Examiners on trend with music and fashion
June 7, 2013
Little Mix, Michelle Obama and Kilkenny hurler Henry Shefflin all got a mention.
Music, technology, celebrities, and tweeting dominated this year’s Junior Cert Irish papers as examiners made a concerted effort to produce a current and culturally relevant exam.
Students opened up the higher level paper 1 and were greeted with a large picture of Little Mix, the 2011 winners of The X Factor. The girl group were used to test Irish grammar.
Although there was much online chatter over the inclusion of a comprehension piece on tweeting (#gtúit) as Gaeilge, teachers felt that some of the vocabulary used – including the word líonrú (networking) – would be unfamiliar to many teens. “I’ve been teaching Irish for over 20 years and I had to look the word up in an online dictionary,” said Robbie Cronin, ASTI subject representative for Irish and a teacher at Marian College, Ballsbridge, Dublin. Manchán Magan Paper 1 also featured a language test built around a TG4 programme hosted by travel writer Manchán Magan.
On higher level paper 2, the contemporary relevance continued, with students required to write about a video they saw on YouTube, or about a band or musician they like or to compose an angry missive to the editor of the local newspaper protesting over a referee’s decision in a sports game.
The response to paper 1 was mixed. A reading comprehension question about a lonely monkey in the Congo was probing but fair, according to Séamus Ó Fearraigh, TUI subject representative for Irish and a teacher in Gairmscoil Chú Uladh, Co Donegal, but some students criticised a question that asked them to write about the sad eyes of the monkey.
Mr Ó Fearraigh said that some of the essay topics – such as “How I Spent my Last Birthday”, “Fashion for People Today” and “Why friends are Very Important in People’s Lives” – would be challenging enough for people to write about in English, let alone Irish. Plain prose The response to paper 2 was more favourable, said Mr Cronin. “It received very positive feedback from both students and teachers. Generally the hardest parts for the boys I teach are the unseen prose and poetry pieces, which can be incomprehensible – not so this year,” he said.
There were no shocks or upsets in the ordinary level paper, where celebrities also featured: US first lady Michelle Obama and Kilkenny hurler Henry Shefflin – regarded by some as the greatest hurler of all time – both made an appearance. Questions were asked about Ms Obama’s children, her family, and her upbringing.
“The topic was current because the Obamas were in Ireland last year and Michelle Obama is due to make a return visit with her children,” said Mr Ó Fearraigh.
But not all students were happy. One boy took to Twitter to moan: “Why can’t I do honours Irish?! They got Little Mix while pass got Michelle Obama.”
www.irishtimes.com
Knocknacarra’s bilingual community national school
June 7, 2013
With only a few days to do so, the City of Galway VEC continues to seek expressions of interest for Galway’s first bilingual community national school in Knocknacarra.
The proposed bilingual model delivers the Department of Education and Skills’ primary education curriculum through two languages, Irish and English, to enable progression to post primary education through the medium of either Irish or English, and welcomes children from all linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
The bilingual community national school will aim to ensure that students are sufficiently competent in Irish to progress to Coláiste na Coiribe, City of Galway VEC’s Coláiste lán-Ghaeilge in Knocknacarra, which recently topped The Sunday Times’ table for university progression in Connacht, should they wish to do so.
Community national schools deliver the Goodness Me! Goodness You! programme, a multibelief programme which caters for children of all beliefs and none. It forms part of the daily teaching and learning in the school.
Full information on the programme can be found at www.cgvec.ie/cns
There has been a high level of interest from parents to date and the VEC is asking all interested parents to register an expression of interest at www.cgvec.ie/cns on or before June 10. You can also contact the City of Galway VEC at 091 549 400.
If successful, the City of Galway VEC’s bilingual community national school will open in Knocknacarra.
www.advertiser.ie/galway
Gaelbhrat do mheánscoileanna
June 6, 2013
Gaelscoil de hÍde ag bogadh
June 6, 2013
Campaí Samhraidh do pháistí
June 6, 2013
Cé a scríobhfaidh na plécháipéisí?
June 5, 2013
Ag tacú leis an nGaeilge
June 5, 2013
Moladh le CCEA – leabhair iontacha
June 4, 2013
There will no doubt be lots of complaints. There will perhaps be more complaints this year since some examinations will be corrected on line and there are bound to be teething problems.
But there is much more involved in the work of the Northern Examination Board (CCEA) than the setting and correction of examinations. It publishes guides for Irish teachers and pupils, but as well as that it puts out additional materials which increase pupils’ vocabulary in a creative way. It published two translations recently- ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’. Pádraig de Bléine has produced an excellent Irish translation of the two books. The Board has also produced a series of biographies – teenage reading material which is badly needed. And CCEA has just published six booklets on the life of Colm Cille in conjunction with the Nerve Centre in Derry. These are very attractive little booklets. The illustrations are excellent. The stories are told in straight forward, lively Irish in a very humorous style. If you turn the booklet upside down, you get the English version.
This is a far sighted policy. The requirements of Irish language students are different from the requirements of students doing other languages. The GCSE is the first step in repossessing the language. So we must go beyond the basic Irish required for the examination. This supplementary material is excellent preparation for AS and A Level. These books deserve a wider readership. Pupils all over Ireland and adults everywhere would be interested in them. Could the Board not make an arrangement with a publisher?
www.derryjournal.co.uk
The way I see it
June 4, 2013
Lost for words:
I can’t speak Irish. The only song I know in Irish is Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’, and I can do about four lines.
WITH my summer exam done, I realised that I am terrible at Irish. I don’t think I am the only one. I am proud of the language and I love hearing it being spoken perfectly, but hearing it being spoken as well as English is rare. Is Irish taught well?
I can barely construct a sentence. We did a mock oral and I kept saying ‘anois’. My sentences weren’t making sense. An example:
‘Last summer, I went out with friends now and now I went to matches’. If you handed that up in an English class, you would be booted down to the ordinary level.
Instead of reading those weird Irish books in national school, we should be taught the basic grammar rules. We should learn how to construct sentences in past tense, present tense, and future tense. We should also get a start on the dreaded, most feared tense ever…the modh coinníollach, the conditional tense. The ‘I would, you would, he or she would’, and so on. If we learned how to use the verb correctly, that would be half the battle.
My cousin told me her child can do ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ in Irish and I was quite impressed. The only song I know in Irish is Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’, and I can do about four lines. I know it because one of the girls who went to the gaeltacht kept singing it.
The gaeltacht should get better press. When people talk about the gaeltacht, I hear all about the ‘craic agus ceoil’. I would love if my Irish classes could be that exciting and fun.
Irish is a complex language and beautiful to hear. I realised how stunning it sounded when I went to see Ballingeary play Kiskeam, and the Ballingeary bench talked in Irish. It was nice to hear, a team spurred on in our native language.
I would love to revive the Irish language and I would like to visit the gaeltacht and learn ‘cupla focail’. I’d love to be able to go abroad and talk in my native language. I would encourage the Irish to learn a few words and embrace their language, embrace it like French people embrace French, and the Spanish people embrace Spanish.
I certainly do not want my language to fizzle out and I do not want us to lose more of our national identity. So let’s make Irish fun, let’s teach kids grammar and let’s encourage teenagers to go to the gaeltacht and have craic, and learn the cupla focail, and let’s revive our language before it’s gone for good. . Because, after all, it’s what makes us who we are.
www.irishexaminer.com
Dialann Ghaeilge an tSamhraidh i gCeatharlach
June 4, 2013
