On Monday at a breakfast meeting, I spoke to a group of students who were just finishing the masters in marketing from the Michael Smurfit School of Business at UCD.
The meeting was sponsored by ESB or, as it is soon to be known, Electricity Ireland. The students were optimistic about the future, confident and well educated. They were nervous about their own job prospects but were putting a brave face on things.
While chatting over a full Irish, one of the professors told me that he was just back from a conference in Lisbon where pan-European business and marketing courses were being devised in cooperation with other European universities. These courses hosted by various European universities would be invaluable to Irish graduates as they would give them a great grounding in international marketing. However, there was one drawback: language.
They could not find enough Irish graduates, even the top-tier ones, who could speak a second and third language proficiently enough to do the courses. He explained that this was one of the key stumbling blocks for Irish marketing graduates in Europe — very few had any competence in foreign languages.
Later at home, my 11-year-old daughter came into the kitchen. I asked her what she had done in school, and she replied that the whole class in her national school had just written a letter to the Education Minister to complain because their Spanish teacher had just been made redundant.
As part of the Government’s austerity drive, the excellent Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative — see www.mlpsi.ie — has been shut down. This was a scheme to introduce children early to foreign languages, to give them a feel for foreign languages and to lay the foundations of a familiarity with foreign languages.
In short, this scheme is crucial if the graduates of tomorrow are to get a fair chance to work in Europe, either for big European companies or for Irish companies exporting into the rest of the EU.
Here, we see the lack of any real joined-up thinking in our education system, all because of choices the Government is making. I bet the civil servant who made this decision to cut foreign language teaching does not speak a foreign language.
Everyone knows that it is much easier to teach younger children languages because they learn quicker.
One of the most famous discoveries in biology in the last 50 years is that, in common with all young animals, the brains of children go through critical periods when they are particularly receptive to learning or mapping different forms and patterns of information.
Language is one such pattern. Babies and young infants pick up new words and sounds effortlessly during the critical period of early cortex development. It is referred to as brain plasticity when the brain is subtle, growing and sponge-like. After age one it gets more difficult, but it is still much easier for children to learn new words and they can learn loads of languages simultaneously because of the way the words are stored in the same brain map.
After 12 years old, learning a language gets progressively harder until, as adults, it is exceedingly difficult. The older you get, the more you use your native language and the more it comes to dominate your linguistic map. You still have brain plasticity, but your mother tongue rules.
This is why early learning is so critical, because it is easier, more fulfilling and, even when seen through the narrow prism of budget accountancy, it is far, far, cheaper. Yet here we are abolishing modern language programmes in our primary schools because we need to save money when we know if we are to teach languages to these children as they get older it will be much more expensive.
The real problem is not money, but the inability to join up our thinking. We have one end of the education system crying out for some proficiency in modern languages and at the other end, cutting back on language learning for our primary school children, thereby reducing their chances of being fully paid-up members of the European Union’s workforce.
So the Irish state does one thing without considering the inconsistencies in the decision and what we get is a lack of clarity about anything. In order to stick to the austerity plan imposed by the EU, we are going to learn fewer European languages and make ourselves actually less European in order to become better Europeans.
Go figure — as our largest trading and investing partners, the Americans would say.
On Monday morning, following the weekend when we reaffirmed that we would be good Europeans and pay all the Anglo and Irish Nationwide promissory notes, another inconsistency presented itself. We are going to sell a good asset like ESB at a deep discount, while at the same time buy worthless assets like IOUs of Anglo Irish Bank at a premium — all in order to improve our national balance sheet. This is lunacy and shows no consistency. If we are to sell ESB and put the proceeds into the black hole of Anglo, what is the point?
Such stupidity doesn’t make the balance sheet better; it self-evidently makes it worse.
Even a child will tell you this makes no sense. A monolingual teenager would tell you to get your house in order you have to sell what you can, even if it might not be the best timing and that you can’t buy anything until you have enough money to do so.
Yet the EU is telling us we need to sell ESB and to pay for Anglo — a bank which is being closed down. Worse still, the promissory note, which we are paying, is a loan given to Anglo by our Central Bank, which in turn, owes the cash to the ECB.
So think about the logic here. The ECB, the bank that won’t lend to governments but will lend to banks in Europe because lending to governments is “wrong”, is forcing the Irish Government to go further into debt to finance a bust bank called Anglo and this is supposed to be right?
Confused? Me too.
One of the problems over the next few months is that the Government is going to have to present a case which explains — if there is a referendum — why we should go along with more European integration. This needs to be a clear and honest case. Sometimes the slogan “more Europe” seems like a flag of convenience rather than a set of clear ideas or coherent aspirations.
We want to be more European but we won’t teach our children European languages. We want to be more European but should we deploy kamikaze tactics whereby we sell good stuff and buy bad stuff with money we don’t have in order to be good members of the club?
So 2012 could well be the year to make these choices. We need to be clear about where we want to go next. The decisions we make will tell us a lot more about ourselves than about the European Union.
The education is old fashion, the same as 50 years ago, and should change. Foreign languages might be away more important than many of stuff children learn currently. In essence foreign languages are left to parents as after school activity. More European integration means more centralization of power. Economy cannot be driven centrally as the governed body, either being our own central bank or ECB or whoever cannot have all information that entrepreneurs and people possess. It is utopia to drive economy from the central place, based on wrong statistics. The current economics schools are just plainly wrong, basing so… Read more »
It has never been so easy to learn a foreign language for example French, is the easiest , there are loads of French grammar books, theres Google translate , French internet radio “Inter France” which is 24 hrs of French chat , Websites that teach languages allow users to email counterparts which are learning English , French TV5 or Euronews on sky , it so easy if you really want to learn. I learned Irish and French in school and came out without a word of either , however they teach languages they are obviously lousy at teaching them. Au… Read more »
Bad news for your daughter and her friends. I recommend she takes up Chinese independantly :) Bit off topic but I seem to recall that the critical age for learning language is the first 18 months, at least if bi or tri lingualism is the objective. I certainly hope that the teaching methods have improved since my time at school. It wasn’t until I studied how to teach English to adults, as well as taught myself another language that I realised just how terrible teaching methodologies were when I was in secondary school. Many of the disadvantages of age when… Read more »
I wholeheartedly agree on the language issue.I just lost out on a business opportunity owing to the lack of linguistic skills in Spanish.Of course when I was at school it was French which I studied but I have always hated France and the French ways.I must have known something all those years ago. The emphasis on more and more education will eventually lead to a gulf between those who can afford it and those who can’t.The investment in educating the population may never be realised in our lifetime and who benefits from this investment.The majority of graduates will probably emigrate… Read more »
foreign languages I wonder if we need then the way things are going I believe at the moment that there is punts being printed on a large scale (just in case we need them).
Remember the lies we where told about the IMF no there not coming o yes they are and boy did they come so watch this space.
Szeretnék felÃratkozni.
Later at home, my 11-year-old daughter came into the kitchen. I asked her what she had done in school, and she replied that the whole class in her national school had just written a letter to the Education Minister to complain because their Spanish teacher had just been made redundant.
This is the government that we voted for ,what’s coming next.
Here we see one of the self-cannibalizing results of austerity. Everything productive will shrink under austerity. Crazy. Maybe the EU should impose a foreign language requirement on member state primary schools. Very sad. All my young relatives in Ireland speak French or German fluently. They have had no desire, should emigration become necessity, to go to North America or Australia and would rather avoid England. Some have had summer ski country jobs with very distant relations in Austria, others have worked in France at hotels, helped by aunts or uncles siblings who now live there. None of these young relatives… Read more »
My second language is French, I would have to say that French is definitely not the easiest foreign language to learn, especially to get the pronunciation right, which I continue to struggle with. Italian is easier, followed by Spanish according to my translator friends. Having learned the language it has opened up a new way to look at the world for me and not just from a job prospects point of view, but from a cultural point of view, my horizons are wider, my experiences are richer for it. But surely all of this is symptomatic of the broader picture,… Read more »
Yes, the latest reform regarding the budget for language learning is a shame. It has never been so easy as now to learn a language, with all the new technologies around. I did my H.Dip in 1997-98 (French/History), and when I started to teach a lot of the materials which exist today were not around. Mind you, most of the French teachers I know in Ireland don’t use these modern materials in teaching today. There is a real need for teachers to be trained on CAL (computer-assisted learning) technologies for the classroom. The same goes for learning Irish. In France… Read more »
Yes, the latest reform regarding the budget for language learning is a shame. It has never been so easy as now to learn a language, with all the new technologies around. I did my H.Dip in 1997-98 (French/History), and when I started to teach a lot of the materials which exist today were not around. Mind you, most of the French teachers I know in Ireland don’t use these modern materials in teaching today. There is a real need for teachers to be trained on CAL (computer-assisted learning) technologies for the classroom. The same goes for learning Irish. In France… Read more »
Back in the 70’s we were all supposed to start learning Japanese,whatever became of that?
David you wrote: “On Monday morning, following the weekend when we reaffirmed that we would be good Europeans and pay all the Anglo and Irish Nationwide promissory notes, another inconsistency presented itself. We are going to sell a good asset like ESB at a deep discount, while at the same time buy worthless assets like IOUs of Anglo Irish Bank at a premium – all in order to improve our national balance sheet. This is lunacy and shows no consistency. If we are to sell ESB and put the proceeds into the black hole of Anglo, what is the point?”… Read more »
I’ll tell you one thing, we’ve got a complete and utter shower of langers running this country!!! So much for the smart economy??? This crowd of idiots couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery on a Saturday night!!!
How ironic is it that a company which has gouged the consumer and business user alike (ESB) and pays some of the most obscene public sector wages is the sponsor of the business talk? I’m fairly sure we still have one of the most expensive electricity rates in Europe thanks to them. Do agree on language learning. One of my best friends grew up in Luxembourg and spoke 4 languages by age 11. However I think the language education here is appalling: its like everything else in Ireland, so many self-appointed “experts” and charlatans trying to hoodwink fools from their… Read more »
Unfortunately the difference between learning a second language as a schoolgoer in Ireland and learning one in continental Europe is that the latter results in a working language ability.
Off subject – survival approach to the looming catastrophy:
– open a foreign bank account and shift your savings(Germany, Suisse or Scandinavia in Europe, or anywhere outside)
– buy gold(now between the 200 – 150DMA)
– emigrate if possible
– exercise thrift, frugality and personal austerity where possible
– look after yourself and you family. Nobody else is interested in you.
The education system needs to be completely refocussed on helping students find what their passion is and helping ignite within them the desire to follow a certain path. From my friends, I know that the German and Austrian schools, or maybe it’s cultural?, seem to be a lot better and allowing students to go and express themselves. Here its very much focussed on rote learning and then getting a handy civil service job. This leads to a stultifying of creativity as a student’s flame and will to follow a certain path are doused in the poison of doing the so… Read more »
I couldn’t agree more with this article. I was a Languages and Marketing graduate myself six yeas back but unfortunately went into the Fund admin area after college instead of just doing one more year for a H Dip or masters. At the time I just wanted out of college and earn some money. Probably one of my biggest regrets in life so far! German was my major and it was a pleasure to learn. Absolutely loved it and still do! Funny enough in school I loved French more than German and in my junior and leaving cert I could… Read more »
I speak Hungarian myself to a high level, as I’ve mentioned on here before. Not sure how much I’ll use it in the future though as I’m heading back to the Caribbean.
With that in mind, I’ll be brushing up on my French (neglected badly) and Spanish (very basic level – but so so easy – especially compared to Hungarian!).
Languages are great and as ‘Eurostartled’ mentioned on here earlier, they open your mind to so much more than just the actual learned words.
David, you speak Russian don’t you? What else do you speak?
Cheers,
Adam.
COMPLETELY WRONG ANALYSIS! But you were so close. Foreign Language Teachers in Ireland don’t teach kids to speak foreign languages. Not even Irish! (ask Des Bishop). I learned German (badly) from CDs and now do business in German. My son got an A+ in German leaving cert —but when he goes to Germany he can only converse in English to his German counterparts (coz the teachers in Germany teach the kids to SPEAK English). So you can join dots, spend all our money , do what you like. But unless the teachers in Ireland decide to TEACH —forget it! There… Read more »
@adam Byrne,
thanks for that. Better late than never eh! I totally agree, Australia is just a time filler for the moment. I’m a true European out and out!
@Peter Atkinson
Upwards of 25% of the Irish population, are incapable of reading and writing well enough to be able fully to participate in society. This compares with 3 per cent in Sweden and 5 per cent in Germany. And, believe it or not, the problem is growing.
Consider what this appalling statistic implies?.
Shocking.
I wonder is Istvan familiar with the phrase : F$£K OFF.
Maybe someone should teach him.
Lithuania was another country whose electricity sector was gutted for spurious environmental reasons………………..”you must close the plant down” , fair enough the plant has a History to say the least.
But when will we be building a replacement ?…….. “eh soon my son soon but time is a relative phenomena”
But we have the skilled workers now !!!!
“Workers workers we don’t need no stinking workers – we want a yield from this decapitalization scheme even if it kills you”
Ireland and Britain have national narratives which inhibit our interest in foreign language learning. The narrative is not often openly articulated, its more subconsciously and collectively held. It goes something like this: ‘English is the world’s language and the language of business. During C19, the British Empire spread English to Most of South and East Africa, South Asia and Australasia, as well as Hong Kong, pockets like Egypt and the Arabian peninsula. English language and culture and sports dominated the planet. Then, after WWII, the American Empire projected the English language and the prestige of Anglophone culture even further, to… Read more »
An interesting article There was held a meeting (a breakfast meeting, actually) for the hob nobbing elites from the God School of Business and the gladiators were bestowed with the highest order of the sword. It was the true genesis of the epic rise to legend of the third reich of the Celtic Tiger The apprentice God (the descendent of the one and only true God) told his warriors to dream the impossible and to go forth and conquer the lands of the earth and live in his image and the graduate conquistadors were inspired and ready for the battle… Read more »
To show the Troika that Ireland is serious about remaining in the Euro: a mass, enforced translation/education to French and German needs to happen urgently! All other educational priorities must take a back seat. RTE are to present the Merkozy Nightly News in French/German-with Irish subtitles. Ban the thought-form control of the Saxon foe’s language! Block the pernicious BBC! No more Man U, just Bayern. I’m sure German and French soap operas and comedy culture will go down a treat. Having thrown off the oppression of the Pound/Punt, it’s time to free Ireland linguistically. Re-wire the Irish mind to new… Read more »
I started with Irish in school, and later learned French and German in school, Spanish at uni and later picked up Slovak and some Russian working abroad. I do feel that I have a good head for languages, but just wish I hadn’t been forced to waste so much time on the compulsory Irish and spent more time on the others. I don’t think everyone is naturally inclined to learn a foreign language, but utility and love are two great motivators for anyone. By utility I mean if we go to live in a foreign country and want to succeed… Read more »
David, I am surprised that you miss the most important point about the education system in the south of Ireland which is that children do more foreign language learning from a young age than almost any other country in Europe. Irish is much more foreign to an English speaker than romance languages like French and Spanish or germanic languages like Dutch. I spent thirteen years in school learning Irish as a second language, I only spent five learning French. You are not incorrect that it is desirable for children to learn a second language early. For that reason countries like… Read more »
Music & Sports This is one language that can unite many in a few words .I think the Irish excel on that worldwide.Maybe it must be in the ‘ Nasc ar dTeanga ‘, our cohesive mindset as a Nation. Our national branded products ,with a few exceptions only, cannot be found on the shelves in Europe .We seem to export more bare non branded commodities earning a lower premium price as a result . I have great admiration for the Irish Ballerina who with her love for that art emigrated alone to Russia many many years ago only to excel… Read more »
Humps of Tyme In the late 80s I was absolutely fluent in Arabic …well…I had a lot of free time when my hosts spent some days in prayer .During this period I eventually purchased a camel because it was cheaper than paying too much rent to have him.I was instructed how to communicate with the camel in Arabic .Now the camel was very intelligent and had many recognitions for words and local custom which I duly learned. Alone with camel in the wilderness , the few words in Arabic I had was for me absolute fluency and fulfilled all my… Read more »
I agree that we should learn languages at a young age and it would be more effective to start early and maybe transferring the language teachers from secondary to primary schools would be more effective. But lets not use this as another excuse for kicking poor ignorant Paddy. Most language is learnt because their is a need for it in every day life. Most Europeans speak their own language and english. Some speak those and that of a neighbouring country as they traded with that neighbour. How mamy Germans speak mandarin? So as a positive I’m all for it. The… Read more »
Taxing Matter I do not mean to be off the natter of this article .However , I am compelled to inform you that currently in the Court Term of St Michael and The Angels , the Revenue have submitted to the Sheriff in the last few weeks of Christmas their instructions to collect taxes and already thousands of families have received these and many of these demands are not correct as per taxpayers records. Normally the collector general sends a letter to the taxpayer informing them of outstanding taxes and estimated taxes and after a letter from accountant they wait… Read more »
Many continental teens travel to english speaking countries to help them learn a language.Irish teens rarely travel , apart from trips to the gaeltacht.You can’t learn a language from a book, Irish is the best example.Spanish is the best euro language, learnt to speak it in 1 yr in Miami.
Language of Austerity
Last sunday in a city church in Limerick the Priest announced that from that sunday the immigrants that usually attended the sunday mass were no longer going to attend anymore .
Their reason was that they found the Irish had glum faces and feeling down trodden and too sad . So they are now attending a Pentecostal Service .
DMcW, This is very revealing, likely borrowed, quote : { One of the most famous discoveries in biology in the last 50 years is that, in common with all young animals, the brains of children go through critical periods when they are particularly receptive to learning or mapping different forms and patterns of information. } If people do not understand the brutal insult in that statement, they will not be able to deal with brutal austerity imposed by committees. This is exactly the same as Prince Philip’s “Man is a higher Ape”, and Bruton’s remark that son Prince Charles represents… Read more »
“This is why people fear Shakespeare!”
I think people fear/dislike Shakespeare because he wrote in Early Modern English which means that you need to have annotations to understand a lot of it. It’s the same with Webster.
You can’t read Old or Middle English without guidance because they are just too different to Modern English. Early Modern English is just about readable.
@oranje68 You have the power to change that. The gaelscoileanna movement is one of the largest cultural shifts occuring in Ireland, comparible in its long term implications to the EU accession of the 10 East Europe countries , so many of whom now live and work in Ireland. In the coming 10-15 years, far, far more Irish people will be competent in Irish that at any time since the famine, due to bunscoileanna and meanscoileanna as Gaeilge. Google it – 10% of all Irish primary and secondary schools now conduct ALL of their daily classes uniquely in Irish. It’s breathtaking.… Read more »
@Eireannach
Hey, Eireannach,I’m sorry to have to bring you back out of your ‘dream world’, but the only reason why those parents send their ‘little darlings’ to gaelscoil is because the students end up in way smaller classes then they would in the National Schools. It’s got nothing to do with them learning Irish although they do end up learning the language. It’s just to do with the parents having a certain amount of ‘snob’ value when they get into conversation with their friends.
Did anyone hear Dan Boyle singing on RTE radio this morning? What a lousy voice and crappy material, he wrote it himself and his piano playing sucked too. It was so bad that even Phat Skinney couldnt bring himself to say nice one Dan, or good job. It was pretty damn bad. But he,y there is your license fee at work and as well as that, does the green fella get a pension? It was horrific listening let me tell you.
Learning one language well will help them learning others. If the parents can also get their kids into smaller classes by this means, it looks like a good stragegy to me. Language capacity is language capacity, in whatever language. We should be using our knowledge of Irish as the basis for becoming a plurilingual society of people happy to communicate in lots of langauges.
@Eireannach
Sorry, I didn’t understand what you said!! Irish is a foreign language to me. If you said what you had to say in French or German I might have undertood you. Didn’t the ‘handle’ CorkPlasticPaddy give you a clue in that department???
Fair enough Paddy! You’re obviously a real plastic Paddy. If you learn Irish you could be, like the C13-16 Normans, ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’. My point is that there are 10,000s of Gaelic-speaker ‘hatchlings’ being reared in our primary and secondary schools. They will not have the same negative view of the Irish language that the 1960s-80s generation had, my generation, who associated Irish with medieval Christian Brothers and nuns. On the contrary, they will use Irish as a code to recognise one another, and in what may become a snobby twist, Irish will become an ‘insiders’ language… Read more »
Eireannach
I believe the original Irish as we know it here came from NW Africa and not Europe .And it arrived by Boat .
I agree with Colin. Have read many articles saying that Gaelscoil is nothing more than an elitist school for parents who don’t want to send their children to the local for example Educate Together school. What has changed in Irish society in recent years is the attitude towards Irish. Since the 90s, the Irish language has started to experience new popularity in Ireland. The same goes for Irish culture both in Ireland and abroad (success of River Dance etc). I’m not so sure about the future of the Irish language in Ireland, never mind Europe. This is of course very… Read more »
I rest my case!!!!
My wife is deputy principle of a country primary school and the only teacher in the school with a degree in French .She takes early retirement next week .
Many of her ex pupils who since received their degrees in French attribute their knowledge in primary school as an advantage later in life .
War in Iraq declared over….
yipee…!!!!!!!
yeah right..and Enda has our best interest’s at heart !!
Interesting that a lot of the senior politicians can switch flawlessly into gaelic and being bilingual does not stop thrm being totally out of their depth.
God protect us from zealots
@Eireannach. First and foremost I’m not a nitwit and secondly I’m not a ‘blow in’. I may have been born in England of Irish parents and I consider myself to be Irish. In point of fact I chose to be Irish. When I applied for a passport I had to decide between either one for the UK or an Irish one and I chose the Irish option. I don’t have an English accent either in fact I have a Cork accent and I’m proud of that fact and if you’re wondering how I have a Cork accent it’s down to… Read more »