Fòram na Gàidhlig

Taic/CNSA a' gairm cogaidh a-nis?

Embargo: None, for immediate use.
Starts:
International Experts Condemn Gaelic Quango

A Scottish government move to axe funding for the main Gaelic voluntary organisation, TAIC, has shocked international experts on endangered languages.

Development quango Bòrd na Gàidhlig is to withdraw all funding from TAIC (formerly known as CNSA) from March 2011 when present agreements expire. The Bòrd blames an agreement with the Scottish government known as "The New Gaelic Generation".

The move will effectively block the TAIC organisation's involvement in Gaelic medium pre-school provision in Scotland.

Now one of the world's best known researchers on multilingual education and linguistic human rights, Professor Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, has written to Scottish Education Minister Michael Russell pleading for funding for TAIC to be continued and increased.

She said "I am shocked. I have received lots of really inspiring materials from TAIC for many years. They are incredibly useful worldwide. I have forwarded them to dozens of individuals and organisations who represent Indigenous peoples and minorities, and who are trying to maintain and/or revitalise their languages. People have been mobilised, inspired, and happy to see all of it, and many have started thinking of or even doing similar things, in India, Nepal, Peru and other Latin American countries, several African countries, the Nordic countries, etc."

Professor Skutnabb-Kangas praised the volunteers who have been involved in the work of TAIC over many years. She said: "Witholding the funding is a real slap in the face to all those people who have spent hundreds of hours volunteering and doing the important work that TAIC does. I do not know of any other organisation in the world in the same field that would be doing it in as impressive a way as TAIC and I know through my research and activist networks hundreds of the relevant organisations."

Education expert Professor Michael MacIntyre of the University of Phoenix has also written to the Scottish Government condemning the move. He said: " I surveyed language programs from around the world, and looked at specific elements of the programs extant in Scotland. From my observations, one of the most important lynchpins – one might say the foundation – of any language revitalization effort focuses on early childhood education, such as Finlay MacLeod’s organization has been engaged in for the past 30 years."

TAIC director Fionnlagh MacLeòid is an outspoken advocate for the importance of the home environment in revitalising endangered languages. He has often clashed with prominent figures in educational establishment in Scotland whose policies have emphasised the importance of formal schooling. Mr MacLeòid sees school provision as necessary to Gaelic language revitalisation but not sufficient. He said "Time is running out. TAIC has been crucial in the development of some 60 Gaelic medium primary schools, numerous parent language courses, staff and tutor training courses that are at the forefront of international best practise. TAIC have brought these developments forward, very often under very tight financial constraints, severe staff shortages, and outright opposition by those who want to control or restrict Gaelic aspirations. Were it not for TAIC the Bòrd itself would not exist because there would be no Gaelic medium education, nor any need for the services that have grown up around it."
Ends

"Blame"? Ginealach Ùr na Gàidhlig is as ideologically close to Finlay's views as it could possibly be. The main points of divergence are
* that it explicitly supports Ùlpan and says nothing about TIP.
* that it recommends considering the findings of the Adult Learners Report by the University of Edinburgh and early years research, whereas Finlay considers that the research he has seen which claims to support his standpoint is enough.

In fact, my problem with the report is that it agrees far too closely with the unsupported claims that Finlay and his ilk have been pushing for however long now.

With that tiny little ideological gap between them, it is pretty hypocritical for Finlay to be standing up decrying those who want to "control" the language, when he has basically been so inflexible in his approach as to maneouver himself out of being a part of something he would fit so well into.

Yes, it's not like BnaG is denouncing early childhood language acquisition.

If TAIC/CNSA was still doing what it does best, which was the CNSA bit, then I might muster up some objections but TAIC/CNSA has gone through so many transformations and is trying to do everything at the same time that it's time for a wakeup call. Mayhap a little mental flexbility and willingness to compromise and admit that real research has its value might have brought about a different outcome.

And as you said, we're still waiting for the hard evidence on TIP
/me fights an unrelated coughing fit.

Dè an diofar eadar TIP agus Ùlpan? Tha fios agam air Ùlpan - no, 's dòcha, na dh'fheudadh e a bhith - agus tha sin glè choltach ri "total immersion" (TIP, tha mi a' creidsinn). Tha rudan mar sin ag obair - ma bhios ùidh agaibh orra - ach chan e a h-uile nì dhan uile duine a th' anntasan. Le dìth airgid, 's ann cruaidh a tha a' socrachadh dè as fheàrr eatarra. An toigh leibhse socrachadh mar sin? Agus bidh "eòlaichean" eadar-nàiseanta an-còmhnaidh a' càineadh na buidhne a thug an socrachadh. O seadh, facail mar "quango" a' nochdadh: cha bhi facal mar seo a' nochdadh nuair a bhios "eòlaiche eadar-nàiseanta" a' cur moladh air buidhinn am bi. Cruaidh amannan, cruaidh socrachaidhean.

Tha diofar mór eadar an dà rud.

Tha TIP a' cumail a-mach gun ionnsaich inbhich cànan mar a dh'ionnsaicheas duine cloinne agus tha gach rud stéidhichte air "bogadh iomlan", sin bruidhinn, éisteachd is cleachdadh ach gun teagasg foirmeil. Fiù gun fhòrmat no structar sam bith, fhad 's a chì mis' a' chùis.

Tha ged a tha Ùlpan a' cur cuideam air cleachdadh a' chànain cuideachd, tha e 'ga dhèanamh air dòigh eile. Chan eil Ùlpan a' cumail a-mach gun ionnsaich inbhich mar dhuine cloinne ach gum feum inbhich trì sgilean a thogail - éisteachd, ath-aithris agus an uairsin cleachdadh. 'S ged nach eil móran gràmar 'ga theagasg mar ghràmar fhéin, gheibhear e nas fhaide air adhart agus tha structar daigneann air cùlaibh gach aonaid.

A bharrachd air sin, tha Ùlpan stéidhichte air rud a tha ag obair ann an Iosrael agus sa Chuimrigh. Chan eil ann an TIP ach mac Fhionnlaigh. Chan eil sin ri ràdh gu bheil e gun fheum air sgàth sin ach tha TIP a' dol an aghaidh gach rud a dh'innseas luchd cànanachais dhuinn.

Aig a' cheann thall, cha sàbhail aon seach aon dhiubh an cànan leis fhéin 's cha doir aon seach aon dhiubh duine sam bith gu fileantachd as aonais taic a bharrachd. Bhithinn-sa toilichte le clasaichean TIP agus Ùlpan nam bitheamaid onarach mu dhéidhinn sin.

Saoilidh mi gu bheil Comhairle na Gàidhealtachd onarachd gu leòr mu dheidhinn TIP Edit oops Ulpan lol:

2.12 Whether or not Ulpan Gaelic classes will ultimately be successful in
creating new fluent Gaelic speakers is as yet unknown. The situation in
Scotland is different from Wales and Israel, in that there is not an
environment where-by learners can walk out of their classes and use
the language within the community, thereby affording them the
opportunity to consolidate their learning. Creating opportunities for
learners to practice the language must now be seen as a vital task in
taking Gaelic learning forward.

2.14 The down-side of Ulpan include the ‘relative’ expense in comparison to
traditional Gaelic classes (which tend to be close to self-financing), the
shortage of trained tutors, and some aspects of the administrative
process which could be stream-lined.
Aithris a chaid a sgrìobhadhà sa bheurla - pàirt den ghìomhachas a tha Gàidhlig tro mheadhan na Beurla.
tuilleadh an seo:
http://www.highland.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres ... 7G0610.pdf

Chan eil eòlaiche a th'annamsa seachad air na leugh mi no a dh'ionnsaich mi nuair a rinn mi ceum Gàidhlig agus chan fhaca mi TIP ach aon turas gu ruige seo. Chuir Ulpan mo cheann trom-chèile (saoilidh mi gu robh mi air ais san arm) ach a thaobh TIP bha na h-oileanaich toilichte leis agus ann an deagh shunnd. Bha trìuir boireannaich bho Buchaidh an làthair ann an Inbhir Narann an latha ud agus abair thusa gu robh degah Ghàidhlig aca airson na dà bhliadhna, aon bliadhna agus sia miosan a bha iad air a bhith ag ionnsachaidh le TIP, bha iad uile comasach còmhradh a chumail a dhol. (horses for courses)
A-nis saoildih mi gum bi a h-uile càil a tha sin agus mòran a bharrachd a' dol as an uinneig leis a' chogaidh a th' ann eadar BnaG agus CNSA?Taic. 'S e suidheachadh truagh a th'ann.

Aig a cheann theall cha bhi dad sam bith feumal gun choimhearsnachd gus do chuid Ghàidhlig a chur an gnìomh. Ged a tha cothroman agam Gàidhlig a bhruidhinn 's e fhathast coimhearsnachd a dhith orm agus uaireannan saoilidh mi gu bheil na tha agamsa tuiteam as a chèile a thaobh cainnt. Ach tha plana ùr, ùr againn a-nis. Ma tha riaghaltas diofraichte againn ann an 2011 saoil am bi iad airson plana ùr,ùr, ùr a chur air dòigh?

akerbeltz wrote:A bharrachd air sin, tha Ùlpan stéidhichte air rud a tha ag obair ann an Iosrael agus sa Chuimrigh.

Chan eil.
Tha Ùlpan stéidhichte air na tha iad a' deanamh anns a' Chuimrigh. 'S e facal Eabhrach a th' ann an Ulpan, ach chan e "methodology" Iosraeleach a th' ann. Tha iomadach doigh teagaisg anns na h-Ulpannim. Agus tha an t-siostam anns a' Chuimrigh air atharrachadh gu mór bhon a thòisich iad.

Tha mis' air cursa a dheanamh leis an Oilthigh Fosgailte -- cùrsa a bha a' leantainn syllabus Wlpan ach le eadar-theangachadh.

Tha draghan móra-fhéin orm mu dheidhinn na cùrsa ud, agus an doigh 's an ordugh teagaisg. Bha trioblaidean móra air mo "classmates" le puingean sìmplidh na gramair a bha cho furasda ri mineachadh, ach gun mineachach sam bith, bha iad a deanamh mearachdan fad na tide. Completely avoidable mistakes.

There's also the tacit admission in a lot of the literature surrounding both Wlpan and Ùlpan that it is really a course for false beginners, not true beginners. I haven't seen any convincing evidence of Wlpan's much touted "success", and if there is any, it'll be fading fast as they run out of false beginners.

Ok where to start LOL

The criticism of a lack of a Gaelic speaking environment is true but only outside Gaelic speaking areas which do still exist. I totally agree that the lack thereof and the fact that many courses, in spite of recommendations, only have one session a week greatly hinders progress.

It's also true that the Israeli Ulpan was quite different, as was the socio-linguistic situation, after all, Scotland isn't a nation in its awakening, but the idea the Welsh took came from there.

Given other input, it can work quite well. I happen to know last year's (Welsh) learner of the year who did the intensive summer Wlpan. She's American and has a boyfriend from a very strongly Welsh speaking family and she can now - at the very least - follow and participate in their Welsh speaking family setting even if she obviously still has much to learn.

The expense of the traditional evening class, well, personally I must say I welcome that. They have been, ever since my first one, one long string of dire experiences with very few exceptions. It may be that in the Highlands they're better but down here, they're usually council run and they'll hire absolutely anyone who can string a Gaelic sentence together. Regardless of their ability to teach of course. Which means that every now and then you get a good speaker who's a natural teacher and whose students do well. For the most part, I've found them ineffective coffee rounds. If nothing else, Ùlpan is the first course that puts a physical course with (whatever one's bones with it may be) a structure and philosophy behind it, making it much less dependent on being lucky enough to find a natural teacher.

Of course it's not the course for everyone, I'd go bananas myself but then I have a *very* traditional approach to learning languages, I just need the rules. Incidentally, Dàbhidh himself has always said that Ùlpan is not the ultimate answer to the Gaelic problem in Scotland but that he wants to take the first step in raising it to a new, higher level causing development in other areas. I personally hope that it will force other learning methods to evaluate their often totally haphazard approach and build some world class, cutting edge, all singing all dancing courses other than Ùlpan. But that probably wouldn't happen without the new bully on the block

I've had quite a close association with one of the few long-running TIP courses. A good half are false learners, and the others make varying progress. There's no research (surprise...) on the outcomes of TIP but I would hazard a guess that some true beginners will reach a certain level of ability and then stagnate. There's obviously no research on the Gaelic Ùlpan yet though there is for Welsh. Problem is I don't read that particular lingo :/ Allegedly it works. They're having fun, undoubtedly but I would bet the cat that we will never see even moderate numbers of TIP learners who reach full fluency using ONLY TIP.

I've always said that neither works well on its own, TIP lacks structure and formal instruction, Ulpan lacks formal instruction (at the early stages). As Niall said, there are so many things a brief explanation can solve for a learner, especially in a language that is linguistically so distant. Now TIP, Ùlpan and traditional teaching would be the thing in conjunction...

akerbeltz wrote:Incidentally, Dàbhidh himself has always said that Ùlpan is not the ultimate answer to the Gaelic problem in Scotland but that he wants to take the first step in raising it to a new, higher level causing development in other areas. I personally hope that it will force other learning methods to evaluate their often totally haphazard approach and build some world class, cutting edge, all singing all dancing courses other than Ùlpan. But that probably wouldn't happen without the new bully on the block

And it won't happen at all as long as BnaG, the councils and other public bodies are all explicitly writing "Ùlpan" into their Gaelic plans. Why should I spend my time writing a killer Gaelic course when the councils have now publically promised never to use it?

I've had quite a close association with one of the few long-running TIP courses. A good half are false learners, and the others make varying progress. There's no research (surprise...) on the outcomes of TIP but I would hazard a guess that some true beginners will reach a certain level of ability and then stagnate. There's obviously no research on the Gaelic Ùlpan yet though there is for Welsh. Problem is I don't read that particular lingo :/ Allegedly it works.

You need to have a read of the literature - you won't like it. The only stuff I've seen is so superficial it's hard to believe it was peer reviewed.

Newcombe and Newcombe (2001) "Adult Language Learning: The Effect of Background, Motivation and Practice on Perseverance." International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 4(5), 332-354.

This paper in particular highlights that the Wlpan course was really difficult for true learners, but completely fails to accept that this is a problem. It concludes success based on:
a) a course run by staff at one of Wales's top universities.
b) returns of surveys, failing to expliciti account for the error in the mean caused by response rate
c) learners report "use of Welsh", not ability in Welsh.

When it comes to grammar, most people forget what a famous (19th c?) French linguist whose name I forget said:
"Grammar is a lever to lift the ambiguities out of a language; but it is vital that the lever is no heavier than the burden."

You love technical grammar because you can understand it, and it therefore explains everything to you. I'm pretty much the same. But grammar doesn't have to be explained in technical terms -- it should be explained in the most readily understandable way.

For example "the direct object of the verbal noun is realised in the genitive, or, in the case of pronouns, in the possessive" is technically correct.

Ùlpan sees the alternative as giving examples.

But there's a middle ground. It's a very simple comparison with things like: "I'm at its doing". That is explicit grammar teaching, but there's not a single technical term in it. There's a couple of bits of padding and expansion required, but that's really all you need.

Heh, if one thing is bad in education it's eternally chopping and changing. So I don't have a particular problem with us going through a phase when Ùlpan is written into frameworks. What's there currently is usually way worse.

And secondly, you can still write that killer course... then *sell* it as a commercial course. Pay peanuts get a monkey is true for language courses too... some of the worst Irish courses I've been to were the free ones (with some exceptions) and one of the best one a rather expensive one (for a student still at secondary school). There's no reason why there's no room for a commercial course as well. In fact, I'd dearly welcome one.

Interesting reading by the sounds, I must get a hold of that. But then, given the state we're in, even if all Ùlpan *ever* achieves is to lift those false learners to fluency, then it will be a resounding success in my book.

And I agree totally, grammar must be made digestable to those who don't have an innate flair for it. I've spent pretty much all of my working life trying to find ways of presenting the hard nut Gaelic pronunciation and grammar is to people in a comprehensible fashion without dumbing down.

I'm not talking about free/cheap/subsidised courses, I'm talking about the commercial contracts with the public sector bodies. The Gaelic Language Plans I've seen talk about supplying Ùlpan classes as part of staff CPD. This freezes any new methodology out of the big, stable contracts. It leaves everyone who isn't interested in Ùlpan scrabbling for individual students. Worse, in condemns them to antisocial hours -- evenings and weekends.

Ùlpan is creaming off the best business and crushing the market. Many of the Ùlpan teachers round my neck of the woods were teaching before Ùlpan came along. If we lose the other methodologies, where are the next batch of false beginners going to come from?

PS. Incidentally, I've searched several of the main electronic journal archives and can't find any mention of Wlpan in the major journals. If anyone knows of any papers other than the one I've mentioned, please do let me know.

Sorry but what other methodologies were there? Apart from the "big" courses, such as the cùrsa bogaidh at Stow and SMO courses, there were hardly any others that followed something educationalists would describe as having a methodology. An evening class or a conversation circle is not a methodology.

And perhaps Ùlpan is creaming off because nothing much else was in the pipeline? Outside the colleges, can you point me to one course that has taken that much time developing and that gives tutors that much material. I'm beginning to sound like I'm being hired by Dàibhidh to defend Ùlpan, which I'm not, but the truth is, while it's a far cry from perfect, it's scores better than most of the other airy fairy stuff that was/is kicking around.

And I'd love to hear of a new methodology that was in the making but has now frozen due to Ùlpan... like where?

And if there's such a demand for them, then people will flock to them still, even if offered commercially. I still get my private students who want voice coaching or suchlike. Ùlpan hasn't done anything to that. If anything, it has enlarged the pool of people who come asking.

And for the new generation of false beginners... Scotland is much too haphazard in its approach to teaching (Gaelic), there will always be false learners...

While many of the Gaelic teachers out there had no formal training prior to Ùlpan, there are still quite a few who have been trained, whether it be people with PGCEs/PGDEs, FE college/university tutors or certified English teachers. Each followed the methodology of their sphere in their evening classes. There may be a lack of pre-supplied materials, but that does not mean a lack of methodology.

In general, I'm not a fan of "methods", with their rigid curriculums -- the main benefit in Ùlpan is the ability to switch from course to course, but that can be achieved with a much less restrictive syllabus, which would leave those who are good teachers to do their own thing and teach a more personalised, less programmed course, while those who aren't quite as capable plod through the printouts.

We're of course both hampered by a lack of actual numbers but I would propose that the percentage of people teaching Gaelic outside uni/college who have ANY type of educational qualification in ANY language is less than 10%. That makes for an awful lot of potentially bad classes. And I'd like to hear of, say, 3 courses where there was a plan/method/methodology that went beyond "we're following TYG".

Yes, Ùlpan will probably force a few highly skilled tutors to rethink what they're doing which is a shame but as I said, if they're that good, they'll come up with another way. The main improvement will be the subsuming of all those really bad ones. I have come across more than one such course where teaching consisted of someone reading from a book...

I personally favour a much more loose approach myself but then, not everyone is you and me. And as I said, Ùlpan so far hasn't taken any business from me.

Read the article now; well, skimmed it... with the caveat of it being a small sample and being based on self-reporting to a large extent which is often a bad idea - they main "gripe" seems to be that the research found little hard evidence that it was Wlpan that brought the learners in question to the level they reached (as they didn't have a control group). On the other hand, of those who completed, the vast majority responded positively both in terms of perception and self-assessment. So at the very least, it's not doing any harm.