Taifeadadh dlúthdhiosca Mhúscraí mar infheistíocht dúbailte san óige
June 13, 2013
Scoláireacht Uisce ar Do Ghuth
June 13, 2013
Exam body admits to further errors on Irish paper
June 12, 2013
ANOTHER exams controversy has blown up, this time over grammatical errors on the Leaving Certificate Irish second papers.
As more mistakes on Leaving Cert maths papers came to light, the State Examinations Commission ( SEC) also had to answer queries about the Irish exams.
In a question on the Irish ordinary level paper the word ‘ bualadh’ should read have “buaileadh”, the SEC admitted.
However, it insisted that it was highly unlikely that the spelling error would cause difficulty for candidates in answering this question.
Candidates who use the word ‘ bualadh’ in their response to this question will not be penalised, the exams body said.
In higher-level Paper 2, the SEC said it was satisfied that both versions of the expression “an lá a bhfuair sé bás” and “an lá a fuair sé bás” were in regular use.
It did not accept that the version used in the paper was incorrect and was satisfied that it did not take from candidate understanding of what was required to answer that element of the question.
The SEC also gave a full breakdown of the errors on four maths papers, as pupils and teachers pinpointed a number of mistakes they had identified in the high-pressure tests.
Immediately after the exam, it emerged that the Leaving Cert higher-level Paper 2 contained an error in question 8.
However, there were also errors on three other maths papers – both at Leaving and Junior Certificate.
In the Leaving Cert ordinarylevel Maths Paper 1 for the 23 Project Maths pilot schools, there was an error in question five as pupils were asked to complete some tasks which were no longer on the syllabus for the schools involved.
The Leaving Cert foundation level maths Paper 1 had a typo error in question 10(a).
In the Irish version of the Junior Cert higher-level maths Paper 1 the phrase ‘even number’ was incorrectly translated as ‘whole number’ in question 3(b).
Exam bosses admitted it may have caused “some distress and confusion” for the pupils, and apologised for the error and said account would be taken in the marking scheme.
However, the SEC rejected assertions from the Irish Maths Teachers Association that some other material featured on exam papers was not part of the exam syllabus.
Catherine Lewis, a council member of the association, pointed out it had been calling for a clearer and more detailed layout of what is on the Project Maths syllabus.
The commission said it had procedures in place to try to catch errors, but it was an “unfortunate fact” that errors can occur on exam papers “from time to time”.
It contracts workers with experience in the various subjects to draft, set, proof, translate and sign off on the various stages of creating the exam papers.
In total, there were 88 maths papers drawn up for both the Junior and Leaving Cert exams – including a set of 44 contingency papers. The amount produced was double the normal amount due to the roll-out of the new Project Maths.
www.independent.ie
Twitter as Gaeilge
June 12, 2013
A chara,
– Peter McGuire (“G’tweet? G’wan ourra that, say students”, June 6th) will be glad to know that members of the Irish language community have been arguing about a good Irish version of “tweet” for several years now.
The official recommendation is “tvuít”, which is in line with the Irish phonological system, but most of us have gone with the ungaelicised “tweet” (“Tá Peadar ag tweetáil arís”). A creative rearguard insist on “giolcach”, however, since that’s what a bird actually does!
This will all come as news to the Department of Education, which assumes we don’t exist and simply makes up words to suit its presentation of Irish as an unauthentic and artificial second language. Its presentation is, alas, grist to the mill of uninformed journalists, who tell us without evidence that “Irish has always struggled to fit in with the popular kids” and who apparently see the language as little more than Peig and a few seanfhocail.
In fact, Irish is spoken vigorously across the country and around the world. We have our own cool kids, thank you very much, and don’t feel the remotest need to “fit in” with speakers of other languages.
– Is mise,
BRIAN Ó BROIN,
PhD,
Department of English,
William Paterson University,
New Jersey, US.
www.irishtimes.com
Gaelscoil Cheatharlach ag Féile Peile Gael Linn
June 11, 2013
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
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
Irish language classes at Conradh na Gaeilge
June 7, 2013
Conradh na Gaeilge is running its annual three week Irish language classes this June with classes commencing on Tuesday June 11 at the Conradh na Gaeilge offices, 45 Dominick Street, Galway.
The classes are run twice a week, and with three different levels, the courses are suitable to all with a desire to learn our native tongue. The fee for the course is €125 and it is a great starting point for those looking to immerse themselves in the Irish culture.
For further information and to register for courses see www.cnag.ie or call 091 567824.
www.advertiser.ie/galway
Campa Riabhach – Irish language summer camp
June 7, 2013
Ar mhaith leat cuidiú le páistí s’agatsa? Ní i nGaillimh nó i gConamara amháin atá fáil ar thacaíocht don aos óg maidir le Gaeilge.
Beidh campa samhraidh ar siúl don dara bliain déag as a chéile do leanaí bunscoile, ón 6ú go 17ú Lúnasa. Cosnaíonn sé €45 ar pháiste ar feadh seachtaine nó €90 ar feadh coicíse. Tá lacáiste ar fáil do theaghlaigh. Tugann an campa deis do pháistí Gaeilge a fhoghlaim in atmaisféar súgartha. Bíonn cluichí, ról-imirt, ealaín agus a lán eile ar siúl ann. Má tá spéis agat ann, tar I dteagmháil linn ar 091 871718 nó oifig@lochariach
Help your child get ahead. For the 12th year in a row there will be an Irish language summer camp in Loughrea. The summer camp will run from August 6 to 10 and from August 12 to 17. The cost is €45 per child per week or €90 for the fortnight. A family discount applies.
The main aim of the camp is that children enjoy themselves as they learn and improve their Irish while having fun. Qualified teachers will be in charge of the camp and will use games, role-play, art, quizzes, and much more to make language learning an enjoyable experience.
If you are interested in the camp, contact the office on 091 871718 or oifig@lochariach. A deposit of €25 per child is required to secure a place.
www.advertiser.ie/galway
