Leaving Cert Irish HL

Sucette!

I'm in 5th year now, and the Irish classes are divided into levels, there is an ordinary level class, a lower higher level class, an in-between higher class and then the highest higher level class (people who got A's and a handful of students who got B's in the JC). If you can get the jist there! :pac:

What has been happening recently is people from the higher higher level class have been dropping down to the 'in-between' class because our teacher refuses to give us notes and says that we'd do much better if we wrote all the material i.e essays, notes on poems, stories, oral ourselves and he hands out sheets like vocab for the oral.

In stark contrast to the 'in-between' class where their teacher hands them A1 style essays on every topic and all 26 of them have to learn it off by heart and reproduce it in a test. It's the same way for the oral he types out responses to questions scrath pictuirs etc and they learn them off. We write our own notes on scrath pictuirs.

I agree with my teacher in some points he makes, the examiner will be reading our own work, and not the same thing over and over again. He argues we should be able to do produce our own essays etc. which we do and he corrects and writes 'Ar fheabhas' under and that's it no advice, mark etc. But on the other hand the method of the other teacher would cut down on a lot of effort and i'd feel confident going into an exam with A1 style essays learned off.

Any of ye have any ideas or advice on the situation? Help most appreciated!

spurious

I would rather be in your teacher's class learning than in the 'in between' class being treated like an idiot who has to learn other people's work off.

It will absolutely stand to you, on so many levels and not just to do with the LC, to learn how to make your own notes and stay in the Higher Higher class.

ray2012

I've always found the idea of classes like 'lower higher', 'in-between higher' and 'higher-higher' weird! :P That's maybe just because there is around 40 in my whole year, and around 10 in my higher level Irish (the only higher class).

But yeah, I don't see how you'd prefer to be in the other class where you'd just have to learn off the answers by heart and reproduce them. What if you got unlucky and none of the essays that you've learned off by heart can be used? Then you are well and truly fúcked! Yes, I think your teacher should be giving ye advice on how you can improve your work, but I think he's teaching ye the correct way other-wise by not just giving ye material to learn off.

Sucette!

spurious wrote: »

I would rather be in your teacher's class learning than in the 'in between' class being treated like an idiot who has to learn other people's work off.

It will absolutely stand to you, on so many levels and not just to do with the LC, to learn how to make your own notes and stay in the Higher Higher class.

I really can see where he's coming from, the idea of having the work given to you just seems a lot less work. But we've had this teacher since first year and as much as we have our doubts we did get 14 A's in the junior cert in our class, because of him and we doubted him then too when the other class could spout essays at us.

ray2012 wrote: »

I've always found the idea of classes like 'lower higher', 'in-between higher' and 'higher-higher' weird! :P That's maybe just because there is around 40 in my whole year, and around 10 in my higher level Irish (the only higher class).

But yeah, I don't see how you'd prefer to be in the other class where you'd just have to learn off the answers by heart and reproduce them. What if you got unlucky and none of the essays that you've learned off by heart can be used? Then you are well and truly fúcked! Yes, I think your teacher should be giving ye advice on how you can improve your work, but I think he's teaching ye the correct way other-wise by not just giving ye material to learn off.

Yeah I don't know why but there's a high standard of Irish in our year about 75 doing higher level out of a year of about 110. Your class is just amazingly small!!

They seem to be getting essays on all of the main topics but I think i'll stay where I am at the moment now, hasn't done me any harm so far, apart from the lack of help, that I would feel happier having to know that what im learning/writing is actually right!

Canard

I had a teacher who made us rote learn her stuff for JC, it was dreadful and so hard/stressful, I'd no idea what I was writing about and only got a B in spite of it all. For LC I got a teacher who went through the conditional tense with us, the cases, all the "hard" grammar that really catches people out (e.g. "do I put a H in here or not?" :P). Not knowing that stuff is the only reason why you can't produce your own essays, honestly! Once I learned it I was fine. I rote-learned the 20 sraiths, there's no real way around that imo, but our teacher gave us notes. Do you not have the book for them? It's by Elizabeth Wade and someone else.

I remember panicking because we only did 4 or 5 essays which isnt enough considering they ask such specific things. In the end 0 of mine came up (whoops :P) so I made up an answer to the oraid thing in part C (they're WAY easier than the essays, I dont know why people dont do them more?). I'd never ever even looked at them before (I didnt even know what oraid meant or how to format it) but ended up with 96 on it. I got an A1 overall and put in very little work to get it - the most work was the sraiths and learning off the specific An Triail vocabulary.

Imo rote-learning gets you nowhere. Do you do another language? If so, do you rote-learn for that? Most people seem to rote-learn for Irish but not their other language(s), but it's honestly so much easier to approach it with vocab, grammar and phrases, and just make something new. Why not ask your friends for the teacher's essays? Then you can learn the key points, the key vocab and be able to do an essay from any angle.

Sucette!

Patchy~ wrote: »

I had a teacher who made us rote learn her stuff for JC, it was dreadful and so hard/stressful, I'd no idea what I was writing about and only got a B in spite of it all. For LC I got a teacher who went through the conditional tense with us, the cases, all the "hard" grammar that really catches people out (e.g. "do I put a H in here or not?" :P). Not knowing that stuff is the only reason why you can't produce your own essays, honestly! Once I learned it I was fine. I rote-learned the 20 sraiths, there's no real way around that imo, but our teacher gave us notes. Do you not have the book for them? It's by Elizabeth Wade and someone else.

I remember panicking because we only did 4 or 5 essays which isnt enough considering they ask such specific things. In the end 0 of mine came up (whoops :P) so I made up an answer to the oraid thing in part C (they're WAY easier than the essays, I dont know why people dont do them more?). I'd never ever even looked at them before (I didnt even know what oraid meant or how to format it) but ended up with 96 on it. I got an A1 overall and put in very little work to get it - the most work was the sraiths and learning off the specific An Triail vocabulary.

Imo rote-learning gets you nowhere. Do you do another language? If so, do you rote-learn for that? Most people seem to rote-learn for Irish but not their other language(s), but it's honestly so much easier to approach it with vocab, grammar and phrases, and just make something new. Why not ask your friends for the teacher's essays? Then you can learn the key points, the key vocab and be able to do an essay from any angle.

Thanks so much for the advice! wow well done on your result! Hopefully we'll get practice on speeches in the next year and a bit. I actually got a copy today of the other classes essay, 8 paragraphs in 2 and a half pages? We were told an intro, conclusion, and 3 detailed paragraphs on three different points? Makes it the same length

I do French aswell and we just learn off phrases on the different topics and then just make up the rest of the essay, seems to work! we've only done about 10 essays so far though.


Thanks again for the reply!

Canard

Sucette! wrote: »

Thanks so much for the advice! wow well done on your result! Hopefully we'll get practice on speeches in the next year and a bit. I actually got a copy today of the other classes essay, 8 paragraphs in 2 and a half pages? We were told an intro, conclusion, and 3 detailed paragraphs on three different points? Makes it the same length

I do French aswell and we just learn off phrases on the different topics and then just make up the rest of the essay, seems to work! we've only done about 10 essays so far though.


Thanks again for the reply!

No problem! Oh thats what an oraid is? :P I wrote mine as a letter I think. I think part C is like "Oraid / [something else]". I imagine thats enough, he's probably just giving them a lot because if you learn 3 pages you generally remember 2 or so, so the more they read the more they retain I guess. I wrote 5 pages in mine I think, there's so much time, and if you know your grammar is fine then there's no need to worry about messing it up and it also means you can keep it relatively simple - I used a lot of briathar saor and conditional I think, they love that, so just shove it in a few times, be grand. :pac:

Yeah that works for French, you should do it for Irish too I know the essays are longer but it pays off! Even 10 essays would probably cover you if they're broad enough. A few general seanfhocail are handy too to take up space and they look fancy.