When I was in Glenfin a couple of years ago, there were few people on the same course that needed to get a certification on their level of Irish in order to teach. Their standard of Irish was actually pretty good. But I think they were all elementary school teachers.

Redwolf

This is why I believe Irish should be optional after the Junior Cert. There are simply not enough fluent teachers capable of teaching all subjects through Irish throughout the Irish State. There never has been, from 1922 to the present day. Compulsory status ensures that far too often you have teachers who possess something less than fluency instructing pupils in a language that they themselves aren't confident in. Children can sense this.

There aren't even enough teachers capable of teaching Irish well in national schools. If you remove compulsion you at least free up some of the fluent national school teachers to move to the Irish-medium sector, which at least results in a higher level of language acquistion, incomplete as it might be.

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Is foghlaimeoir mé. Is fearr liom Gaeilge Chonnacht. Corrections always appreciated.

Or simply just require that a large part of the teacher training takes place in a gaeltacht and/or wage increases are tied to achieving a certain standard in the subjects you teach, not just Irish.

Its amazing that the Hibernia teachers are required to spend two weeks in the Gaeltacht to , even if they spent every waking minute, just through Irish, which they dont , it is not enough time to make anyone even reasonably comfortable with talking a language, let alone working through it.

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

Ideally.

I just think it's a reflection of the state of Irish in education generally today. Fluency isn't the end goal as far as the ministry of education is concerned, from what I can tell. It will become increasingly more difficult to justify compulsory status for Irish in the years to come.

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Is foghlaimeoir mé. Is fearr liom Gaeilge Chonnacht. Corrections always appreciated.

When there is perceived to be a problem with the teaching of maths in this country, they throw millions and millions into extra training for all teachers. When there is perceived to be a problem with the teaching of Irish, they instantly question whether in fact it is really worth teaching to students. I have heard it for years.

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I attended a Scottish Parliament consultation on language teaching in primary a few years ago. The Scottish government is planning a "1+2" model -- 1 first language and 2 others. Kids are expected to start their first second language no later than P3, and the second no later than P5. There was lots of talk about training courses, teaching resources and social networks for teachers. It was pretty disappointing that it really wasn't accepted that two-week training courses are just bugger-all use for prepping language teachers.

The whole primary teaching profession is accustomed to working with a very superficial knowledge of a broad variety of areas of study, because that usually works, but they just can't see that this is woefully insufficient for language -- you can't be just one page ahead of the students. Really, you have to be pretty much fluent to teach even absolute beginners.

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

And therein lies the problem. I agree with this and the government needs to invest properly at the training stage, but they just don't get it. If more policy makers were raising their children through Irish, they would have a much better understanding of the challenges and needs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of decision makers about the Irish language are working from a position of ignorance.

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I agree. I've maintained for some time that the Irish government is missing a great opportunity with its allocation of resources for teaching Irish. There are probably sufficient good teachers to make pre-school and the first several grades of all primary schools Irish only, and that's where they should concentrate the resources. At that age, kids absorb languages like sponges, and even a child entering pre-school with little Irish would be fluent in a year or two, especially since it's the perfect age to teach through stories, games, songs, videos, and other fun activities. After 10-15 years, every child in Ireland would be fluent, apart form the youngest not yet in pre-school, and the spread of knowledge of the language would build with each generation.

After the immersion period, things should largely be based on demand, without compulsion. Where there is demand and the additional resources, there could be continuing Gaelscoileanna and also Gaelchóláistí. Initially, though, I think it would be better to concentrate any remaining resources on setting things up so that, after the immersion period, each child would have one, or ideally two, hours of instruction per day through the medium of Irish, to keep up their skills (at least somewhat), perhaps compulsorily for a few further grades, and entirely voluntary from then on.

With nearly all students having a good basic grasp of Irish and a good portion of them having enjoyed learning it, there would be a decent amount of demand to continue with some exposure, and in those cases where there is just no such desire, I think the system should just give up. Students who fall into that category are not really learning now, and there's no way to make them learn Irish. Ironically, though, after the immersion period, any student unwilling to continue with Irish would still maintain a decent grasp of the language, whether he/she liked it or not, and there would probably be a stealthy building up of Irish knowledge even in the most anti-Gaeilge quarters of society over the years.

The virtue of this approach is that it would eliminate a lot of the grumbling about mandatory Irish lessons which is so much of the problem today. You'd have to teach reading and writing of English in the early years, to keep the parents happy (which I assume is already done in the Gaelscoileanna to some extent), but parents would be more open to letting their kids "play" in Irish for the first few years than they are with their kids "wasting their time" with Irish in the later, "more important" school years. And. as I said, with each passing generation, learning Irish as a kid (if they didn't speak it already, after a few generations of this) would seem just a normal part of life, and could lead to the point where more and more people are comfortable with Irish (and even using it) and see knowing Irish as something of importance to their culture.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Conradh na Gaeilge advocate that a number of subjects be taught through Irish in all schools. The Minister for Education sent a circular a number of years ago stating that all Gaelscoileanna had to begin English in year 1. A number of schools, including my local Gaelscoil, went to court to fight it as all international expertise shows that total immersion is the most effective way for the children to learn the language. The Minister backed down at the last minute and so English is not introduced until the middle of year 2 in our Gaelscoil and I presume others are the same.

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I think it is apathy rather an ignorance. And the Irish lobby is not strong enough to chance government policy. They know how to fix it but they don't care. Fine Gael have always hated Irish, and would do away with it tomorrow if they could. What little progress that has been made, like the place names in Irish for Gaeltachts etc., has been under a Fianna Fáil government - an no I'm not a big FF supporter but they are the better of two evils in this case.

The answer is total immersion in primary school with fluent teachers, as Caoimhín suggested. But that takes money and a total overhaul of the current system. And Irish is just not high enough on the political agenda.