School aims to foster spoken Irish with Irish college link
September 22, 2011
Schools in neighbouring counties have developed a special relationship aimed at fostering spoken Irish.
Coláiste na Rinne in the Waterford Gaeltacht has developed a link with Gorey Community School, and will offer all first year students at the North Wexford school an opportunity to spend a weekend at Coláiste na Rinne, near Dungarvan, next Spring. The initiative was launched last week, when Liam Siupéal, bainisteoir at Coláiste na Rinne visited Gorey Community School. He explained that the aim of the project is to give the students an opportunity to immerse themselves in the language for a few days and live in an environment where only Irish is spoken. During the stay, students will have lessons in spoken Irish, grammar and drama, taught by experienced teachers. Other activities over the weekend include sporting activities, quizzes, dance and nature walks – all in Irish.
‘The new Irish exams at Junior Cert and Leaving Cert have a greater emphasis on conversation and all first year classes in the school are adapting to this requirement. We see a Gaeltacht visit as an important part of this,’ said the Principal Michael Finn at the launch. ‘There are few enough opportunities for people to speak the language and this will go a small way to addressing this. I also see it as an incentive for students to learn, knowing that they will have this opportunity later in the year.’ The school has booked a number of weekends at Coláiste na Rinne and will bring first year students who wish to attend to improve their Irish. Any parents of first year students who wish to find out more about the initiative may contact the school at (053) 9421000.
Enniscorthy Guardian
Buntáiste Breise na Gaeilge on the road again!
September 21, 2011
Calling all schools in Leitrim, Monaghan, Limerick and Waterford!! Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge are soon to organise a seminar in your area on the Irish language and careers.
Once again this year Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge will host a series of seminars titled Buntáiste Breise na Gaeilge all over Ireland. As the Leaving Cert class of 2011 prepare to begin their college courses soon, it is apt that the dates and venues of Buntáiste Breise na Gaeilge are now being announced. Senior cycle students in secondary schools will be given the opportunity to attend seminars in Carrick-on-Shannon on 11th October, in Carrickmacross on 12th October, in Limerick on 22nd November and in Co. Waterford on 23rd November.
Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge have organised many of these seminar all over the country, with seminars taking place in Killarney, Dublin, Galway, Cork, Carlow, Castlebar, Belfast, Letterkenny, and Tullamore to date.
‘The Added Advantage of Irish’ is the theme of the seminar, and guest speakers and well-known personalities will speak on the advantages which the Irish language has afforded them in their chosen careers.
As part of the seminars, questions from the students are welcomed, which give rise to lively debate about such subjects as the future of the language, Gaeltacht status, Irish as a compulsory subject, Irish at third level, and the Government’s support for the language.
Representatives from third level institutions attend with exhibition stands, to inform students of the various Irish language courses available to them after they leave school.
Students are welcome to attend these free events, but schools must register in advance. Further information: http://www.gaelport.com/bbnag
Junior Certificate results and Irish
September 21, 2011
Almost 4,300 students did a Junior Certificate Irish oral exam in 2011. Examination results for the Junior Certificate were received by 56,930 students who sat them this year and the statistics published by the Examinations board show interesting results regarding Irish.
A total of 48,349 students sat the Irish Paper (including Higher, Ordinary and Foundation level) last June. 80.6% of 23,931 students achieved a grade A, B or C in the higher level paper. Out of the 22,488 students who sat the ordinary level paper, 77.2% achieved a grade A, B, or C. A total of 76.3% of the 1,930 students who sat the Foundation level paper achieved a grad A, B or C.
The students who sat the Irish Paper in the Junior Certificate were given the option of doing an oral examination. This recently introduced option has seen an increase in students opting to do the oral test. An increase of 2,589 students from 1,687 students in 2010 to 4,276 students in 2011 opted to take the Irish oral exam. An increase was also noted in the amount of schools who offered the oral examination from 54 in 2010 to 94 in 2011.
The increase may be associated with students looking for experience in Irish language oral examinations before sitting the leaving cert which will place a greater emphasis on spoken Irish in the subject. A total of 40% of the marks will now go towards the Irish oral exam at leaving certificate level.
Commenting on the recently published statistics Saffron Rosenstock of Comhar na Múinteoirí Gaeilge said ‘ Having oral Irish examinations at Junior Cert is great preparation for students sitting their orals in the leaving cert.’
Gaelport
New Aitheantas employee organises public meetings for Irish-Medium Education
September 21, 2011
Caitríona Bairéad is the new Development Officer for Aitheantas, the joint campaign for Irish-medium education, and she has organised a series of public meetings for establishing local all-Irish primary schools in Co. Dublin and in Co. Kildare next week.
In light of the lack of all-Irish schools opening in recent years, Irish organisations Comhluadar, Conradh na Gaeilge, Foras Pátrúnachta na Scoileanna Lán-Ghaeilge and Glór na nGael joined forces last year to form the Aitheantas campaign to redress the situation, and Caitríona Bairéad will now undertake to establish new Gaelscoileanna in different areas across the country in her new role with the campaign. Aitheantas are hosting public meetings with the aim of creating founding committees for local Irish-medium schools at Draíocht, Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, Monday, 26 September 2011; The Maldron Hotel, Whitestown Way, Tallaght, Tuesday, 27 September 2011; and Kildare Education Centre, Friary Road, Kildare Town, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, with each meeting running from 8.00 – 9.00pm.
Caitríona Bairéad, new Development Officer with the Aitheantas campaign said: “Irish-medium education has been central to the revival of Irish in recent years, and in my role as Development Officer with Aitheantas in the coming months, I hope to determine and support the demand that is out there for all-Irish education in various parts of the country, starting with the meetings in Leinster next week.” Caitríona is no stranger to working in the Irish-language sector as she took up the post of Administration and Support Officer with the Irish-language festival Seachtain na Gaeilge in 2008, a job she held for two years, after graduating with a degree in multimedia from DCU. She undertook a postgraduate diploma in Cultural Event Management in IADT, Dún Laoghaire while working for the national festival, and she is looking forward to taking on the challenge ahead of her now in her new job promoting all-Irish education with Aitheantas.
“Now that Gaelscoil na Mí has received official recognition from the Department of Education and Skills earlier this year, I can’t wait to build on that progress and to help support parents who wish to give their children an all-Irish education,” said the Dublin-born Bairéad. “In order to ensure the rights of those parents are upheld, Aitheantas is calling on the Department of Education and Skills to include the provision of Irish-medium education in the criteria used when selecting areas for all types of new schools in future, primary and secondary schools alike, to ensure that the national demand for all-Irish education is catered for.” Caitríona Bairéad will work from the offices of the national patronage system for all-Irish schools, Foras Pátrúnachta na Scoileanna Lán-Ghaeilge (An Foras Pátrúnachta) in Maynooth, where both she and the staff are available to speak to anyone interested in helping the campaign for Irish-medium education in any way.
Caitríona Bairéad
Development Officer, Aitheantas
+353 (0)86 3965045 / caitriona@foras.ie
Caoimhín Ó hEaghra
General Secretary, An Foras Pátrúnachta
+353 (0)86 1738044 / Caoimhin.OhEaghra@mie.ie
DVD chun cabhrú le siollabas nua Gaeilge
September 21, 2011
Globe trotter speaking up for our mother tongue
September 21, 2011
In his TV show No Béarla and in his plays, travel writer Manchán Magan aims to preserve our ‘precious’ Irish, says Pádraic Killeen
FOLLOWING the success of his debut play, Broken Croí/Heart Briste, in 2009, Manchán Magan returns to this year’s Absolut Fringe in Dublin with his second effort, Bás Tongue. Like the earlier play, Bás Tongue is bilingual, playing on the frisson between English and Irish. It examines the strange relationship we Irish have with our beleaguered ‘teanga náisiúnta’. Magan is known for his globe-trotting cultural programmes for TG4 and RTÉ, but he is also a travel writer, novelist, and a provocative commentator on the state of the Irish language. His 2007 TV show, No Béarla, pulled no punches in revealing the frailty of the mother tongue. It was an honest account of how diminished Irish is among the populace. It earned the mercurial Munster-man some “cold shoulders and hostile looks” from many in the gaeilgeoir community. “I was just trying to highlight some of the issues around the language,” he says. The criticism from within the Irish-speaking community both hurt and vexed him. Magan is, after all, a descendant of the famous O’Rahilly clan that was so central in promoting Irish language and culture in the wake of the Gaelic Revival.
Partly as a response to the gaeilgeoirí, then, Magan was inspired to try his hand at producing an Irish language play and – with the assistance of director Tom Creed – brought Broken Croí/Heart Briste to the stage in 2009. The show was a big hit, showered with positive reviews, nominations and awards. Within days of its opening, Magan was approached by the Abbey theatre and BBC Ulster with queries about future work. He is working on a commission for the Abbey. “Broken Croí did ridiculously well – a lot better than I thought it deserved to do,” says Magan. “But it was new. It was someone doing something new with the language. The concept was that it would be 60% in Irish, but 80% understandable to English speakers. “It’s linguistic engineering. You use certain words that the audience will need to understand the play. Everyone has, maybe, 1,500 or 2,000 words that we’ve just picked up from school. So there are things you can do with that.” Whatever the engineering behind it, the show worked. And so Magan now returns with a new effort employing a similar approach.
Again, it’s a two-hander and again Magan performs onstage (despite being, on his own account, “a shite actor”). Bás Tongue takes the form of a comical and fevered debate between a committed scholar of the language and a member of a new generation of young Irish lovers – the graduates of the gaelscoileanna – who now constitute a subculture on the island, complete with their own hipster-gaelic lexicon. “The guy’s an absolute snob about Irish and he loathes this new street-Irish being spoken in Dublin and Cork,” says Magan. “So that’s where the dramatic conflict comes from.” There are gags about “transvestite,” words like ‘talún’, references to the impression that listening to poet Seán Ó Riordáin’s made on traditional Irish speakers (in the words of Máire Mhac an tSaoi: “like chewing sand through your teeth”), and metaphors about how donning another language is like “putting on someone else’s knickers.” Ultimately, however, Magan’s agenda remains an earnest one. “What I want in this play is to give people a visceral sense of what it is to lose a language – to lose something that we’ve had for over four thousand years. There is something vast and precious being lost here,” he says.
Though he can occasionally sound pessimistic or melancholy about the state of the Irish language, Magan’s conversation is chiefly marked by a concrete optimism that insists the future lies in “playing” with the language, and he points to the success of the Welsh rock band Super Furry Animals in engaging with their own native tongue. Magan’s co-star, Roxanna Nic Liam, describes Magan as a “realist.” Nic Liam is a graduate of the gaelscoileanna, and she knows all too well that being realistic about the language inevitably triggers sorrow. “There are some words in Irish that describe things or feelings for which there are no words for in English,” she says. “They only exist in Irish. So there will be some things that will be completely lost. You won’t even have a sense of it. That’s what I find quite sad. The future for spoken Irish, she says, is in forming a “symbiotic” relation with English on the island. One wonders if the theatre of Manchán Magan is not already kick-starting that process.
Bás Tongue runs in Project Cube, September 19 – 24
Irish Examiner – Pádraic Killeen
Méadú ar an líon a rinne béaltriail
September 21, 2011
Ceiliúradh scoile
September 21, 2011
Cruinnithe Poiblí maidir le Gaelscoileanna Nua
September 20, 2011
Students lured by added value of oral Irish exam
September 20, 2011
More and more students are opting to take the oral Irish exam since the introduction in 2010 of a new marking system for Irish at Junior Cert level.
A new marking scheme for Junior and Leaving Certificate Irish was announced back in 2007 by the then Minister for Education Mary Hanafin. In that year, there were as few as 339 students taking the oral Irish test for the Junior Cert – which is an optional component of the overall examination.
The new plan was designed to give more weight to oral Irish in both Junior and Leaving Cert exams. The proportion of marks allocated for the oral component would be raised to 40 per cent of the overall grade in both Junior and Leacing Certs. (Previously, the allocation had been 20 per cent and 25 per cent for Junior and Leaving respectively.)
The new marking scheme, applied for the first time in Junior Cert 2010, saw a significant increase in that year in the number of students opting for the oral – up to 1687, with 54 schools participating.
This figure rose still further in 2011 when 4,276 students from 94 schools took the Junior Cert oral test.
Accodrding to the Department of Education, the increase is due to pressure from parents on schools to use the Junior Cert oral as a dry run for the “high-stakes” Leaving Cert. The 40 per cent allocation for the oral will take effect at Leaving Cert level from 2012 onwards.
Whatever the reasons, Ms Hanafin’s objective of increasing fluency in Irish among young people might just be going to be realised. However, the process of testing for the Junior Cert exam is fraught with issues of its own.
The State Examinations Commission (SEC) does not make any provision for the assessment of oral Irish in the Junior Cert. The schools themselves have to arrange oral Irish assessment for their Junior Cert students, and notify the SEC of the marks attained by each candidate.
This contrasts with the situation at Leaving Cert level where the SEC pays teachers to travel to other schools to conduct the oral exam
In the present situation, it is not fully clear whether teachers are assessing their own Junior Cert students in oral Irish, or if students are being assessed by other teachers in the school, or if schools are paying retired teachers to carry out the task, or if teachers from other schools are being paid to conduct the tests.
But one thing that is clear – the SEC does not pay teachers to carry out the oral Irish test at Junior Cert level.
Last autumn, members of County Cavan VEC called on the Department of Education to place the Junior Cert Oral Irish Exam on the same footing as the Leaving Certificate examination.
Teacher Mona Fitzpatrick said she was appalled that the Department would allow an ad hoc arrangement to exist in relation to a component in a state exam.
“It is a very serious matter… if 40% of the marks… are now going to be based on a 15-minute interview, there will have to be greater emphasis put on the monitoring of the oral Irish exam.
“It just can’t be at the whim of a particular examiner – the stakes are too high.
“Nothing has been made clear about how it will operate.
“Are we going to get training or is there going to be monitoring?” asked Ms Fitzpatrick.
Eighteen months ago, the two second-level teacher unions (ASTI and TUI) instructed their members not to conduct Junior Cert oral Irish exams until acceptable arrangements had been negotiated with the Department and adequate resources agreed, including payment and training.
But this directive has been ignored by a substantial number of schools and teachers.
A spokesperson for the ASTI said that, while she understands that members have not been assessing their own students, the union is concerned about teachers assessing students in other schools on an ad hoc basis.
“There needs to be a standardised measure applied to all elements of the state exams, whether it’s a practical test for woodwork, singing for music, or the written German exam,” she said.
“But it is also reasonable to expect that the same remuneration given to teachers who take part in other state exam assessments would apply to those who assess oral Irish in the Junior Certificate.”
(Sources: Irish Examiner; Anglo-Celt)
