Commissioner calls for review of Irish language teaching

ishmael whale

On the positive side, at least this amounts to some official recognition of what we all know. We’re spending €500 million a year (that’s a nursing homes crisis every four years) on teaching the Irish language, to little effect. We spent nearly €4.5 billion on first and second level education in 2003 (including capital expenditure). So we’re getting very little for an expenditure equivalent to over 10% of our expenditure on schools.

I’d say we not only need to review how Irish is taught, although it would at least be an improvement if we actually got something for all that money. But we also need to at least ask the question if this level of resourcing is justified, bearing in mind expenditure on other areas within the education sector.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/03/15/story193743.html
Commissioner calls for review of Irish language teaching
The Irish Language Commissioner has reportedly called for a review of how Irish is taught in primary and secondary schools. Reports this morning said Sean O'Cuirreain had advised that such a review was essential if the State was truly committed to promoting the Irish language.

The advice is contained in Mr O'Cuirreain's first annual report as Irish Language Commissioner. This morning's reports said the document highlighted the fact that many pupils haven't even attained basic fluency in Irish despite being taught the language for 13 years.

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=57883&pt=n
The first report of the Irish Language Commissioner reveals that many students do not have basic fluency in Irish, despite being taught it for 13 years.

It costs an estimated half a billion euro each year to teach Irish in primary and secondary schools.

http://www.education.ie/servlet/blobservlet/statistics_key92_03.pdf
2003 Primary expenditure €2119.7
2003 Second level expenditure €2304.8

gurramok

Very true, finally after about 60 odd years, they acnowledge the obvious.
Practically no-one of about 30 pupils in my class including me when i left school could muster a sentence in Irish.
The language is simply taught wrong, learning about Peig before actually knowing the verbs\nouns of the language was the way it was taught to me, complete failure.
I'd still support it being taught in schools if it was taught the correct way.

simu

Teaching kids how to speak the language first is the way to go. The curricula at primary and secondary should be made to follow on from each other as well - I went from doing all the tenses in 6th class to learning how to say hello in first year in secondary school!

Sponge Bob

Ireland has a pathetic record when it comes to teaching Second Languages in General , how many pesons here can muster up conversational French or Irish or German after their leaving certs ?

Compare that with the language skills of a bunch of Dutch or Swedish primary school kids who are taught English properly from the word go.

dent

Sponge Bob wrote:

Ireland has a pathetic record when it comes to teaching Second Languages in General , how many pesons here can muster up conversational French or Irish or German after their leaving certs ?

Compare that with the language skills of a bunch of Dutch or Swedish primary school kids who are taught English properly from the word go.

To be honest I can speak more Spanish after three years of secondary school teaching than I can after 13 years of Irish.

I remember having an argument with my Irish teacher in secondary school about how the language was taught. He saw nothing wrong with it and I get the feeling that he thought he as quite elite.

Really glad some change is going to be made. I think it’s more important that we learn simply to speak it than focus on the academic side of things.

Nuttzz

we would be better off teaching primary school children a working european langauge rather than Irish, Irish should be an optional langauge in secondary school.

[ Daithí ]

Nah, Nuttzz, we wouldn't.

I'm so glad they're finally copping onto this after so long. I had very little Irish two years ago and I had to teach myself. The way it's taught in school is atrocious.

Pity I'm leaving school this year. :rolleyes:

sleepwalker

its purely the way it is thought that is the problem

instead of learning off poems and stories and essays, the teaching should be 100% focused on oral skills until students can fully hold a conversation then move onto grammer and then move onto the complex stuff of poetry etc

Sponge Bob

sleepwalker wrote:

its purely the way it is thought that is the problem

Oh DEAR me !

monument

simu wrote:

Teaching kids how to speak the language first is the way to go. The curricula at primary and secondary should be made to follow on from each other as well - I went from doing all the tenses in 6th class to learning how to say hello in first year in secondary school!

I remember hearing it was something to do with different students coming to secondary school with different levels of Irish.

Gael

Fair play to the Commish. He's right. The methods are usually ****, as are the teachers. Name and shame your crap Irish teacher on www.ratemyteachers.ie
Although he didn't say anything about not making it compulsory, just changing the teaching methods Ishmael. You must be peeved.

I noticed that you conveniently didn't mention that the Commish also said in his report(The full details of which I received from Comhdháil na Gaeilge and not from news soundbites):

Mr Ó Cuirreáin has indicated that teaching Irish may cost as much as EUR500m annually although this figure would constitute a non-saveable "opportunity cost" rather than an additional cost to the State.

So I think we can discount Irish being to blame for all those poor souls lying on trollies in hospitals, although I know it's a very popular argument used against Irish in schools.
I remember once being told by a guy who hated Irish, that the state was "wasting" over two billion a year on Irish in the education system(It was Irish pounds at the time). Turns out the figure he was quoting was the cost of the entire education system! But why let some facts get in the way of an good bout of Irish-bashing.

Sleepy

I just hope that any review also questions the validity of Irish as a compulsory subject in secondary school.

And btw Sponge Bob, while I haven't more than a few words of Irish, my conversational French is pretty good for someone who hasn't had a chance to use it in a while.

Slutmonkey57b

Gael wrote:

I noticed that you conveniently didn't mention that the Commish also said in his report(The full details of which I received from Comhdháil na Gaeilge and not from news soundbites):

Mr Ó Cuirreáin has indicated that teaching Irish may cost as much as EUR500m annually although this figure would constitute a non-saveable "opportunity cost" rather than an additional cost to the State.

So I think we can discount Irish being to blame for all those poor souls lying on trollies in hospitals, although I know it's a very popular argument used against Irish in schools.

Hmm. I think YOU also glossed over the fact that this is an "opportunity cost" IN THE COMMISSIONER'S OPINION. Since he is the head of an Irish-language promotion board, it is hardly suprising that he would think this.

For those who like a spin-free explaination of opportunity cost please visit the wiki. Notice that the concept revolves around the fact that a choice is made on how to spend the money, and that the choice involves weighing up what the various options are worth in terms of opportunities missed. So while the Dear Commish might think that missing the opportunity to shove Irish down our throats whether we like it or not is worth spending €500 million a year to avoid, the rest of us may not.

The rest of us may think "hmm... We COULD spend €500m on shoving a useless language down the throats of people who don't want to speak it... or we could save somebody's life with that money by getting more nurses in... hmmm... Hmmmmm... Hmmmm...." I think I know which missed opportunity is more valuable, don't you?

And for all those who decry the teaching of Irish and the lack of "proper" structure, explain this:

English is taught in primary schools from the same age, and it doesn't have a "proper" teaching structure either. Children aren't taught grammer or theory before practice in English, just like in the "poor deprived" Irish classroom. Yet English is the dominant language of the country - to all intents and purposes, it is the only language in the country since the population does not speak Irish. Teaching is not to blame my friends. Learning a language is a choice, and students should be given the choice to stop wasting their time with it and learn something more useful. Like archaic greek for example.

Sleepy

Gael wrote:

So I think we can discount Irish being to blame for all those poor souls lying on trollies in hospitals, although I know it's a very popular argument used against Irish in schools.

An opportunity cost is still a cost. Were the same amount of time spent teaching fifth and sixth years how to drive properly how many lives would be saved? Were some of the time spent giving proper sex education, how many young girls wouldn't have their lives ruined by teenage pregnancy, 'trips to England' etc? Were some of this time spent on proper PE and health education would our hospitals be as over-run?

The fact is, Irish is of very limited use in the modern world. Even if you can argue that it's part of our culture, so are many other things that we've left, are leaving or should have left behind (religeon, ignorance, political cronyism, drinking too much etc. etc. etc.). In order to offer the next generations of this country the best possible future, Irish needs to be removed from the compulsory curriculum and the time that's currently wasted on Peig, O' Connaire et al be better invested in teaching the children of Ireland things that might actually benefit them in life.

Sleepy

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

For those who like a spin-free explaination of opportunity cost please visit the wiki. Notice that the concept revolves around the fact that a choice is made on how to spend the money, and that the choice involves weighing up what the various options are worth in terms of opportunities missed. So while the Dear Commish might think that missing the opportunity to shove Irish down our throats whether we like it or not is worth spending €500 million a year to avoid, the rest of us may not.

The rest of us may think "hmm... We COULD spend €500m on shoving a useless language down the throats of people who don't want to speak it... or we could save somebody's life with that money by getting more nurses in... hmmm... Hmmmmm... Hmmmm...." I think I know which missed opportunity is more valuable, don't you?

While I think our opinions on Irish are quite similar I think I should point out that what I believe the Commisioner is referring to is the opportunity cost of teaching another subject. The €500m a year would include the cost teacher's wages for the hours they're spending teaching Irish, overheads on the classrooms etc. As such, the opportunity cost of Irish is the loss of other subjects being taught because of the decision to teach Irish.

Slutmonkey57b

Equally, there's no reason why a portion of that €500m couldn't be redistributed outside the education budget, or in a really shocking move

(brace yourself)



Build a couple of new schools that the government has been promising to build for 20-30 years now while teachers sit in portakabins.

And again, it's the commissioner's opinion of the various choices that leads to his revelation, not anyone else's.

ishmael whale

Gael wrote:

Although he didn't say anything about not making it compulsory, just changing the teaching methods Ishmael. You must be peeved.

Not at all peeved, merely suggesting that one issue that also should be considered is what level of resourcing we should be putting into Irish. In fairness, I wouldn’t particularly expect the Irish Language Commissioner to be leading the charge to reduce the amount of time spent teaching Irish. I do acknowledge he’s doing us all a service by at least acknowledging there is a serious issue.

Gael wrote:

I noticed that you conveniently didn't mention that the Commish also said in his report(The full details of which I received from Comhdháil na Gaeilge and not from news soundbites):.

I actually didn’t see this comment. Strangely enough, I’m not on Comhdháil na Gaeilge’s mailing list. I did look for the full report yesterday, but I couldn’t find any link – and would be interested if you have a link.

As the contributors above say, I take it what he means is that, for example, at primary level the class has the same teacher doing all subjects, so if you reduce the amount of time spent teaching Irish you don’t save money that you could move to some other sector. However, reducing the amount of time spent on Irish releases resources to do other useful things within the education sector.

Gael wrote:

…. Turns out the figure he was quoting was the cost of the entire education system! But why let some facts get in the way of an good bout of Irish-bashing.

Fine, but I take it you accept that this does not apply to this discussion. We have an estimate of €500 million as the cost of teaching Irish. We can flesh this out with the useful quote you supplied above to understand that these resources involved rigidities that mean they cannot easily be transferred out of education (although, given our enormous class sizes, who’d want to). We also (finally) have some official acknowledgement that these resources are achieving very little at present .

Gael

Sleepy wrote:

An opportunity cost is still a cost. Were the same amount of time spent teaching fifth and sixth years how to drive properly how many lives would be saved? Were some of the time spent giving proper sex education, how many young girls wouldn't have their lives ruined by teenage pregnancy, 'trips to England' etc? Were some of this time spent on proper PE and health education would our hospitals be as over-run?

Irish is the reason for a high teenage pregnancy rate and road deaths?
Ok course, why didn't I see it before!

Sleepy

I see the solution to both problems as being education. Irish takes up a completely disproportionate amount of school time to it's usefulness, at the expense of education which could contribute to lowering teenage pregnancies, road deaths, juvenille delinquincy, health problems etc.

It's what's called an "indirect cause", Gael. I'd also consider the amount of time spent on Religeon during one's education in the same light.

ishmael whale

Gael wrote:

Irish is the reason for a high teenage pregnancy rate and road deaths? Ok course, why didn't I see it before!

The key issue is that resources are currently tied up in teaching Irish, with little to show for it. If you want you can avoid addressing this point by concentrating on picking up some of the looser statements made by some contributors (which still embody the essential truth that Irish consumes resources that could be used profitably for some other purpose.

Alternatively, you can follow the Commish’s lead in at least acknowledging the fact that resources are currently being wasted. I take it he suggests these resources should be better invested in teaching Irish. (I still can’t find his report on the internet.) Others take the view these resources could be used elsewhere in education.

You might recall this survey when it came out:

http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/1/63/34002454.pdf

The OECD assessment of our 15 year olds scored them as roughly the OECD average, or 17 place out of about 40 studied, for mathematical ability and much the same for problem solving ability (20 out of 40 studied). Reading we’re doing better – placed 6, and categorised as statistically significantly above OECD average.

It might be some comfort that we’re doing no worse than average, but if we really see ourselves as progressing on the basis of being a highly skilled population engaged in cutting edge technology, we’d want to be doing a lot better than this. The OECD report basically says educationally we’re doing better than places like Brazil and worse than places like Finland. I don’t regard that as a cause for complacency.

Now we can (hopefully) finally acknowledge on the basis of the Commissioner’s report that the money spent on Irish isn’t contributing to our educational levels. (Unless we’re going to make some tortuous effort to suggest that wasting an amount of classroom time failing to equip people with the basics of Irish in some way magically makes them great readers.)

So the message is clear enough. If we spent less time teaching Irish, we wouldn’t really be making things any worse for the language – because we’re not achieving much on that front in any event. This would release teaching time to invest in mathematics and problem solving skills, where we’re not excelling.

(incidently this topic is also the subject of today’s Irish Times poll here:
http://scripts.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/regularvote.cfm?pollid=1835)

Slutmonkey57b

Gael wrote:

Irish is the reason for a high teenage pregnancy rate and road deaths?
Ok course, why didn't I see it before!

Feel free to ignore both Sleepy's point and the commissioner's point. The point is not that people are dying as a result of teaching Irish, it's that a choice is made to teach Irish at a cost of €500m p.a. There are other, perhaps more useful ways of spending all or some of that €500m either within the education sector or by redistributing the budget elsewhere. Sex education or driver's education are merely two examples. If you don't think that sex education is as worthwhile as Irish education, I'd love to hear your argument for it.

simu

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

There are other, perhaps more useful ways of spending all or some of that €500m either within the education sector or by redistributing the budget elsewhere. Sex education or driver's education are merely two examples. If you don't think that sex education is as worthwhile as Irish education, I'd love to hear your argument for it.

Sex education is already taught in schools and besides, you need far less time to teach that than you need to teach a language. As for driver's ed, that might be an idea but you're hardly going to start that in junior infants - it would work best as a module in Transisition Year imo. And still plenty of room for Irish. Whilst it's important to teach some practical skills at school, it's just as important to teach kids things of cultural, intellectual and imaginative value imo.

Slutmonkey57b

Then why not teach Greek and get the kids reading Socrates, Plato and Homer instead of Peig?

Is sex education being taught well, or could it be taught better, with more resources perhaps?

Or, as I pointed out, build some new schools.
Ask the kids:

"Would you rather sit here and be forced to learn a language you're never going to use, or would you like not to have to sit in a leaking portakabin and have a choice about learning the language nobody speaks?"

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Hmmmmm.

You are of the opinion that Irish is a good investment. The amount of people that cannot speak Irish after decades of forced learning and propaganda suggests otherwise.

abccormac

English is taught in primary schools from the same age, and it doesn't have a "proper" teaching structure either.

Most kids can speak english when they start school. :eek:

We spend lots of money teaching shakespeare, history, art , music, poetry, and all sorts of other subjects which have no tangible economic benefits. Why does nobody ever get their knickers in a twist over these subjects? I despised irish in secondary school, and left with a very poor grasp of the language. I agree with the posters questioning the way in which the language is taught in secondary schools, but I cannot understand why people are so vehemently opposed to it being taught at all. Education is about a lot more than preparing somebody to go into a job, there is an important cultural and social aspect to it aswell.

"Would you rather sit here and be forced to learn a language you're never going to use, or would you like not to have to sit in a leaking portakabin and have a choice about learning the language nobody speaks?"

To blame the state of school buildings directly on the teaching of Irish is laughable. There shouldn't have to be a choice, we should be able to afford both. Why not drop art or music while we're at it?

You could make exactly the same arguments about the teaching of music or art or english poetry, drama and literature as people have been making about the teaching of Irish. In fact vast majority of people are never going to need to use most of the maths they learn in secondary school, the basiscs they learn in primary would be enough, so why not make maths optional aswell?

Slutmonkey57b

abccormac wrote:

Most kids can speak english when they start school. :eek:

And why is that? I thought irish was only unpopular because of inferior teaching?

It's because English is our first language. So if your argument is "well they go into school speaking English", then I suggest you give out to every parent in the nation for not teaching their kids Irish.

To blame the state of school buildings directly on the teaching of Irish is laughable. There shouldn't have to be a choice, we should be able to afford both. Why not drop art or music while we're at it?

You could make exactly the same arguments about the teaching of music or art or english poetry, drama and literature as people have been making about the teaching of Irish. In fact vast majority of people are never going to need to use most of the maths they learn in secondary school, the basiscs they learn in primary would be enough, so why not make maths optional aswell?

Your point is deeply flawed:
* Art and Music are optional. Irish is not.
* People who choose to study Art and Music come out of it with some decent standard of knowledge or ability. We shove Irish down people's throats for 14 years and they still don't know it.
* English is not only our first language, it is the language in which a huge amount of the world's great art is written in. Suggesting we dump Peig is not the same as suggesting we dump Shakespeare. If you don't think knowedge of Shakespeare is economically advantageous, then you might not be aware of how many people have made a living reinterpreting, restaging, or filming his works.
* Teaching advanced mathematics at least provides a basis for more people to go into engineering disciplines, something the world needs. They may not choose to go into that field, but at least they have a basic knowledge so they have the choice.

Nobody is "blaming Irish" for the state of school buildings. Repeating a false statement someone else has already made does not make it true.
I am criticising the amount of money wasted on Irish which could be put to better use. The money is wasted in my opinion - my opinion, however is backed up by the fact that after 80 years of propaganda and billions of pounds/euro thrown at it, the language is still to all intents and purposes, dead.

Slutmonkey57b

abccormac wrote:

There shouldn't have to be a choice, we should be able to afford both. Why not drop art or music while we're at it?

You must be referring to the "Infinate Pot of Money" that the government can dip into whenever the leprechauns let them. All government departments have a budget. Resources are shared. In the case of Irish, a huge amount of resources are being used to no good effect. We probably could afford both - if Irish were made optional, or dropped in secondary school.

abccormac

English is not only our first language, it is the language in which a huge amount of the world's great art is written in. Suggesting we dump Peig is not the same as suggesting we dump Shakespeare. If you don't think knowedge of Shakespeare is economically advantageous, then you might not be aware of how many people have made a living reinterpreting, restaging, or filming his works.

And now we get to the crux of it. There is no great art in Irish. Have you ever read the tain? the midnight court? any one of the great many other Irish literary works? And can you provide some figures to back up your assertion that the teaching of Shakespeare is economically advantageous?

Teaching advanced mathematics at least provides a basis for more people to go into engineering disciplines, something the world needs. They may not choose to go into that field, but at least they have a basic knowledge so they have the choice.

And teaching Irish provides a basis for people to go into jobs which require it, such as teaching,(24,700 jobs at primary level according to the c.s.o. ) or the irish language media. You still haven't explained why maths should be compulsory and Irish shouldn't.

ishmael whale

abccormac wrote:

You still haven't explained why maths should be compulsory and Irish shouldn't.

It might have something to do with the way that if the OECD turn up to assess your educational levels they regard maths, reading and problem solving as the indicators to use. They might do this because a holy man told them this was what to do after inspecting the entrails of a chicken. Or it might be simply what we know to be intuitively clear. Could most of us get through the week without having a level of basic competence in maths? Or if we were unable to read English? Not unless we happened to be a hermit living on a diet of nuts and berries (in which case we're probably not looking at this thread.) Do most of us get through the week without Irish ? Yes.

Bear in mind its not a case of choosing between teaching Irish and not teaching Irish. Its simply we're spending a whole pile of money and failing to achieve anything with it. By all means lets improve the way we teach Irish. Buts lets spend less doing it, too.

the_syco

Sleepy wrote:

An opportunity cost is still a cost. Were the same amount of time spent teaching fifth and sixth years how to drive properly how many lives would be saved? Were some of the time spent giving proper sex education, how many young girls wouldn't have their lives ruined by teenage pregnancy, 'trips to England' etc? Were some of this time spent on proper PE and health education would our hospitals be as over-run?

Maybe they should revise the sex ed. The sex ed in my school was fairly good, but it's not a stanterdised sex ed, thus some schools have a crap sex ed, some have a good one.

=-=

Or, or, you want a way to rake in lots of money? Make a law that states the f*cking politicans can't VOTE themselves a pay rise. I'd say if we made them reverse the last one, we'd have enough to build a few schools...

=-=

Sleepy wrote:

I see the solution to both problems as being education. Irish takes up a completely disproportionate amount of school time to it's usefulness, at the expense of education which could contribute to lowering teenage pregnancies, road deaths, juvenille delinquincy, health problems etc.

It's what's called an "indirect cause", Gael. I'd also consider the amount of time spent on Religeon during one's education in the same light.

Actually, its religon, and ONLY RELIGON that is the cause of teenage pregnancies.

Love to know how teaching any subject somehow causes a car to crash. :eek:

=-=

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

The amount of people that cannot speak Irish after decades of forced learning and propaganda suggests otherwise.

The amount of people (adults, etc) who can't read is also staggering.

=-=

I have to go now. I'll be back to continue on later. Note to self; didn't get to read the last 5 posts.

Sleepy

the_syco wrote:

Maybe they should revise the sex ed. The sex ed in my school was fairly good, but it's not a stanterdised sex ed, thus some schools have a crap sex ed, some have a good one.

Which is a result of a lack of funding, n'est pas?

Or, or, you want a way to rake in lots of money? Make a law that states the f*cking politicans can't VOTE themselves a pay rise. I'd say if we made them reverse the last one, we'd have enough to build a few schools...

Completely off-topic but I agree with you. TD's salaries should be index linked to the rate of inflation.

Actually, its religon, and ONLY RELIGON that is the cause of teenage pregnancies.

That makes no sense, either as a stand-alone statement or in the context of this thread.

Love to know how teaching any subject somehow causes a car to crash. :eek:[/SIZE]

Re-read the posts about opportunity cost. We have terrible drivers in Ireland because no proper driver's education is provided or enforced. If this were made part of the Leaving Certificate curriculum, we'd have better drivers. Better drivers would result in less road accidents, which would result in less unnecessary deaths. If Irish were not compulsory in schools, far fewer students would be taking it, thus freeing up resources for more important education such as sex education, drivers education, IT, etc.

I really can't put that in any more simplistic terms for you. It would appear that your devotion to Irish in school was to the detriment of your English comprehension skills

simu

Sleepy wrote:

Which is a result of a lack of funding, n'est pas?

No, poor sex-ed is due to Catholic ideology prevailing in some schools. The classes are timetabled, the teacher is there but they decide to tell you that condoms don't work* or some such propaganda instead of teaching you sex facts.

*I know are not 100% safe but they're still pretty effective.