A Busy July ‘as Gaeilge’ for young people in Carlow
June 11, 2013
A very impressive summer programme of events ‘as Gaeilge’ suitable for all age groups from tiny tots to teenagers will be run by Glór Cheatharlach for Summer 2013.
A full diary will include a Coláiste Samhraidh for teenagers, Campa Samhraidh for primary school children and Campa na nÓg for preschoolers and infants.
Coláiste Samhraidh/ Summer College 2013 offers second level students the opportunity to have a taste of the Gaeltacht experience without leaving home. The Coláiste Samhraidh will consist of a two week course from 9.30am to 1.00pm daily commencing on the 1st of July and running until July 12th. Coláiste Samhraidh will once again be based in Gaelcholáiste Cheatharlach and will welcome participants ranging from 6th Class pupils to Leaving Cert students. In addition to daily Irish classes there will be a variety of fun activities including debating and singing, sport and games, dance and céilithe all conducted through Irish. The Coláiste fee is €200 and a deposit of €50 is necessary to reserve a place. Registration is almost full so anybody interested in taking part is advised to enrol as soon as possible as numbers are limited.
Always a popular addition to the broad range of Summer Camps on offer in Carlow, Campa Samhraidh 2013 will run from 15th to the 19th of July. It will be based in Gaelscoil Cheatharlach and will cater for 7 to 11 year olds from 10.00am to 2pm daily. The fee of €50 will cover all Campa activities including art and craft, sport and games, swimming and trips.
Carlow’s Irish Mini-Camp or Campa na nÓg, based at Naíonra Cheatharlach in Graiguecullen swimming complex, was a big success last year and will run once again this year for two weeks in July from July 8th-12th and July 15th-19th. Catering for 4 to 6 year olds Campa na nÓg will take place from10am to 1pm daily and include a variety of events and activities suitable for this particular age group. The fee is €40. Further details from Lorraine on 085 7377041 or from oifig Glór Cheatharlach.
Full details on all Gaeilge an tSamhraidh 2013 activities as well as application forms are available from Glór Cheatharlach on 059 9158105, 085 1340047 or emma@glorcheatharlach.ie.
www.carlow-nationalist.ie
Happy Irish students are delighted at range of essays
June 11, 2013
The essay titles were maybe a bit too easy, more like Junior Cert.
An “easy” Irish higher paper divided teachers’ opinions yesterday, but students were delighted with a range of accessible essay topics.
“I was delighted to see them happy coming out of higher Irish,” said Ruth Morrissey of St Michael’s Community College in Kilmihil, Co Clare.
“The students had loads of choice, and would have been well prepared for topics on sport, politics and tourism. We are trying to encourage more students to take Irish at this level and today’s paper was very positive in that regard.”
Too easy
Robbie Cronin of Marian College in Ballsbridge, Dublin, expressed concern that students looking for higher grades may have found the paper too easy. “The essay titles were maybe a bit too easy, more like Junior Cert questions. Students who want an A or B are looking for more of a challenge.”
Movies, holidays and free houses were “dream essay topics” for the 23,000 who sat the ordinary level Irish exam yesterday. More than half of all students taking Irish sit the subject at this level, with a further 3,329 taking the subject at foundation level.
The first part of yesterday’s exam was a listening comprehension that constitutes 10 per cent of the overall grade for Irish. Some ordinary level students complained that the audio was “too fast”.
“Both ordinary and higher level students listen to the same audio, although they are asked different questions,” said Mr Cronin. “Speed is often an issue for the ordinary level students and it’s something that should be looked at. It only counts for 10 per cent but it’s the first part of the exam and it’s unsettling if they can’t follow what they hear. I could see their faces during the exam and you could tell some of them were having difficulty.”
Ms Morrissey said that her higher level students struggled with section C of the aural exam because the speaker used an Ulster dialect. Accessible Overall, however, the written component of the ordinary paper was regarded as accessible, especially the essays.
“The essays were brilliant for the level,” said Mr Cronin. “They would have loved a topic like a party in the free house – the very thing we all dread.
“The letter was a bit more difficult. Many of the students would not have known the Irish for ‘talent show’. They should have used a programme title like The Voice to give the students an indication.
“It was notable that the examiners managed to avoid mentioning modern technology like emails, texts or tweets altogether.”
www.irishtimes.com
What’s a #Gtuít? Gaelport.com has all the answers!
June 11, 2013
Junior Cert students took to Twitter yesterday to express their confusion about a certain #Gtuít which featured in the higher level reading comprehension section. But what does the enigmatic hashtag actually mean?
Drumroll please… #Gtuít refers to the first Irish language Tweet Up organised by Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge last September.
#Gtuít started trending on Twitter yesterday the minute after higher level paper one was handed up but students seemed more confused than anything about the word’s meaning. Not to worry though, Gaelport.com has all the answers!
In recent years the Irish language has reached new heights with the help of social media, Twitter in particular. Irish is mentioned as one of the top minority languages used on the social media with thousands of users messaging and connecting with one another as Gaeilge every day.
The ‘G-Tuít’ concept was developed by Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge a year ago to launch the new mobile app m.gaelport.com. The event was an Irish language version of a ‘Tweet-up’, with the G standing for Gaeilge and also for Gaelport.com’s signature logo.
An invitation was extended to the Irish language ‘twitterati’ to come and socialise with one another in ‘real-life’ rather than hiding behind an online persona or @username. Although the social aspect of the event was a success, people had no qualms about escaping into cyberspace to send a tweet or 20 as seen in the following video:
Watch the clip on www.gaelport.com
Although yesterday’s tweets showed confusion at first about #Gtuít, it is clear from the latest feedback that young people are thinking positively about the Irish language in technology:
“Felt so weird hashtagging in Irish, in an exam #Gtuit”
“#Gtuít – Best Hashtag ever.”
“#Gtuít abú!!”
“Loved the Irish junior cert today wooo #Gtuít”
Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge intends on organising more G-Tuít events in the near future that would bring together bloggers, developers, the Irish language community in general and those interested in technology. If this sounds like your kind of thing, send an e-mail to eolas@gaelport.com to express your interest.
Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com
Cumadóir cónaitheach
June 11, 2013
Stiúrthóir Cúnta ag teastáil ó Naíonra i gContae Lú
June 11, 2013
Stiúrthóir Cúnta ag teastáil ó Naíonra i gContae na Mí
June 11, 2013
Rialacha Nua Iontrála ina Bhagairt ar an Ghaelscolaíocht
June 10, 2013
Students today must struggle with the peculiarities of the modh coinníollach
June 10, 2013
This, I guess, is the dreaded day for many Leaving Certificate students.
Today it’s Irish (Paper I) and students without a convenient exemption must struggle with the vexatious complications of the briathra neamhrialta and the peculiarities of the modh coinníollach in a tongue the vast majority have never used naturally.
Likely most candidates will find themselves deeply resenting the remaining compulsory aspects of Irish as they grope to find an appropriate saor briathair to impress the examiners. And indeed I can’t blame them, for at school I didn’t care much for “ár dteanga féin” either. To a 1970s teenager, the language seemed preposterously unfashionable and irrelevant. Then, later events changed my viewpoint.
Encountering other nationalities, speaking their native tongue with pride, I began pondering the ironies of being constantly mistaken on my travels for an Englishman abroad. So I undertook a few Irish classes, did a couple of residential Gaeltacht courses and became cuísach maith as Gaelige. But then, like the terrier that caught its own tail, the question arose, what next?
Immediately apparent was the sad fact that Irish woefully lacked everyday utility. There were unpromising encounters with those, líofa as Gaelige, who usually seemed to inhabit the upper echelons of the public service. Opening a conversation with these exalted polymaths was invariably an intimidating experience. It wasn’t that they weren’t tolerant of those less linguistically endowed: it just always seemed strange and contrived for two English-speakers to struggle with a very one-sided conversation in another tongue that only one had mastered.
Then there were the inevitable encounters with the grammatically obsessed. Once in an Irish club when I ventured that the way ahead for the Ireland lay with a “dhá teanga” policy it was pointed out to me rather sternly that this tactic offered few possibilities – a “dhá Theanga” approach might, however, have some merit.
Otherwise, the attitude of most Irish people seemed one of benign indifference tinged with some embarrassment at an inability to answer even the most basic greeting as Gaelige. Indeed, Irish conversation seemed to make sense only between fluent Gaelic speakers or as a cunning ploy used abroad for exchanging private jokes about the idiosyncrasies of other nationalities.
Yet on my hillwalking trips across the Irish Sea, I noticed how ordinary people had proudly embraced Welsh as an expression of national identity. Why were things different in Wales, I wondered? Was Irish independence the culprit? Had it somehow removed our need for the national distinctiveness that is still desired by those nations remaining within the UK and also among the Catholic community of West Belfast, where there is now a thriving Gaeltacht Quarter?
Certainly, one reason any sentimental attachment to the language by Irish people was immediately defenestrated after our independence, was the rash over-enthusiasm of successive governments. We have a long history of rejecting that which is imposed upon us; the Norman Conquest, the Protestant Reformation, the Act of Union, Guinness Light. So compulsory Irish was all wrong for our national psyche and it is only recently that the language has begun to recover from this well-intentioned but dissolute policy.
Indeed, green shoots have sprouted. Gael Scoileanna have been a huge success and increasing numbers of Gael Coláistí teach through Irish at second level. For Leaving Certificate Irish, 40 per cent of marks are awarded for oral competence while TG4 has succeeded in making the language accessible in a way that the worthy, but extravagantly dull, RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta never did. Salutations in Irish are now noticeably more common in daily life; and there was no fuss when the 2013 Hurling League final was broadcast with commentary as Gaelige.
Despite such positives, it is still rare to encounter functional use of Ireland’s first language. I have noticed, for example, that students leaving Gael Coláistí will almost inevitably revert to English once beyond the school gates. And so the old problem remains that while there is much goodwill towards the language, few opportunities exist to speak it.
My own pet solution involves designating the Irish section of our libraries as relaxing bilingual areas with people encouraged to come along, socialise and use whatever cúpla focal they have. Failing this, I’m afraid we must invoke the nuclear option and entirely ban the language. Given the peculiarities of our national psyche, this should ensure that within a short time we would be proudly embracing Irish as ár dteanga féin once again.
www.irishtimes.com
Foilsithe ar 10 Meitheamh 2013
The Irish Times, An Irishman’s Diary – John G O’Dwyer
Dioplóma i Múineadh na Gaeilge do Dhaoine Fásta
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Féile Loinneog Lúnasa
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