Bilingual school 'shows benefits'

[ruighean]

Am faca sibh an sgeulachd seo mu dheidhinn sgeama dà-chànanach aig bunsgoil ann an Obar Dheathainn?

A-rèir coltas 's e sgeama math a th' ann ach dè na cànanan a tha iad a' cleachdadh? Beurla agus... Frangrais!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7351654.stm

[GunChleoc]

Uill, ma bhios a h-uile duine a' faicinn gu bheil e ag obrachadh leis an Fhraingis, 's dòcha nach bi iad an aghaidh an aon rud leis a' Ghàidlig.

[neoni]

chan eil an fhirinn cudthromach dhaibh. thathar air dearbhadh a-rithist agus a-rithist gu bheil sgoiltean dà-chànanach ag obair glè mhath agus gun dèan iad feum chruaidh air clann.

[Níall Beag]

Tha na sgoiltean Fraingis nas fheàrr nan sgoiltean Gàidhlig -- air sgàths gum bi fior luchd-labhairt na Fraingis ann. Ha blass ma Byehrlach ack moeran loochk-checkishk sna skoltchen Gallick a hahar me reesh.

OK, I'm overstating it a bit, but we cannot expand the Gaelic-medium system without more native teachers. There are native speakers of French available, so why not have bilingual French/English schooling? Bilingual kids will find it easier to pick up Gaelic as adults, if they so choose.

[GunChleoc]

Ha blass ma Byehrlach ack moeran loochk-checkishk sna skoltchen Gallick a hahar me reesh.

Theab mi bhith gun tuigsinn na bha thu ag ràdh

[Níall Beag]

My last post probably won't be very popular, but I do believe there's an important point there.

I don't have a great deal of experience of language teaching (OK, make that very little) but one thing I did notice was the difference between students of the English school and the German school.

I was teaching kids in after-school classes in the Spanish Basque Country, and an awful lot of the schools there are trilingual: Spanish, Basque and one of French/German/English.

The kids from the English-school were (obviously) at a more advanced level of English in terms of vocabulary and grammar than their German-school counterparts, but the German-school kids spoke English in a less Spanish way than the English-school kids.

Because of the popularity of English worldwide, there aren't many native teachers to go round, but there's a good supply of natives for the less popular German schools.

The English-school kids couldn't get their heads round English vowels, because they'll been speaking English most of there lives with teachers who only used the 5 Spanish vowels. The German school kids spoke English with German vowels and one even used a German R, but they were clearer.

Crucially, the English school kids thought they knew English and were speaking with a good accent, and wouldn't easily accept correction. The German-school kids were just more willing to learn.

If we put our kids through non-native Gaelic medium, they'll never speak like a native.

I don't want the FtMnG movement to expand until they can get native teachers, but I wouldn't want that to mean that kids lose out on the benefits of a bilingual education.

In the meantime, we should be getting more Hindi/Urdu, Polish, French, or anything into our classrooms -- there's plenty of people to teach them.

[yellow-ceitidh]

My French teacher has always been French, but one of the other classes had an English one.
Last year my German teacher was English, but this year she's French.
One of the Spanish teachers is Spanish but the other one is French (I chose German instead of Spanish).
In Year 7 our French teacher went on maternity leave and the candidates for her replacement were asked to give a demo lesson. The first one was from Brazil, Spanish first language (she was also going to be teaching Spanish). She could speak French OK, but barely knew any English. She wasn't chosen, but the other one was really good and became our French teacher.

I saw that on the news and was instantly thinking - why not Gaelic? Then again, if there is a shortage of teachers, French does share similarities with Gaelic (leabhar - livre, bileag - billet, airgead - argent).

[Neas Olc]

Uill, ma bhios a h-uile duine a' faicinn gu bheil e ag obrachadh leis an Fhraingis, 's dòcha nach bi iad an aghaidh an aon rud leis a' Ghàidlig.

Uill chan eil rudeigin mar sin ag obrachadh gach àm le cànanan beaga coltach ris a'Ghaidhlig, tha doaine ag radh "Oh uill tha Fraingis air e chleachdadh anns an soaghal, cha bhitheadh Gàidhlig cho feumail ris etc etc". Oir tha iad a'smoaineachadh sin, tha iad cuir nan cleann ann an scoilean le cànanan mòr. Cha ne an staid ionnan a th'ann.

[Níall Beag]

My French teacher has always been French, but one of the other classes had an English one.

etc.

A Cheitidh,

There's quite a difference between high school level second-language classes and being taught through the medium of a language from and early age.

I got a lot out of my high school French and Italian, despite my teachers being quite clearly non-native speakers. Because the classes were all about grammar and vocabulary, and taught through the medium of English, I didn't pick up any habits in terms of everyday language -- instead I learnt these outside the classroom.

If I'd been taught by these same teachers through the medium of French for three hours a day, every day of the week, my French would be "better" in that I'd know more, but "worse" in that it would be very heavily caledonified, and accent is a very small part of that.

Why very small? Because if I speak French with an unnatural accent I will probably still be understood, and I won't affect French because there's a vast number of native French speakers. But if half of the next generation of Gaelic speakers are speaking it with a luchd-na-Beurla accent[*] then it will have a very pronounced (pun intended) effect on Gaelic.

Nìall.
[*] missing preaspiration of C,T,P; missing nasalisation of MH; hard V for BH,MH; short vowels instead of long; inappropriate voicing of B,D

[An Gobaire]

It's not necessary that they be native speakers, but that they have near-native competency in the language, (including accent).
How many speakers on radio nan gaidheal do you know? There are many that are not native speakers, but learnt the language themselves from native speakers, and therefore, have a near-native competency in the language. Ruairidh MacIlleathain, Angela NicIlliosa to name a couple.

Some teachers (if they are young) will actually be the children of native Gaelic-speaking parents, but they won't actually be native speakers themselves, because their parents wouldn't have used the language with them. However, they would have had a lot of exposure to the language, and it's in their "dualchas", so there's a good chance they can reach near-native competency, if they try.

[Seonaidh]

Chan eil mi "native speaker of Gaelic" - chan eil mi "speaker of Gaelic" idir - uill, tha mi ag ionnsachadh agus bidh mi fear den fheidhinn gu luath, tha mi' n dòchas. Ged-thà, tha mac agam agus bu toil leam a bhith cothrom aige airson ionnsachadh Gàidhlig anns an sgoil. Chan eil sgoil sam bith ann am Fìobha a tha a' dèanamh Gàidhlig (tha sinn a' fuireach ann am Fìobha).

[An Gobaire]

Tha mi an dòchas gum faigh sibh an cothrom sin a dhèanamh. Tha sgoil ann an Dùn Èideann.