Support for Learners from The Language Centre

There are many resources for Irish language learners available on various websites. One which is popular with An Scoil Chois Claí is the Language Centre at The National University of Ireland ,Maynooth .

1. The TEG site gives support to both teachers of adults and adult learners. The curriculum which is set out is a good guide to learning conversational Irish in a classroom setting. Most teachers who use this curriculum will augment it with grammar explanations and background information about the history of the Irish Language and its role in the history of the Irish people. Adult learners are usually interested in more than the acquisition of the language alone.

2.For more advanced learners the VIFAX portion of the Maynooth síte is very useful and again can be used by learners both within the classroom setting and for practice alone. The videos are fully supported by lesson plans and transcripts.

For too long the Irish language outside of Irish speaking families was supposed to be kept alive and well by schoolchildren, I think this has been finally recognized as being an unfair task for young Irish children. As soon as adults in Ireland start using Irish then children will be happy to use it too. I’ve never met a child who isn’t happy to answer me in Irish if I ask a simple question, (usually the answer will be accompanied by a giggle,) whereas it is often older people who will answer in English, indicating of course that the question was understood. It is often a lack of confidence rather than negativism towards the language that causes this. Although most Irish speakers have experienced negativism at some time or another. The support that sites like this one at the Language Centre provide can be very helpful to the small conversational language groups which are coming into existence timpeall na tíre