'They're crying out for Irish teachers'

Fuinseog

bdoo wrote: »

I think you only got the highlights of my post powerhouse.

I am all for the use of Irish. Whether you agree or not there is an element of snobbery, maybe snobbery is the wrong word.

People often make mistakes in English with no consequence but I genuinely feel that when I 'try' to speak Ifish they are waiting for me to make a mistake.

Paranoid? No. Seachtain na Gaeilge, principal doing her best to promote the language on the intercom, two Irish teachers tittering and pointing out her mistakes and wondering aloud should they write her a script for tomorrow.

We have some very supportive Irish teachers too don't get me wrong but there is an attitude there like it or not.

I despise Seachtain na Gaeilge as patronising lipservice.lets all speak Irish for one week and ignore it for the other 51.

There is also an attitude among anglophones who look down on those with bad grammar and an accent yet it does not put me off speaking English.

seavill

Powerhouse wrote: »

I think the "I go away for a few hours and a storm has come up" remark is I think exaggerating your own centrality to the issue. I was motivated to comment by recent replies to Real John's posts.

I was also speaking in general terms. All these attitudes to Irish are as hackneyed as Big Ben. So nothing new there at all.

I can assure you that if I tell you personally to "grow up" (which I didn't and wouldn't) I'll have the gallantry to do it in direct reply to you. But people who are hung up on the person at the next table speaking Irish because they might feel left out do need to grow up. It's not a bloody kindergarten. I don't expect the whole staffroom to stop when I walk in an include me in their conversation whatever the language.

Everyone is a bit touchy tonight. :P

I wasnt being serious bout the comment you refer to I forgot to but in the tounge out smiley and it was obvioulsy meant in a joking fashion. Apologies if you thought i felt the whole topic is all bout me:rolleyes:

I wasn't sure were you speaking in general terms as the conversation in relation to speaking within the staffroom did come from a comment I made about being left out, in a set of particular circumstances, so you can hopefully see why I felt that was in reference to me.

gaeilgebeo

Fuinseog wrote: »

there are teachers and indeed most pupils who believe Irish is a necessary evil that should be spoken in class, but not outside. I am sick of teaching Irish as an articifical language.

as I said if Irish teachers are reluctant to speak the language they are supposed to be teaching and promoting when out of earshot of anglophones, it is sad.

it does not stop there though. I have seen German and French teachers struggle to speak the languages they are supposed to be teaching.

As your post is directed at mine, I will clarify yet again :
I do not believe Irish should be spoken only in class.
I am not "reluctant" to speak it in the staffroom, I choose not to. Big difference.
I do plenty to promote the language in the school.
I do not "struggle"to speak the language, I am an examiner in both the oral and written exams.
I just don't feel the staffroom is a place I need to speak Irish.

seavill

Like everything, personal choice lads, everyone's different, not a big deal

RealJohn

seavill wrote: »

Just to clarify my comment which the last two pages have seem to come from. The problem Powerhouse was RealJohn didn't fully get what I was saying took it up slightly wrong and then people were arguing different points for the last while.

Firstly I did say I have no problem with speaking Irish with each other, the lads in my class in college used to do it the whole time, I have no problem with it whatsoever.

The point I made which RealJohn misread was that there was 3 of us sitting in the staff room, at the same table, no one else there, we were talking, little break in the conversation and the next thing the other two lads start speaking Irish to each other. This is what I found rude.

There was no one else there to talk to for me.

I still think that this is quite rude to do, they spoke for about 10 mins non stop Irish, no one else came in so eventually I just left. As I said I know they weren't for a second doing it on purpose or anything like this but a little inconsiderate taking into account everything.

I didn't misunderstand you at all, I just disagree with your view of it.
My point was that they were doing what they usually do. They weren't excluding you, they just weren't actively including you. If they had a non-stop 10 minute conversation in Irish, it might well have been something they specifically wanted to discuss and might have specifically wanted to discuss in Irish. If they weren't talking non-stop, why didn't you try to include yourself (in english if you wanted to)? If there was a lull in the conversation, why not say "did you see the match last night?" or whatever you wanted to talk about?

You seem to think they were rude not to make a specific effort to include you. If you were new on the staff then you might be right but if you know them reasonably well, they might have assumed that if you wanted to be included, you'd have spoken up. If you don't usually speak to them anyway, I don't see why they'd assume you'd suddenly want to speak to them on that occasion. Regardless, I don't think it's reasonable to consider them rude because they didn't change what they'd have been doing anyway just in case you wanted to talk too.

Also, while you're perfectly free to pick and choose what you do or don't but it's a little disrespectful and rude of you to expect them to switch their language to suit you when you don't consider what they do of any value to you. Would you expect business teachers discussing business to switch to something you know about? Or science teachers to switch to something you know about?

I'm genuinely not criticising you because you have no interest in Irish but I also genuinely don't think you have any right to call your colleague rude for doing what they'd be doing under normal circumstances anyway, especially if you didn't make any attempt to indicate to them that you wanted to be involved in the conversation.

Powerhouse

seavill wrote: »

For me personally, any subject is successful when the person doing it actually has an interest in it.

I think it should be made optional like all other subjects and let the people who are interested keep it on.

Part of the problem I remember from Irish class in school was that the people who really weren't into in dragged the whole class down.

I know speaking from my subjects that for Construction Studies for example, I have an excellent 5th year class this year with 20 in it, as they all chose it and all have an interest in it and in Woodwork, already we have been more succesful in 4 classes than I was with last years 5th years in about 4 weeks. Last years 5th years out of the 24, 9 were forced in there as it was seen as the best fit for them as they would not have been "academic" enough for the other subjects on the same option line. This had a huge impact on my class.

I think the 'students need to be interested in the subject' is greatly exaggerated argument. In my experience students who cause hassle in an Irish class invariably tend to have a litany of issues right across the spectrum of subjects and teachers. Broadly speaking these are interested in sod all, and hate having to be in school at all.

The idea that students are good in subject x, y, and z because they 'like it' and suddenly behave like a cretin in others because they don't is fanciful. It is true that a practical subject might entertain/contain them somewhat but the notion that some guy is going to not be academic enough to 'like' Irish but suddenly is going to turn into Richard Dawkins in Maths class because he finds it endlessly fascinating is unlikely.

Promoting choice so that bad kids can be kept out of your classroom is a bit of a cop-out to be honest. Someone has to contain them in a classroom. Say what you like about Irish teachers but they can very rarely dodge the bullet in that respect. I have a third year pass Irish class who are loudmouthed and ignorant (one loudly described another as a "waste of sp*nk" the other day). I have a Fifth year honours class where you could hear a pin drop. Are the latter more 'interested' than the former? Maybe. But they are also more well reared and generally more respectful and well-behaved. They have no choice in doing Irish either let me remind you.

They are just a different breed. Many are on the school football and hurling teams. None of the other class is involved in anything else in the school. The hard core there just ambles from detention to detention and crisis to crisis during their school time. I resent them having "a huge impact on my class" too, but hey, them's the breaks.

Student behaviour is governed far more by their background and 'friends' than the nature of the subject. I have come across many extremely weak students at Irish and they are just lovely. The minority of troublemakers
will be there in nearly all subjects. Irish teachers would be delighted if it was optional so that they could do metalwork or whatever instead. But the problem is that since Irish is a relatively difficult subject many brilliant students would give it up too as there are far easier pickings elsewhere regarding points.

This would have an unsustainable knock-on effect for university level Irish and ultimately cause the language to haemorrhage knowledge and expertise. But I suspect that might be the 'unintended consequence' that many of the "I love Irish really but I'm in favour of choice myself" brigade would be hoping for.

P.S Isn't it funny how any discussion on the Irish language ends up with the existence of the very subject having to be justified!

seavill

RealJohn wrote: »

I didn't misunderstand you at all, I just disagree with your view of it.
My point was that they were doing what they usually do. They weren't excluding you, they just weren't actively including you. If they had a non-stop 10 minute conversation in Irish, it might well have been something they specifically wanted to discuss and might have specifically wanted to discuss in Irish. If they weren't talking non-stop, why didn't you try to include yourself (in english if you wanted to)? If there was a lull in the conversation, why not say "did you see the match last night?" or whatever you wanted to talk about?

You seem to think they were rude not to make a specific effort to include you. If you were new on the staff then you might be right but if you know them reasonably well, they might have assumed that if you wanted to be included, you'd have spoken up. If you don't usually speak to them anyway, I don't see why they'd assume you'd suddenly want to speak to them on that occasion. Regardless, I don't think it's reasonable to consider them rude because they didn't change what they'd have been doing anyway just in case you wanted to talk too.

Also, while you're perfectly free to pick and choose what you do or don't but it's a little disrespectful and rude of you to expect them to switch their language to suit you when you don't consider what they do of any value to you. Would you expect business teachers discussing business to switch to something you know about? Or science teachers to switch to something you know about?

I'm genuinely not criticising you because you have no interest in Irish but I also genuinely don't think you have any right to call your colleague rude for doing what they'd be doing under normal circumstances anyway, especially if you didn't make any attempt to indicate to them that you wanted to be involved in the conversation.

I think we are only going around in circles if I try to put my point across a different way as I don't have seem to put it across to you properly after a couple of goes so I'll just leave it at that rather than continuing to go around in circles. We will have to agree to disagree

RealJohn

seavill wrote: »

I think we are only going around in circles if I try to put my point across a different way as I don't have seem to put it across to you properly after a couple of goes so I'll just leave it at that rather than continuing to go around in circles. We will have to agree to disagree

I really don't think you have put your point across badly, I just think we strongly disagree in our positions on the issue.
You feel they were rude because you sat in close proximity to them and there was nobody else present and they continued to speak Irish when they probaby knew you weren't comfortable/able to join in with the conversation.
I disagree that they should have automatically assumed you wanted to be included, especially if you didn't actually try to include yourself.
Am I wrong in my interpretation? If so, I apologise.

(did you make any move to include yourself other than sitting near them by the way?)

Pompette

I'd be interested to know how Irish teachers manage to keep up their level of Irish if they're only speaking it in the classroom..? Unless you're a native speaker, I'd imagine this would be very difficult. I'm a teacher of languages and I find it challenging to keep up the 2 and take every opportunity I get to speak them. Surely your level would deteriorate if only speaking in class with a group who probably have a low enough standard on average....

As regards Irish teachers speaking irish in the staffroom... if I heard spanish teachers speaking Spanish together it wouldn't bother me in the slightest that I wouldn't understand. I don't think it's rude at all.. why would I be forcing them to speak my language? As someone mentioned, if chemistry teachers started talking about something sciency that I didn't have a clue about it wouldn't bother me either. Like someone else said, to each their own. What it comes down to really is just a bad attitude to Irish that's out there. It's pretty sad imo.

starlit

Honestly don't think they are crying out for them based on the number of Irish Teachers currently unemployed. Many of which take up jobs else where either emigrate to UK or abroad whether or not they are teaching. Many of which aren't, just enough to earn and be on a working holiday/travelling.

Unless you have good Irish or at least have Irish will those who have done postgrads in Education be able to find anything here in Ireland in particular for Primary teaching. Secondary teaching can be just as tough to get into as there aren't enough students to teacher ratios or enough positions to fill even with those on a panel. The majority are going no where without the PDE but if they have that at least and teaching practise in they be doing well. The PDE is vital but so many have it so only a selective number be chosen.

Even those who didn't start with teaching often changed professions to teaching with is fair enough but harder on them for those that started off with teaching after the leaving.

There is a limited number of available positions if you don't have x y and z making competition between candidates a difficult one. Not many roles are permanent either. Many of which are temporary or sub work. Meaning only a handful get work and get more teaching practise in the more the better. Some take years before they are mainstream teachers making it tougher to stay in the profession that has little job security at the moment which is unfair.

seavill

Powerhouse wrote: »

I think the 'students need to be interested in the subject' is greatly exaggerated argument. In my experience students who cause hassle in an Irish class invariably tend to have a litany of issues right across the spectrum of subjects and teachers. Broadly speaking these are interested in sod all, and hate having to be in school at all.

I would have to disagree with you on this point. From being the woodwork teacher I find that even the worst of the worst generally behave in woodwork class as they enjoy it, they enjoy the practical side I suppose, but in the schools I have worked in over the past couple of years, I have been the one that the principal has come to over certain students that Woodwork is the only subject that they don't get in trouble in. I don't for a second claim that it is anything to do with me, my opinion would be that they are interested in the subject and as a result put in the effort and don't spend their time messing or distracting others.

The idea that students are good in subject x, y, and z because they 'like it' and suddenly behave like a cretin in others because they don't is fanciful. It is true that a practical subject might entertain/contain them somewhat but the notion that some guy is going to not be academic enough to 'like' Irish but suddenly is going to turn into Richard Dawkins in Maths class because he finds it endlessly fascinating is unlikely.

I have found this to be true particularly in my last DEIS school, they can be a complete angel for me but literally walk into English/Irish and go mental 5 mins later. One of the worst actually did like maths also, he had an ability for it, and loved to work out the answers all by himself, didn't give trouble in that but again walk into science or something else and the DP is in standby. This is just speaking from my own personal experience. This is where my opinion of the love of a subject impacting the learning of a class is coming from

Promoting choice so that bad kids can be kept out of your classroom is a bit of a cop-out to be honest.

Where did I say this. Never have I tried to "cop-out" and keep the bad fellas away. Generally I am the only one to accept them as others do refuse. I made a point they we shouldn't be as you say just "trying to contain them in a classroom" as someone has to, let them do things that they are intersted in and get a love for the whole "educational system" rather than force them into anything whether it be, English, Irish, Woodwork or whatever.

Someone has to contain them in a classroom. Say what you like about Irish teachers but they can very rarely dodge the bullet in that respect. I have a third year pass Irish class who are loudmouthed and ignorant (one loudly described another as a "waste of sp*nk" the other day). I have a Fifth year honours class where you could hear a pin drop. Are the latter more 'interested' than the former? Maybe. But they are also more well reared and generally more respectful and well-behaved. They have no choice in doing Irish either let me remind you.

yes obviously the background and daily life of a student has an impact on whether they are going to behave in classes but I still believe it's like even us, we will have much more interest in something we love rather than sitting through a staff meeting where the principal just moans on for 2 hours, for example

They are just a different breed. Many are on the school football and hurling teams. None of the other class is involved in anything else in the school. The hard core there just ambles from detention to detention and crisis to crisis during their school time. I resent them having "a huge impact on my class" too, but hey, them's the breaks.

Student behaviour is governed far more by their background and 'friends' than the nature of the subject. I have come across many extremely weak students at Irish and they are just lovely. The minority of troublemakers
will be there in nearly all subjects. Irish teachers would be delighted if it was optional so that they could do metalwork or whatever instead. But the problem is that since Irish is a relatively difficult subject many brilliant students would give it up too as there are far easier pickings elsewhere regarding points.

This would have an unsustainable knock-on effect for university level Irish and ultimately cause the language to haemorrhage knowledge and expertise. But I suspect that might be the 'unintended consequence' that many of the "I love Irish really but I'm in favour of choice myself" brigade would be hoping for.

P.S Isn't it funny how any discussion on the Irish language ends up with the existence of the very subject having to be justified!

Not for a second am I asking you to justify it, it would be just my opinion that students should be given a choice, like any subject in LC, they may pick the easier option to get the points in (even the "brilliant" ones) but that is down to the current exam and CAO system rather than anything else.

seavill

RealJohn wrote: »

I really don't think you have put your point across badly, I just think we strongly disagree in our positions on the issue.
You feel they were rude because you sat in close proximity to them and there was nobody else present and they continued to speak Irish when they probaby knew you weren't comfortable/able to join in with the conversation.
I disagree that they should have automatically assumed you wanted to be included, especially if you didn't actually try to include yourself.
Am I wrong in my interpretation? If so, I apologise.

(did you make any move to include yourself other than sitting near them by the way?)

I was sitting with them at the same table, we were all involved in the ususal daily conversations, when they then begin to speak Irish while I sit there. I was able to keep up for about 10 seconds and then hadn't a hope.
(10 seconds might even be pushing it)

I know you are saying try to include yourslef etc. however I have not spoken Irish since my oral in LC maybe 11 years ago, apart from the obvious odd word of hello or goodbye.
I had no idea was it a personal conversation and was that why they suddenly changed to Irish.
Personally I would be completely embarassed to even attempt to join in. (apart from my personal view being that I do not currently want to speak Irish - I know you are going to say well then you can't be expected to be part of the conversation but I think with the particualar scenario of only 3 there and we are talking and then suddenly one is excluded is a diff situation to a group sitting round and 2 are having their own conversation in irish or spanish or whatever)
Maybe this is just me personally but to say just join in and see what happens is not as easy as you might think.

Pompette

To go back to the topic at hand.. I never knew that the reason for the lack of irish teachers was actually that teacher's standards of irish are not up to scratch. If this is the case I suppose it's better not to employ anyone than to employ someone who has a poor level.

i remember thinking back when I was doing irish in college.... a lot of the people in my irish class were people who hadn't gotten the points for primary teaching and so were doing irish so that they'd have a better chance of getting into the primary teaching postgrad. And so less people doing irish would be going on to do secondary teaching.

Also, it doesn't surprise me that the standard of irish among a lot of teachers is bad... sure you can do it in college for 3 years and barely speak a word.. disgraceful!

seavill

Pompette wrote: »

To go back to the topic at hand.. I never knew that the reason for the lack of irish teachers was actually that teacher's standards of irish are not up to scratch. If this is the case I suppose it's better not to employ anyone than to employ someone who has a poor level.

i remember thinking back when I was doing irish in college.... a lot of the people in my irish class were people who hadn't gotten the points for primary teaching and so were doing irish so that they'd have a better chance of getting into the primary teaching postgrad. And so less people doing irish would be going on to do secondary teaching.

Also, it doesn't surprise me that the standard of irish among a lot of teachers is bad... sure you can do it in college for 3 years and barely speak a word.. disgraceful!

So how do you propose that its better to employ no one? How does that work in a secondary school, the Irish class goes home each time they are supposed to have Irish, and try bluff their LC exam.

Dionysius2

RealJohn wrote: »

It's not being approached in a good way. I think primary teachers need to be incentivised to actually improve their Irish and encourage it. As has been mentioned already, many primary teachers (and to a lesser extent, secondary Irish teachers) seem to consider Irish an inconvenience that must be tolerated and humoured for want of a better way of putting it but have little interest in doing anything more than the minimum to teach. In my (admittedly limited) experience, a lot of this attitude in primary teachers comes from their own lack of confidence in the subject. The number of times I've met primary teachers who openly admitted that they weren't comfortable teaching Irish and wouldn't be comfortable having a conversation with me in Irish when they learned I taught in a Gaelcholáiste, even though I don't teach Irish. When I fight moved to Dublin, I was sharing a house with a 5th class teacher who didn't want to speak Irish with me because she wasn't comfortable with the language (and to teach 5th class, you should need a fairly high level of Irish, in theory at least).

Given that primary teachers are supposed to be able to teach through Irish anyway, I would like to see all primary schools gradually converted to Gaelscoileanna. It's a pretty extreme solution to the problem but I can't think of any reasonable objection to it. We could keep english speaking secondary schools but I think that if people were introduced and immersed in Irish before they were old enough to become cynical about it, we'd have a nation of competent Irish speakers within 20 to 30 years.

The problem with the above solution is that it would be strongly opposed by the INTO (because they know that most of their members aren't actually able to teach through Irish even though they're supposed to be able to) who would in turn get the ASTI and TUI on board by saying that once it happens in the primary schools it would then be introduced in the secondary schools too (even though there are far more reasons that it wouldn't be as workable in secondary schools, not least because secondary teachers aren't necessarily supposed to be able to teach through Irish) and also by the very many people who will automatically oppose any such thing because "sure Irish is a dead language and there's no point in wasting school time on it when we need to improve literacy and numeracy".

I accept just about everything you say. I wish only to make two fairly simple points in response and I will frame each of them in a question.

Q.1 - Why is it that my recollections of learning Irish in my schoolgoing childhood years as a 9/10 and 11 years old bring before me the most vivid recall of a granite faced leather swinging Christian Brother beating me and others on the backs of our legs over our inability to grasp the chicanery inherent in the Mo-Coinneallach and Tuiseal Genideacht (pardon my spelling, please....). Who decided that the language was to be beaten into the young people in that manner ?

Q.2 - Why is it that my two grandchildren at 4 and 6 years of age (before either had ever spent a day in school ! ) respectively could speak fluently with perfect grammar to their father in English and to their Parisian mom in French ?

Taking those two items together, might not that pinpoint the utter stupidity of the approach pursued so disastrously for decade upon decade in teaching our native tongue ?

Pompette

seavill wrote: »

So how do you propose that its better to employ no one? How does that work in a secondary school, the Irish class goes home each time they are supposed to have Irish, and try bluff their LC exam.

Well obviously it's a pretty bad situation anyway.. like how are they coping up until this point? I doubt they're sending students home. It's really not ideal to be employing no one i agree.. but what can be done?

seavill

Pompette wrote: »

Well obviously it's a pretty bad situation anyway.. like how are they coping up until this point? I doubt they're sending students home. It's really not ideal to be employing no one i agree.. but what can be done?

I was being a tad sarcastic with that post. My point was they obviously have to employ someone. Saying its better to employ no one is obviously not an option.

We have had a person with no Dip employed to teach as they could not get anyone else ( I do not know was this as they felt he was the best candidate either way or just because literally there was no one else. He has since gone back to do the dip.)

RealJohn

seavill wrote: »

I was sitting with them at the same table, we were all involved in the ususal daily conversations, when they then begin to speak Irish while I sit there. I was able to keep up for about 10 seconds and then hadn't a hope.
(10 seconds might even be pushing it)

I know you are saying try to include yourslef etc. however I have not spoken Irish since my oral in LC maybe 11 years ago, apart from the obvious odd word of hello or goodbye.
I had no idea was it a personal conversation and was that why they suddenly changed to Irish.
Personally I would be completely embarassed to even attempt to join in. (apart from my personal view being that I do not currently want to speak Irish - I know you are going to say well then you can't be expected to be part of the conversation but I think with the particualar scenario of only 3 there and we are talking and then suddenly one is excluded is a diff situation to a group sitting round and 2 are having their own conversation in irish or spanish or whatever)
Maybe this is just me personally but to say just join in and see what happens is not as easy as you might think.

Well when you put it like that, it does seem rude (but I wasn't under the impression until now that you had been talking with them and that they suddenly switched to Irish until now).
I did say though that I don't expect you to involve yourself in the conversation in Irish if you're not comfortable doing so but simply that if you don't try to involve yourself in some way then you can't really expect them to go out of their way to facilitate you (though judging by the post I'm quoting, they might have been rude in switching to Irish). You could still have tried to strike up the conversation in english again though.
Again, judging by the post I'm quoting, I don't think they were being rude in their use of Irish but that they were being rude full stop and that they merely used their Irish as a tool to facilitate their rudeness.

Dionysius2 wrote: »

I accept just about everything you say. I wish only to make two fairly simple points in response and I will frame each of them in a question.

Q.1 - Why is it that my recollections of learning Irish in my schoolgoing childhood years as a 9/10 and 11 years old bring before me the most vivid recall of a granite faced leather swinging Christian Brother beating me and others on the backs of our legs over our inability to grasp the chicanery inherent in the Mo-Coinneallach and Tuiseal Genideacht (pardon my spelling, please....). Who decided that the language was to be beaten into the young people in that manner ?

Q.2 - Why is it that my two grandchildren at 4 and 6 years of age (before either had ever spent a day in school ! ) respectively could speak fluently with perfect grammar to their father in English and to their Parisian mom in French ?

Taking those two items together, might not that pinpoint the utter stupidity of the approach pursued so disastrously for decade upon decade in teaching our native tongue ?

I'm genuinely not sure if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing with me.
At no point have I suggested that the way Irish was taught in the past was a good thing and I have suggested that they start learning Irish properly from an early age by being immersed in the language in school (not unlike the way your grandchildren were/are presumably immersed in english and French at home). Though then again, if their grammar is perfect in either language at the age of 4 and 6, their parents must really be something special.

Edit to say that I imagine those granite faced Christian brothers were swinging the leather when you didn't know your tables in maths too, were they not? I know my father had plenty of stories about getting the leather for getting things wrong but he had good Irish so it was rarely for that.

Powerhouse

Dionysius2 wrote: »

I accept just about everything you say. I wish only to make two fairly simple points in response and I will frame each of them in a question.

Q.1 - Why is it that my recollections of learning Irish in my schoolgoing childhood years as a 9/10 and 11 years old bring before me the most vivid recall of a granite faced leather swinging Christian Brother beating me and others on the backs of our legs over our inability to grasp the chicanery inherent in the Mo-Coinneallach and Tuiseal Genideacht (pardon my spelling, please....). Who decided that the language was to be beaten into the young people in that manner ?

Q.2 - Why is it that my two grandchildren at 4 and 6 years of age (before either had ever spent a day in school ! ) respectively could speak fluently with perfect grammar to their father in English and to their Parisian mom in French ?

Taking those two items together, might not that pinpoint the utter stupidity of the approach pursued so disastrously for decade upon decade in teaching our native tongue ?

Sorry for getting involved here but these questions are so easy to answer.

Q1: This is probably your recollection because it was your reality. But I'm not sure anyone decided that the language had to be beaten into people. When I was in Primary school occasionally we would be put in a semi-circle around a map of Ireland where the names of mountains and rivers were blanked out. If you named one incorrectly you could expect to be put spinning in the general direction of the following week. That was Geography not Irish.

The question of why there was such wanton violence in those days is an interesting one. A far more authoritarian Ireland existed indeed - even student teachers were beaten in college according to John McGahern's Memoir - but the subject is deserving of a less trite treatment than that comment. However linking violence to the Irish language specifically is a popular but unfair notion. I never had a hand laid on me in Irish class in Post-Primary school which was not the case in some other subjects. Maybe, just maybe, it was the teacher rather than the subject?

Q2: Much easier question. The kids could do this because they were immersed in - as in constantly exposed to - those languages. Thousands of kids in Ireland are in a similar boat across a variety of languages at present. That's also how native Irish speakers grasp it so easily and early - complete exposure to the language.

The situation you report occurs in the house of every native Irish speaker. It is not unusual at all. You seem to be linking this reality to the potential for teaching language - but it is realistic to send kids on long-term placements to native speakers of whatever language is in question? It is virtually impossible to replicate that level of immersion in a school setting. That's why few students will leave school with an enormous grasp of French either.

That said I know a guy who got an A2 recently in his Leaving Cert Honours Irish and his parents are neither notable nor native speakers of the language, nor did he attend a Gaelscoil, nor had he ever attended the Gaeltacht. Why could he do it through the same system that 'fails' so many I wonder?

seavill

Powerhouse wrote: »

Q2: Much easier question. The kids could do this because they were immersed in those languages.

This was my point in relation to the point that was made about making all primary schools Irish speaking.

Simply doing this will not necessarily improve the love for the subject. If there is still huge opposition to it at home, or that the parents are not capable of helping out with homework etc. this will have negative implications on the impression of the subject that the kids will gain form their parents.

Simply making all primary schools Irish speaking is not a solution in itself in my opinion

Pompette

seavill wrote: »

This was my point in relation to the point that was made about making all primary schools Irish speaking.

Simply doing this will not necessarily improve the love for the subject. If there is still huge opposition to it at home, or that the parents are not capable of helping out with homework etc. this will have negative implications on the impression of the subject that the kids will gain form their parents.

Simply making all primary schools Irish speaking is not a solution in itself in my opinion

I think I have to disagree with you on this point. As someone who went to a Gaelscoil, i'm speaking from personal experience regarding language immersion. A lot of people send their children to gaeilscoils having very little or no irish themselves and fair enough it makes helping out with homework more difficult but I don't think that it's a major obstacle overall. It often actually encourages these parents to make an effort to improve their own irish, so that they can help out their children more.

Now if all primary schools were irish-speaking then it wouldn't be a choice for parents and you said they might pass on a negative impression of the subject. You see in my experience, children who go to gaeilscoils speak fluent irish, whether they are language inclined/have irish speaking families/parents, and so irish is not looked on as a 'subject' as such. It is a language that is used for communication every day, a 'living language' very often in their eyes, one that they speak fairly easily.

Of course not everyone who goes to gaeilscoils has a 'love of the language' maybe, a passion for it like, but I would imagine a lot more children would develop a love for it through being immersed - it's a lot easier to love a language you speak well than one you don't.

Dionysius2

Powerhouse wrote: »

Sorry for getting involved here but these questions are so easy to answer.

Q1: This is probably your recollection because it was your reality. But I'm not sure anyone decided that the language had to be beaten into people. When I was in Primary school occasionally we would be put in a semi-circle around a map of Ireland where the names of mountains and rivers were blanked out. If you named one incorrectly you could expect to be put spinning in the general direction of the following week. That was Geography not Irish.

The question of why there was such wanton violence in those days is an interesting one. A far more authoritarian Ireland existed indeed - even student teachers were beaten in college according to John McGahern's Memoir - but the subject is deserving of a less trite treatment than that comment. However linking violence to the Irish language specifically is a popular but unfair notion. I never had a hand laid on me in Irish class in Post-Primary school which was not the case in some other subjects. Maybe, just maybe, it was the teacher rather than the subject?

Q2: Much easier question. The kids could do this because they were immersed in - as in constantly exposed to - those languages. Thousands of kids in Ireland are in a similar boat across a variety of languages at present. That's also how native Irish speakers grasp it so easily and early - complete exposure to the language.

The situation you report occurs in the house of every native Irish speaker. It is not unusual at all. You seem to be linking this reality to the potential for teaching language - but it is realistic to send kids on long-term placements to native speakers of whatever language is in question? It is virtually impossible to replicate that level of immersion in a school setting. That's why few students will leave school with an enormous grasp of French either.

That said I know a guy who got an A2 recently in his Leaving Cert Honours Irish and his parents are neither notable nor native speakers of the language, nor did he attend a Gaelscoil, nor had he ever attended the Gaeltacht. Why could he do it through the same system that 'fails' so many I wonder?

I think most people will get my meaning easy enough. What I am definitely referring to with the first Question is the lack, total lack, in my experience, of any attempt to engage in conversational Irish. We had to know the declensions BEFORE we engaged in attempts to speak the language. This is like putting the roof on the house before raising the walls. That's clear enough, isn't it ? Why did that mad system carry on for so long ? The method of teaching required that you had the same knowledge as the teacher. When he asked you the question, then you had better know the answer or Wham ! The whole class lived in total dread of the bastard.
Didn't put me off the language though as I use more of it now, albeit not perfectly, than I ever did back in those years.

And what I am plainly showing in the case of my g/children, is that while they have no understanding of the construction of grammar on account of their tender years, they can use tenses quite correctly, i.e. yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Furthermore, (and I'd like to hear other viewpoints on this) I am of the opinion that there was more classroom violence for 'Irish transgressions' than for any other subject. In my own case, I was never physically punished for any other subject.

seavill

Pompette wrote: »

I think I have to disagree with you on this point. As someone who went to a Gaelscoil, i'm speaking from personal experience regarding language immersion. A lot of people send their children to gaeilscoils having very little or no irish themselves and fair enough it makes helping out with homework more difficult but I don't think that it's a major obstacle overall. It often actually encourages these parents to make an effort to improve their own irish, so that they can help out their children more.

Now if all primary schools were irish-speaking then it wouldn't be a choice for parents and you said they might pass on a negative impression of the subject. You see in my experience, children who go to gaeilscoils speak fluent irish, whether they are language inclined/have irish speaking families/parents, and so irish is not looked on as a 'subject' as such. It is a language that is used for communication every day, a 'living language' very often in their eyes, one that they speak fairly easily.

Of course not everyone who goes to gaeilscoils has a 'love of the language' maybe, a passion for it like, but I would imagine a lot more children would develop a love for it through being immersed - it's a lot easier to love a language you speak well than one you don't.

There is a difference betwwen those who choose to send their kids to a garlscoil already who clearly have an interest and the rest. Some parents have no interst in helping when the homework is in English never mind Irish. There is a clear distinction here. I think you have missed this

Fuinseog

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

As your post is directed at mine, I will clarify yet again :
I do not believe Irish should be spoken only in class.
I am not "reluctant" to speak it in the staffroom, I choose not to. Big difference.
I do plenty to promote the language in the school.
I do not "struggle"to speak the language, I am an examiner in both the oral and written exams.
I just don't feel the staffroom is a place I need to speak Irish.

where did I say the post was directed at you?

Fuinseog

pm123 wrote: »

I can't tell you how many times I've heard this phrase.

I talk to some people who work in schools who say 'Oh, we had two Irish teaching positions that we couldn't fill this year' and yet all you hear on this board and everywhere else is 'There's a billion unemployed teachers' - where are all the Irish teachers? There are so many jobs unfilled, and yet there are Irish teachers saying they can't get jobs. This entire concept of teachers being unemployed is so contradictory!

I went for an interview to a VEC school and they told me if I got the job I would start at the end of August but would have to sit another interview for the job at the end of September. i could see one of the panel cringing when I was told this.lo and behold the job was advertised again recently. how do they expect to fill it.

it must be very frustrating for the kinds to have two or three different teachers in as many months.

dory

doovdela wrote: »

Honestly don't think they are crying out for them based on the number of Irish Teachers currently unemployed. Many of which take up jobs else where either emigrate to UK or abroad whether or not they are teaching. Many of which aren't, just enough to earn and be on a working holiday/travelling.

Unless you have good Irish or at least have Irish will those who have done postgrads in Education be able to find anything here in Ireland in particular for Primary teaching. Secondary teaching can be just as tough to get into as there aren't enough students to teacher ratios or enough positions to fill even with those on a panel. The majority are going no where without the PDE but if they have that at least and teaching practise in they be doing well. The PDE is vital but so many have it so only a selective number be chosen.

Even those who didn't start with teaching often changed professions to teaching with is fair enough but harder on them for those that started off with teaching after the leaving.

There is a limited number of available positions if you don't have x y and z making competition between candidates a difficult one. Not many roles are permanent either. Many of which are temporary or sub work. Meaning only a handful get work and get more teaching practise in the more the better. Some take years before they are mainstream teachers making it tougher to stay in the profession that has little job security at the moment which is unfair.

Irish language, not people from Ireland.

bdoo

Fuinseog wrote: »

pm123 wrote: »

I can't tell you how many times I've heard this phrase.

I talk to some people who work in schools who say 'Oh, we had two Irish teaching positions that we couldn't fill this year' and yet all you hear on this board and everywhere else is 'There's a billion unemployed teachers' - where are all the Irish teachers? There are so many jobs unfilled, and yet there are Irish teachers saying they can't get jobs. This entire concept of teachers being unemployed is so contradictory!

I went for an interview to a VEC school and they told me if I got the job I would start at the end of August but would have to sit another interview for the job at the end of September. i could see one of the panel cringing when I was told this.lo and behold the job was advertised again recently. how do they expect to fill it.

it must be very frustrating for the kinds to have two or three different teachers in as many months.

have you applied for it again?

gaeilgebeo

Fuinseog wrote: »

where did I say the post was directed at you?

You quoted my post (post#45).
That would indicate that it was directed at me?

Powerhouse

Dionysius2 wrote: »

1) What I am definitely referring to with the first Question is the lack, total lack, in my experience, of any attempt to engage in conversational Irish. Why did that mad system carry on for so long ?

2) Furthermore, (and I'd like to hear other viewpoints on this) I am of the opinion that there was more classroom violence for 'Irish transgressions' than for any other subject. In my own case, I was never physically punished for any other subject.

1) Why did it continue in the classroom for so long? You'd have to ask the Dept of Ed about policy, but from a teacher's point if view it probably was because the system was geared towards written exams. The Oral Irish didn't commence until 1960 and marks were low enough for Oral for a long time. Nowadays the written element in less than 50 per cent of the marks.

Even though the Irish tend to believe that everything was different in their case it wasn't. Until 1985 there was no even aural element to French exams when that system changed significantly. The type of exam paper in those subjects were remarkably similar back then.

Yeah, things were different back in old God's time. Not much we can do about that now. Very different system these days. I taught three classes this afternoon - Fifth Year, First Year and Second Year and we didn't open a book. (Admittedly they let me teach - I have a third year pass class and if you don't get their heads in the book they'll make your life very difficult)

But then again with the likes of the Fifth Years (honours) I don't have to cover 13 poems as I would have had to do a few years ago. It's easy to teach oral Irish when you are given the time and space.

2) Getting beaten during the learning of Irish is surely part of the folklore alright. I'd have been happy to have been beaten in just the one subject but unfortunately the beatings were a personality issue of the Primary teacher rather than him being set off by the Irish language specifically. At Post-Primary for us the psycho happened to be the Woodwork teacher - the Irish teacher was a different man.

But if you were beaten only for Irish, there really is no answer to that. That was your experience, and can validly be recounted. Trying to insinuate that it was as a reality for the rest of us if we'd only admit it is another matter. Nor am I clear on what implications it has for the teaching of Irish at the moment.