TG4 launches new children’s App
November 11, 2013
TG4 launched a new app this week for children; ‘Cúlacaint 3’ which is now available for download on iTunes.
Young children are becoming more aware of the growth of technology and there are no limits to the possibilities when it comes to entertainment. Programmes are no longer restricted to the television screen and new ways of learning are constantly being developed.
Cúlacaint 3 is the third instalment in the highly successful Cúlacaint series which has already been awarded the Learner’s prize at the 2013 Celtic Media Awards and Cúlacaint 2 has recently been shortlisted for the Appy 2013 prize scheme, the annual competition for the best App in Ireland.
Cúlacaint 3 helps young children learn new words by listening and reading lists of fun words based on various aspects of daily life including – on the beach, on the farm, in the town and in the woods. A sound recording for all words and terms associated with the themes is provided to assist users phonetically.
Cúlacaint Apps are available to download free of charge on iStore or on the App Store or from http://www.tg4.ie/ie/programmes/cula4/cula-caint.html.
Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com
New School for Coláiste na Coiribe
November 8, 2013
An Bord Pleanála ruled on September 12 that permission should be granted for the development of Coláiste na Coiribe’s long awaited new facility.
A number of conditions were attached to this permission, details of which can be found at www.pleanala.ie reference PI. 61 241932.
This is a great development for the growing Coláiste na Coiribe community, who have been waiting for this day since Coláiste na Coiribe was founded in 1992 with 10 students. Much credit is due to Tomás Mac Pháidín (príomhoide Choláiste na Coiribe) and the many members of respective boards of management over the years, who have campaigned relentlessly to this end.
An information evening/oíche oscailte for prospective students and their families will take place on Wednesday November 13 from 4.30pm to 6.30pm.
Thug ABP lán-chéad pleanála do GRETB bogadh ar aghaidh leis an scoil nua ar an 12 Mean Fómhair, ach cloí le roinnt coinníollacha. Gach eolas le fáil ar www. pleanala.ie ach cuardaigh uimhir thagartha PL 61.241932 .
Is cúis áthais e seo do chomhphobal Choláiste na Coiribe atá anois 21 bliain ag fanacht ar chóiríocht cuí don dea obair atá ar siúl sa scoil. Táthar ag súil go mbeidh an scoil nua ag oscailt I Meán Fómhair 2015. Buíochas le Tomás Mac Pháidín (príomhoide Choláiste na Coiribe) agus baill éagsúla ar bhord bainistíochta thar na blianta a thíomáin an fheactas seo le díograis.
Galway Advertiser
Tionól Teagaisc 2013 i gCorcaigh
November 7, 2013
Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer as Gaeilge
November 7, 2013
Padraic O’Neachtain has the answers.
He’s a producer and actor in Connemara, with Telegael, which dubs programmes such as Dora The Explorer (below) and Sesame Street into Irish. He’s also the voice of Elmo. A former presenter of Echo Island, on RTÉ, Padraic has been in Irish language TV for 15 years, so he’s well versed in turning the Cookie Monster into An Ollphéist Briosca (or an Ollphéist Bicít, depending on your Irish). Padraic talks of the control exerted by the American producers of the original shows, and of maintaining a voice for years. He has nailed Elmo: one Stateside big wig wrote him a letter commending his performance as the best of the international Elmos.
“As a kid even, I always enjoyed doing voices,” Padraic says. “You would be practising away on it, moving your diaphragm and stomach, and tightening your vocal chords. “Your objective is to try and make the voice as close to the original as possible — maybe it’s easy, in that regard, in that decisions are taken out of your hands.” Bríd Seoighe is a producer at Abu Media, another company in Galway that specialises in dubbing programmes into Irish. She and Padraic know the voice actor selection drill for particular characters. “We would be dealing with the producers of the show, not the actors behind the voices.” she says. “Normally, the Irish producer will shortlist the best three [voices] in their opinion, as well as a preferred option, and send this out to the company that made the original cartoon. They will choose one, hopefully, and agree with you and send some directions as to how the voice should be directed to get the best quality. They may want to see the final product, also.”
Padraic says: “with all of our shows that come from the States, you need to put down voices and send them over, three voices per character usually, and they will listen to them.” Far from the cliché of the cigar-chomping producer returning calls in between gulps of Scotch, he says, “it’s usually a girl in an office that casts the voices all over the world. They’re very nice and I don’t think they smoke cigars — all the emails are ‘have a nice day’ and ‘super awesome’. “They decide then, usually fairly quickly, in 24 or 48 hours, and they come back and say ‘this is the person’, and they might say something like ‘they need to bring the voice up’ or that it needs to sound a little more nasal.” Challenges abound. We all know that a sentence as gaeilge can be longer — or shorter — than its English equivalent. “It’s a constant challenge,” Padraic says. “We were doing Twitter before Twitter was ever invented. You have to say things to match your flaps. It’s all about timing, hitting the syllables, that’s what it’s all about and you script accordingly.
“If you are doing live action, like Harry Potter [the films are a Telegael project], that’s even more challenging. If Harry finishes in a sentence with an ‘o’ sound or an ‘e’ sound, you have to finish it with that, as well. It has to, obviously, be the same as it is in English, but you have to modify the structure, you might have to shorten or lengthen the sentence.” If that sounds tricky, then imagine the difficulty of singing the lines. “We are currently doing a series, Elmo the Musical, and there’s 120 songs in it,” Padraic says. “There’s a new one, called Pajaminals, and that’s got 100-plus songs in it, as well, and another [Jim] Henson project, filmed in the North, and it’s absolutely brilliant. We did the Irish version, we just finished the second series and it was very challenging. It takes a good bit of work, because you’ve got to make it rhyme.”
Telegael call on 20 to 30 people for their voices, and Padraic says that some have day jobs in restaurants in Galway. “You are not going to make a living as an Irish language voiceover artist in this country. You have to be involved in other projects,” he says, referring to the contrast between eight- or 10-week recording sessions and similar periods of inactivity. The actor who voices Dora the Explorer is a teacher. Actor availability is a factor, particularly when there’s a burst of recording. “We have been doing [Dora] for the last eight, nine years and with the same Dora, and she’s fabulous, but she’s also working as a teacher. She travels quite a bit and you have to work around that. You can only have one Bert, one Cookie Monster. It depends on the voice — it’s easier to replace Elmo than Dora, because his voice is so up there and tight, whereas Dora is more a character.”
Bríd says the Irish versions hit the screens soon after the original English versions. “TG4 are buying up programmes at the market, for dubbing, as soon as they are complete,” she says. “For example, Tickety Toc, Dinosaur Train, Olly an Veain Bheag Bhán, Puppy in my Pocket, they are all examples of international brands that we dubbed and were broadcasting on TG4 around the very same time as the English language versions are on Nickelodeon, etc. They have to be current, as it’s the brands that children are interested in and they will listen to any language, once it’s the character they like. I’ve tried and tested this with my own children.”
You could subtitle and do away with dubbing, but that’s not a showcase for the Irish language. Some TG4 programming, such as late night movies, are subtitled, but, says Padraic: “my two-year-old child doesn’t watch the films at night, but she does watch the programmes in the morning and she is watching programmes that are helping her, and us, to learn Irish and to learn valuable skills from the point of view of language.” Irish voiceover artists are unique: truly bilingual, they appreciate the original character’s voice in a way that a Spaniard who has grown up only knowing the Spanish SpongeBob or Homer, cannot. But fame is less likely. Veteran actor, Tonino Accolla, aka the Italian Homer Simpson and a man who dubbed Eddie Murphy and Kenneth Branagh, among others, died last summer, and made headline news. In recent weeks, Irma Lozano, the voice of I Dream Of Genie in her native Mexico, died to tributes from her peers.
The job’s not so high-profile here, but there is sadness in recasting a character. Such sombre moments are balanced by the fact that everyone involved enjoys themselves so much in a job for which they receive limited credit. Bríd says: “it helps to be a fan and familiar with the character, but it’s not necessary. We audition actors whom we think may be able to voice-match. Some are more versatile than others and its a particular type of talent, so those that can mimic do well here, too, and are always included in the audition process. So, it’s all in the acting, really.” Abu Media dubs South Park, a TV show that presents a few challenges of its own. “You could never find somebody with a normal day-to-day voice that sounds like Cartman,” Bríd says. “We strive to keep standards inline with every other country and, in often cases, are way better. Standards are very high in Ireland, by comparison to the other European language versions that I see at the Cannes television markets every year.”
All this talk of getting in character prompts one obvious question, which I ask of Padraic — who would you like to play that you haven’t? “I would tell you what I would love to do,” he says. “I would love to do more English voices. I’d like to see more of our talent base here being used in the States by people there. Give me a cartoon with an Irish character and let’s sell that all over the world. That, or Scooby Doo.”
www.irishexaminer.com
Líonra nua ar líne
November 7, 2013
Minister Quinn announces an additional €70m for school improvements
November 7, 2013
The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn T.D., has today announced the allocation of almost €70 million for school improvements.
Over €28 million is being made available as a once-off payment to primary schools as part of the Minor Works Grant scheme. Another €40 million will be allocated under the Summer Works Scheme 2014 which is being re-introduced to fund the improvement and upgrading of existing school buildings.
The Minor Works Grant will be paid to primary schools in the coming weeks and will enable schools to undertake small scale repair works without the need to interact with the Department.
“I know that the immediate payment of this grant in 2013 will be welcomed by school communities and management bodies as a valuable contribution to the costs of maintaining school infrastructure,” said Minister Quinn.
Funding from the Summer Works Scheme will allow schools to carry out small and medium scale building works such as gas, electrical and mechanical works, roof and window upgrades, structural improvements; works that will improve and upgrade existing school buildings.
It is up to schools to identify the most urgently required projects to be funded from the Summer Works Scheme. Each school can apply for one small scale project and will be responsible for the completion of those works.
“Despite the funding constraints on my Department’s capital budget I am pleased to re-introduce the summer works scheme in 2014. This funding package is being made as part of this Government’s continued commitment to improve facilities in schools throughout the country. These works will be carried out in schools over the summer months, when the pupils are on holidays, so the disruption to schooling will be kept to a minimum,” the Minister said.
“This scheme will not only improve the learning environment for thousands of students, but the projects will also stimulate economic activity by supporting 2,400 direct and 480 indirect much needed construction jobs in the local economy.”
Schools can apply for these grants online using the Esinet portal. A Freephone service is also available to assist schools with queries. It can be contacted at 1800 200 955 daily from 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 4.30pm from 7th November to 10th December 2013.
Full details on the Summer Works Scheme are available at http://www.education.ie/en/The-Department/Re-use-of-Public-Sector-Information/Library/PR13_11_05_file.pdf
Fuaim-U Android App
November 6, 2013
Fuaim-U is an Irish phonics game that follows a phonic programme for children learning to read and spell in Irish. Fuaim-U begins with basic CVC words and progresses to longer words, multisyllabic words, words with aspiration and lenition, broad and slender words and then the variations of spelling for the long vowel sounds.
All the words are in standard Irish but focus on Ulster Irish and the correlation between Ulster pronunciation and standard spelling. Obviously most of the games are applicable to all dialects and some to Ulster Irish only. The other two main dialects will follow.
The App is available to buy from Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cogg.fonicfuaim&hl=en)
New funding model discussed in NI Assembly
November 6, 2013
The Committee of Culture, Arts and Leisure (CCAL) welcomed Foras na Gaeilge to the Northern Ireland Assembly recently to discuss the implication of the new funding model on the Irish language in the six counties.
A new funding model for the Irish language Voluntary Sector was announced in July 2013 when a final decision regarding the model proposed by Foras na Gaeilge was announced by the North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC).
Under the new system, 6 lead organisations operating on an all-island basis will replace the 19 current core-funded organisations and will deliver services according to 6 strategic priorities.
The timeline for the restructure of the sector was announced recently and welcomed all organisations to submit an expression of interest by 30 October 2013.
CCAL raised several questions throughout the discussion with Foras na Gaeilge regarding the concern among organisations in the north about the effect the new structure will have on the particular areas of work that have been progressed over many years relating to the promotion of Irish in the 6 counties. The committee maintained that the state of the language is completely different in both jurisdictions and described the concern that is in the community regarding the damage that the new structure could have on the sector.
There are currently seven core-funded bodies based in the six counties and it is unknown how many will remain under the new model. The committee drew attention to the important cross community work carried out by Iontaobhas Ultach over many years and the significant research done by Pobal regarding the state of the language and language rights in the jurisdiction.
The committee emphasised the importance of this experience and expertise in any progress made in the future and believed that valuable resources will be lost under the new structure. Committee members also raised the matter of the representation of northern organisations on the development forum. Members agreed that the details of the Business Case, which is with the Department of Culture, Leisure and Arts for consideration, regarding advisers and change of management should have been put in place long before now. Foras na Gaeilge informed CCAL that each lead-organisation would operate on an all-island basis which means that staff would be based in both jurisdictions.
It was stated that organisations in the south have vast experience in dealing with the promotion of the Irish language in the six counties and that the new model would have a positive effect on cross-community areas of work as there will be more emphasis placed on the work of local groups active on the ground.
While Foras na Gaeilge will not be responsible for the recruitment of lead-organisations, they will be advising that the expertise within the current sector be prioritised in any recruitment process. Every effort will be made to keep the expertise of the 19 core-funded bodies within the new sector layout and that it is hoped pay scales will remain the same for the most part.
Foras na Gaeilge stated that the new structure would not be able to accommodate all employees within the current set-up but it has been recommended that organisations amalgamate as part of the application process. It is understood that several organisations are in talks regarding amalgamations however, Foras na Gaeilge said that they are in no position to push bodies together during the process. Organisations will be permitted to amalgamate in spite of submitting an expression of interest as a single body.
CCAL emphasised the importance of the various projects carried out constantly by organisations and agreed that all projects must continue under the new model. Foras na Gaeilge have committed to facilitating the transfer of projects to new organisations in order to ensure that the important work carried out over the years will remain in place.
Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com
Significant weaknesses in teaching of Irish
November 6, 2013
Chief Inspector’s Report shows major flaws in the learning and teaching of Irish in the education system.
The Report compiled by Chief Inspector Harold Hislop is based on the details of both announced and unannounced inspections carried out by the Department of Education and Skills between 2010 and 2012 and details the quality of learning and teaching of all subjects in Ireland’s schools.
This is the first time that the report has been published publically and while the quality of most subjects has been praised, the Chief Inspector has been critical of the approach to the teaching of Irish.
According to the report, the quality of Irish lessons is unsatisfactory in 24% of primary schools and 28% of post-primary schools. It found that 22% of students were not pupils were not provided with opportunities to learn through talk and discussion, one of the fundamental requirements of language learning. The inspection and Whole School Evaluations (WSE) found that students must be given greater opportunities to be provided to pupils to work collaboratively during Irish lessons, and for the language learning to be consolidated.
The report found that preparation and planning were of utmost importance in schools were the teaching of Irish was of a high standard. It estimates that 22% of teachers do not sufficiently prepare for lessons and as a result a significant amount of students are not being provided with the appropriate learning programme.
Inspectors noted that the assessment process was unsatisfactory in 35% of Irish lessons. The Chief Inspector’s Report found that this figure demonstrated the need of primary schools to make planned, systematic provision for assessing pupils’ learning of the main language skills in Irish.
A deficiency in resources for teaching Irish was recognised as a significant challenge in 20% of lessons and was also noted as challenge at post-primary level. The Inspectorate, in its 2007 report, Irish in the Primary School, recommended the implementation of a programme similar to Séideán Sí (currently in use in Gaeltacht and all-Irish schools) in all schools however, there has been no implementation of such a programme. It is hoped that the work of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) and will have a significant impact on this inadequacy.
The report highlights the need for greater attention to phonological awareness at post-primary level, a stronger focus on the acquisition of language structures and grammar rules and the consolidation of newly-acquired aspects of language. It recommends that lessons focus more on the target language and avoid translations. Inspector reports also found that found that in a small but significant number of classrooms, teachers’ own linguistic skills were deficient.
Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com
€1.2m ar fáil do sheirbhís úr nuachta
November 6, 2013
