Irish is an awful course

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of the Irish haters. I consider Irish to be an integral part of our heritage and I really believe it has a future in Irish society. However in order to achieve this bi-lingual society we need to teach a modern and relevant course.

Already into my first week of 5th year I’ve been astounded at the irrelevance of everything I’ve done so far in Irish. Our first piece of work was the poem “Jack”. The poem is set in the west of Ireland and it talks about a farmer’s son who is described as a “strapping young lad” (This is, of course a translation).

इन्कलाब ज़िंदाबाद
photo credit: Raveesh Vyas

The first problem with the Irish course is the poetry section. I believe that poetry is best left to English class, firstly because Irish poetry is inferior to English language poetry and crucially because I believe poetry is not a constructive device in learning a second language.

A fair amount of the time in class has been spent outlining the historic setting of the poem and the emotions involved. How has this anything to do with learning the language??? Because of this I feel like I’m in a History lesson about the famine times and the west of Ireland. History of Irish is a section of the leaving cert course. I accept that these are important topics however they have no place in what is supposed to be a language class.

I also have a problem with the words used such as “strapping young lad”.  When am I ever going to use this phrase in either English or Irish? Other words like nostalgic came up too and again I don’t see the reason to learn these words.

The only time in life I see myself using Irish is in politics. Should I manage to make it to be a TD I’ll still make up the majority of Oireachtas members who can’t speak Irish fluently. George Lee, during his recent election campaign commented on the extent of his Irish abilities: “Níl much Gaeilge agam”. Also even if I do become fluent in Irish I will never use the phrase “strapping young lad” in a speech!

The Irish course is too culturally focused and it has abandoned the core objectives of any language: speaking. I welcome the recent decision to increase the % of marks going towards your oral exam however from what I hear even the questions in the oral are unusual and removed from an everyday normal conversation.

If Irish is to become an attractive subject for students it needs to focus on teaching students the basic grammer of the language and it needs to focus on teaching relevant words used in modern life. Until this happens, Irish for me anyway, will remain a boring and irrelevant subject.

12 thoughts on “Irish is an awful course”

  1. I agree, i think that if you focus on speaking the language naturally, the rest will follow. The current approach is causing people to hate the langauge, when really we should just had the approach.

    Verbs, tenses and the rest of grammer will be picked up conversationally,not through studying it in books. we learned the entire english language through conversation – we were not given text boks when we were 3 years and told ot conjegate the verbs and we must remember that when we try to teach other langauges, especiailly irish.

  2. Totally agree, higher irish as a subject is so off the point from actually speaking it. Its by far the hardest subject on the leaving. Should be taught more like french or any other foreign language.

  3. I cannot say how much I agree this. The complete and utter irrelevance of the syllabus the honours course is amazing. Its olny teaching you to learn off things verbatim. Though I dont think irish poetry is inferior to english poetry, I do not think It has a place on a course thats core objective is to make the students fluent. (I did honours, but dropped down 2 weeks before the exam, so go figure.)

  4. i kind of agree with this but not completely. irish poetry is definitly not inferior to english. it can be very beautiful because irish is a quite a descriptive poetic language. also we have been studying irish since primary school so i think it is fair to ask that we be a bit more advanced in irish than in other languages only started in first year. however i do agree the irish course can be outdated and think it depends a lot on your teacher.

  5. I was probably wrong to call irish poetry inferior. When you understand the poems they are nice pieces of work, especially for the small language we have.

    Yes, we have been studying it since primary school and if it were taught properly from then up to now I’d have no problem doing some literature.

    The teacher makes all the difference. Our teacher is crap. She talks in irish all the time, way too fast and no one can understand her. We have a sub teacher this week and he is fantastic. He speaks really slow, explains the new words he uses to us and he’s structuring essays for us much better.

  6. We have the third greatest vernacular literature in western Europe after Greek and Latin and yet you say our poetry is ‘inferior’ to English language poetry?

  7. We have the third greatest vernacular literature in western Europe after Greek and Latin and yet you say our poetry is 'inferior' to English language poetry?

  8. No, I can't teach you my language 5 times a week for 30 minutes a time, that's why the structured approach to learning Irish grammar needs to be more developed. It's too intricate.

  9. to solve the problem in my opinion we have to start on the ground and work our way up … more needed in the way of Gaelscoileanna and less english orientated schools..
    I myself went to a Gaelscoil and the benefits are clearly seen through my aural and oral examinations.. although my written lacks accuracy i have at least a good c standard without any further help or studying..
    If all students had this help – and not the poor standard they teach in national schools .. then it would not only make the language easier for everyone but would provide teachers with a basis in irish in first year and leave them with nothing to do but polish up and refine the students already existent standard of irish … in contrast to some teachers having to start from scratch with pupils.
    I also believe that this would encourage a greater love and passion for the language .. and also make it easier for students in the senior cycle to work towards good grades in irish..

  10. to solve the problem in my opinion we have to start on the ground and work our way up … more needed in the way of Gaelscoileanna and less english orientated schools..
    I myself went to a Gaelscoil and the benefits are clearly seen through my aural and oral examinations.. although my written lacks accuracy i have at least a good c standard without any further help or studying..
    If all students had this help – and not the poor standard they teach in national schools .. then it would not only make the language easier for everyone but would provide teachers with a basis in irish in first year and leave them with nothing to do but polish up and refine the students already existent standard of irish … in contrast to some teachers having to start from scratch with pupils.
    I also believe that this would encourage a greater love and passion for the language .. and also make it easier for students in the senior cycle to work towards good grades in irish..

  11. Im mostly with you Hobo but if it were all gaelscoileana how left out would any kid moving from anywhere else in the world feel during the classes?

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