How do you feel about Irish?

Dioluin

Was interested in finding out how students felt about Irish, as a language, not just a subject.
And could you state why you feel the way you do?

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

One of the options should be: "like the language, not the cirriculum". I love Irish and did HL for the LC but I really hated studying all the poems, prose, etc..

kev9100

I despise both the language and the course with a passion. There really is something seriously wrong with our education system when someone can study French for 6 years and be pretty good at speaking that languge and study Irish for 14 years and doesn't even understand the basics.

Dioluin

Well Kev, I agree that the course in schools is terrible and could use big changes, but why do you hate the language itself?

unknown13

I feel it should be optional as a subject but Bonus points should be awarded in it. I didn't mind Irish at all. I was decent at it, had a teacher who was very focussed on the LC since day 1 of 5th year and I was rarely bored with the subject.

But I must say the OL course needs serious review. Paper 2 is just the biggest waste of a time slot. It must be the shortest exam the DOE / SEC set out, LC & JC included.

ummtea

I did HL but hated the class because of the boring teacher and the even more boring course. I like Irish as a language, and I'd like to be able to speak it more in everyday conversation. But in reality, the only places where it's spoken are in the Gaeltacht and in School. I would never change English as our main language though.

A Changer

While "hate" is a harsh word, it seems accurate. I find very little redeemable in the language, personally. I don't like how it sounds, I don't like how it's shoehorned into most State functions for its own sake, I don't like the vast majority of the literature written exclusively in the language, and I don't like how little practical uses it has.

It's an important part of our culture and international identity, but it holds little meaning to me. All power to people who like it, though, and make the effort to use and write in it in everyday life and in the creation of the arts. While a better implementation of the subject in the education system most definitely would have cooled my own opinions of it, it wouldn't have frozen them entirely, I don't think.

I did OL through to the Leaving Cert, so this has probably skewed my outlook. It's mostly a joke at Ordinary Level, but I never realised how much so until I did the exam. Most of my class tests were harder than it. I did next to little preparation to it for my first attempt at the Leaving, spending about an hour or an hour and a half doing each paper, and then prancing out. Still got a C1, for all of my apathy. It's been a year since I touched the language and I've been perfectly happy since. It's a shame that I can't see my own national language in a positive light, yet I feel no compulsion to change that.

kev9100

Dioluin wrote: »

Well Kev, I agree that the course in schools is terrible and could use big changes, but why do you hate the language itself?

I suppose the fact that it has been shoved down my throat since the age of 4 has made me hate it. That being said, the fact that my teacher for the second half of 5th year and all of 6th year was very inept didn't help.

Ditzie

If irish was optional and we were only expected to know a liitle amount for the junior and leaving, I think i might like irish, however when we are expected to know more irish than english at higher it's a bit ridiculous imo. I understand that it is part of our culture and heritage and it is nice to know cupla focal but I just don't like it, i think you're either an english or irish lover and personally it was english

DancingQueen:)

I love languages, French more so than Irish but I love speaking them both. The Irish course definitnely needs to be refined (that's happening though, isn't it?) because we wern't speaking much of it at all and we had to focus on stories/poems instead. I dropped to Pass Irish after Christmas because I just didn't have them time and I ended up hating my Irish class every day because of the work load.

In general I love Irish because i'm into Irish culture, I love dancing and the music that comes with it. I had a great teacher in primary school who really got me into speaking it and I'd love to go to the Gaeltacht sometime but I can see that a lot of people don't like it becaues it hasn't got much use I'd love if more people spoke it.

frser32

i loved irish always. however, i think the system has really provoked hatred towards the language in students. For the leaving ,i found that it required the most study, it was a very intense course between the 8 honors poems and such. I know they are changing the course in the future, which is great. However, significant steps need to be taken in secondary school and by the department in reforming the language.

QueenOfLeon

I liked the language but obviously the LC syllabus does nothing to help this generations opinion of it. Imo it may as well be accepted that Irish will not be used day to day by most of us, and it should be dropped as an entry requirement into courses and as a mandatory Leaving Cert examined subject.

I do still think it should be taught in school but with less emphasis on learning off reams and reams on similes/themes/feelings of poems...whatever about the argument that we have no use for Irish, we certainly have no use for an extensive vocabulary on describing a poem. Those who want to do it as an exam subject can do the syllabus work, and the rest should be taught more about speaking it.

UrbanSea

Studying and learning off poems were a ****ing balls,otherwise I enjoy the language.

johnmcdnl

Learning poems and pro's and essay's is hateful - simple as that

The oral and tape were pretty ok though - I like the language but hate literature in general and making you learn pages and pages of stuff by heart and writing them down in the exam isn't helping the language at all and is making more and more people despise the language

Chuchoter

Its a lovely language that I'm actually fairly good at, shame its a complete waste of time.

*Miss Ní C*

I love speaking Irish and all the literature that goes along with it, but I despise the curriculum with a fiery passion. The current curriculum forces the language down our throats from a young age, so of course people are going to end up hating it.

Furthermore, Irish is an oral language, and in the past all the stories/poems etc were passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. In the current curriculum too much emphasis is put on the written part of the exam and not the oral. The current exam also forces students to learn off reams of notes and sample answers (particularly LC paper 2), which most students find fairly tedious. I know that for the students going into 5th year in September that the course has changed and an higher percentage of the marks are going for the oral part (around 40%, I think?) but I still think it should be 50% oral.

I really do love the language, but the way it's being taught is ruining it and making the Irish people hate it. We've all heard people in school giving out about it, and calling it a "pointless language",and we've also heard our own parents shuddering every time anyone mentions Peig. The Dept. of Education would want to cop itself on and completely overhaul the course if they've any chance of changing the attitude towards Irish.