get an exemption, older than 11 and they can get an exemption.

sold

metrovelvet wrote: »

Are children who are not Irish citizens forced to take Irish or are they exempt?

I know 3 polish families who send their children to paid irish lessons ( 5 Children) twice a week, The private lessons help them at school not to fall behind. They told me they think learning Irish is a great experience for their children.

metrovelvet

The schools dont provide extra tutors for Irish like they do for foreign nationals learning English?

TheColl

metrovelvet wrote: »

The schools dont provide extra tutors for Irish like they do for foreign nationals learning English?

No such support is provided for Irish. Bit of a shame maybe, but it would impact heavily on language support (English) and learning support time.

Catari Jaguar

I really object to your use of the word "forced". I can only speak from the perspective of primary school, as I don't know the ins and outs of secondary school policies.

Gaeilge is a curriculum subject and it's taught to all children unless the parents take them out of class for the lesson or if the child is dyslexic. For three years, I have been teaching children that arrived in Ireland, and also that were born in Ireland (making them Irish citizens!!!) but have foreign parents.

I find that these children (especially Romanian, Polish and Lithuanian) take to Gaeilge with great enthusiasm and pick it up very easily. They seem to be able to pronounce the words with a natural ease and can form sentences.

The Indian, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Fillipino children etc. also pick it up with relative ease, same as the Irish kids. In primary school, Gaeilge is taught through games, posters, songs, action rhymes, role play and puppets so at junior end it is often the kids' favourite subject! Some are pretty much mute when it comes to English as they are still piacking it up. They learn the Gaeilge alongside it, just looking and listening and repeating.

If they are already bilingual or in some cases tri-lingual, an extra language is no bother to them and benefits in the long run.

I have never had a parent complain either. Sometimes they ask what lyrics the child is singing at home. Obviously at senior end you wouldn't give Gaeilge homework that was too difficult to do without a parent.

For children of parents that are planning on settling here for life, they'll be going all the way through the Irish education system and will require Gaeilge for some careers and university places. They might as well learn it from the get go. In anyways an extra European language is mandatory in secondary school.