A Choice of English or Irish to Leaving Certificate

[Thar an Phail]

Why not give people a choice of whether to do English or Irish for their leaving certificate? They could do both if they wanted.

A certificate in either languages would count equally when applying for university, the civil service, ect.

I am against having English compulsory but not Irish. Why should Gaelic speakers be forced to learn English if English speakers dont have to learn Irish?

It seems to me some of those who are against compulsory Irish veiw Ireland as an English speaking country with Irish tucked away in remote corners. Ireland is a bilingual country.

Hopefully those who do Irish will think "great, Im getting out of English" and put more effort into the Irish language, and vica versa.

[Limerick Lad]

I think it would be very hard to live you life here without at least rudimentary English, Ireland like it or not is an English speaking country, a person who could only speak the Irish language would sadly be a stranger in their own land.
English is the language of the world whether that happened by colonialism or choice, it is a fact of life and to exclude ourselves from that language because of a past history would be foolhardy in the extreme.

[White Horse]

A large part of Ireland's economic sucess is based upon the high standard of English achieved by hildren in school.

English is the world's languauge and it would be stupid to allow political issues to reduce our prospects for contiuing our economic success.

There is a valid agrument to be made as to the position of Gaelic in our education system and society. However, this should have no impact upon the primacy of the English language in education.

[eurocrat]

I am against having English compulsory but not Irish. Why should Gaelic speakers be forced to learn English if English speakers dont have to learn Irish?

That is a valid point and one often missed in the debate on the Irish langauge in Education. If Irish should not be compulsary for native English speakers I can see no reason why English should be complusary for Irish speakers - at Leaving Cert level.

It is possible to live in this country and speak very little English. It is concievable that you live your entire life on the Aran Islands and watch TG4 every day. All goverment services (in theory at least) are available in Irish.

Why should we force peole to learn a langauge that they are never going to use??

[gaelach]

I think it would be very hard to live you life here without at least rudimentary English, Ireland like it or not is an English speaking country, a person who could only speak the Irish language would sadly be a stranger in their own land.
English is the language of the world whether that happened by colonialism or choice, it is a fact of life and to exclude ourselves from that language because of a past history would be foolhardy in the extreme.

They still would be able to speak English,they just wouldnt have it until leaving cert standard.

[Limerick Lad]

Why should we force people to learn a language that they are never going to use??

The same argument could be used against the Irish language as the vast majority of us never need to use or probably want to use Irish as a spoken language in our daily lives.
From 4 to 17 years old I learned the Irish language and I could not hold a conversation in Irish beyond the most basic topics (Hello, the weather and goodbye) even though I can sort of follow Nuacht on the radio not the nuances of the reports but the general gist of the headlines and I don't think I'm alone in this.

[Seánod]

Why should we force people to learn a language that they are never going to use??

The same argument could be used against the Irish language as the vast majority of us never need to use or probably want to use Irish as a spoken language in our daily lives.
From 4 to 17 years old I learned the Irish language and I could not hold a conversation in Irish beyond the most basic topics (Hello, the weather and goodbye) even though I can sort of follow Nuacht on the radio not the nuances of the reports but the general gist of the headlines and I don't think I'm alone in this.

Being able to "sort of follow Nuacht" is evidence to me of the well of Irish language is sitting below the surface there, Limerick Lad. The average person in the 6 Counties could hardly tell you if someone was chatting in Irish or Polish. My sister in law bought two childrens Irish books for our girls three years ago... she was so pleased with herself, and she had to actually go out of town to find them...

We spent an hour discussing how we would gently tell her they were actually in German...

You should value what you have, even if you are not too impressed with it yourself.

[forest]

It seems to me some of those who are against compulsory Irish veiw Ireland as an English speaking country with Irish tucked away in remote corners. Ireland is a bilingual country.

Ireland is an English speaking country. English is the main language of the state, in social terms, business and politics.
Its the language we all speak.
Ireland is not a bilingual country in any real sense, a visit to a proper bilingual state such as Belgium will show you this.

[paypal]

Limerick Lad:
"From 4 to 17 years old I learned the Irish language and I could not hold a conversation in Irish beyond the most basic topics"

Are you of normal intelligence? No, seriously, I am not trying to be smart. Becuase it just seems to me that if I studied any language for 13 years, be it Serbo-Croat or Swahili, I'd hope to be able to do better after 13 years than "the most basic topics". Did you maths for 13 years also? Did you get no further than "basic topics" such as addition and subtraction?
I repeat, I'm not trying to insult. Your experience, of studying a language for 13 years and learning virtually nothing, seems to be common in Ireland. I would guess inguists from other countries would love to study this phenomenon, because it seems so odd. Imagine what someone from the Netherlands, or Sweden, or Nigeria or South Africa would think of someone who spends 13 years on a language and learns nothing.

[Trefor]

Ireland is not a bilingual country in any real sense, a visit to a proper bilingual state such as Belgium will show you this.

Is Belgium bilingual though?

In my experience it seems to be French speaking in one part, Flemish speaking in the other, with both spoken in Brussels.

English is the language of the world whether that happened by colonialism or choice, it is a fact of life and to exclude ourselves from that language because of a past history would be foolhardy in the extreme.

Many, many children aren't educated in English here. This, obviously, doesn't render them incapable of speaking English.