Picking up Ordinary Level Irish on the day

PeterJC!

Hi, I posted this in the Leaving Cert forum but I think I might get better answers here:

So Irish has been really stressing me out recently; I moved here when I was 10 and I have a good enough standard with Irish, i.e. I can rote learn very well, but I cannot put a sentence together on the spot at all, and feel that I could do very well in the oral as I can learn things off well enough for it, but I find it to be so time consuming that it's almost detrimental to my other subjects where I feel that I could improve upon them, so what I'm planning to do is continue in the HL class, and just take the ordinary level paper on the day, that way I can get HL vocab for the oral and might pick up some useful phrases etc..

My question is, what are the biggest differences between the two? Are the poems/prose different? And would my oral work cover me for the litir/essay-thing? Thanks.

gaeilgebeo

Yes, there is a big difference in both courses in that you will be doing a lot of unnecessary extra work in the HL class.
If you are genuinely planning to take the OL paper, why not move to the OL class and take the pressure off. Even the homework pressure.
That said, you could wait and see how you get on in the oral and make a decision from there.

PeterJC!

I don't find the homework overly strenuous and I don't want to move class because there's only two ordinary classes and they would both be full of, 'characters'. My only real concern is not having covered something that might appear on the paper. Thanks.

RealJohn

PeterJC! wrote: »

... I have a good enough standard with Irish ... but I cannot put a sentence together on the spot at all,

This is a contradiction, regardless of what level you're at.

tomissex

PeterJC! wrote: »

I don't find the homework overly strenuous and I don't want to move class because there's only two ordinary classes and they would both be full of, 'characters'. My only real concern is not having covered something that might appear on the paper. Thanks.

You won't have not covered anything but the layout of the papers are slightly different.
Paper 1
HL: Listening and one long written piece
OL: Listening and two short written pieces

Paper 2
HL: 2 comprehensions, 1 Prós Q, 1 Filíocht Q, 1 Litríocht Breise Q
OL: 2 comrpehensions, 2 Prós Qs, 2 Filíocht Qs

The OL Prós and Filíocht are the same 5 that HL study - Dís, Géibheann etc.
The OL written pieces are based on the topics so you're oral work will help.
For example, last year's blog/paragraph titles were: my favourite country, my friends and I love music

PeterJC!

RealJohn wrote: »

This is a contradiction, regardless of what level you're at.

Yeah, you're right, I guess I should have said that I can maintain a good (A/B) standard in class but when it comes to actually understanding the question, tying topics into the given topic and reciting paragraphs of Irish, in an exam, that's where I struggle.

tomissex wrote: »

You won't have not covered anything but the layout of the papers are slightly different.
Paper 1
HL: Listening and one long written piece
OL: Listening and two short written pieces

Paper 2
HL: 2 comprehensions, 1 Prós Q, 1 Filíocht Q, 1 Litríocht Breise Q
OL: 2 comrpehensions, 2 Prós Qs, 2 Filíocht Qs

The OL Prós and Filíocht are the same 5 that HL study - Dís, Géibheann etc.
The OL written pieces are based on the topics so you're oral work will help.
For example, last year's blog/paragraph titles were: my favourite country, my friends and I love music

Thank you very much! Do you know how long the written pieces have to be?

tomissex

PeterJC! wrote: »

Thank you very much! Do you know how long the written pieces have to be?

They should be at least half an A4 page each