Fòram na Gàidhlig

Sanas Naidheachd Fionnlaigh:

It is now possible given the right kind of help and support to bring a complete non Gaelic speaker to a Gaelic conversational level really fast and without too much hassle. How? Come and take a course at the new Moray Language Centre based in Buckie, on blocks of 2, 4, 6 weeks of an 8 week Gaelic acquisition course, beginning July 2011 and find out how its done.


Likely students need to know that these, Gaelic courses contain no reading, writing, grammar or tr*nsl*t**n, this means no books, pens, paper, note taking etc. to contend with, however, the use of personal recording devices is high recommended.

The thing to remember is that the course is all about acquiring everyday spoken Gaelic that one can use easily and comfortably around the home, with one’s partner, children, family members, friends, neighbours, visiting and visitors etc. Moreover, the courses will be not have more than 15 people at any one time, so they will be quite intimate and very non competitive; it is all based on team effort and therefore, important that everyone succeeds, it is also about enjoying the learning process, while making friends and helping others to acquire Gaelic conversational skills.

If any of this appeals to you or your partner, friends etc., please get in touch with me Finlay at finlay@cnsa.org.uk or telephone (…01542-836322 so that we can have a good chat about what is on offer at this new and exciting learning space.

We would also appreciate it if you would pass this information around as widely as possible. At the same time, we are also seeking volunteer fluent Gaelic speakers for a variety of tasks, so please give us a call as well.


For information regarding this news bulletin please contact:

Finlay Macleoid

Moray Language Centre Mobile (…07789-826934

11 Campbell Street Home (…01542-836322

Portessie finlay@cnsa.org.uk

Buckie
Moray AB56 1TJ

An e cùrsa Ùlpan a th' ann?

Seonaidh wrote:An e cùrsa Ùlpan a th' ann?

Oooooo... nach olc thusa!

Seo TIP!

(Funny, I thought Finlay's world came to an end with the withdrawal of funding by BnaG. Was that merely melodramatic histrionics?)

The organisation did come to an end. This doesn't mean he will stop fighting for Gaelic

Is there a difference in these new courses in Moray to previous TIP classes offered? (If TIP is what they are?)

There was always a lot of debate on here about methods and effectiveness of the TIP approach in earlier posts, including by Graisg himself if I remember rightly, but these announcements about the Moray courses are all basically just presented as - presumably - a good thing (I hesitate to say as ads), without comment, so I am wondering if I've missed something here. I'm simply not experienced with TIP as such and have my own ideas and experiences re language-teaching and learning (the basic one being that there is no one method that is right for everyone, so teachers and providers need to be multi-skilled and flexible) so would be interested in hearing what makes this different / likely to succeed to the extent promised. Graisg, can you maybe comment, as you're the one posting the information?
Or give a link to any relevant site with more detail.

I get quite a few e-mails from Finlay and I sometimes put that information up here. As news and ads as others do, the most recent being Coinnich with Campa Oigridh. Personally I feel that no one should have a monopoly on teaching Gaelic and it's good to see Finlay continuing his involvement as a prominent Gaelic activist/teacher. As far as I know there is no website, anyone seeking further information can phone or e-mail Finlay.
I went to some of the classes when Finlay ran a TIP weekend in Nairn two years ago and I thought it valuable. I was introduced to three sisters who had been learning with TIP, one of them for a year at that time, two others for less than that. They were all capable of conversation, or more importantly keeping the conversation going if they made a mistake. What was striking too was their confidence and the effect that that had on other students in the group.

Is the course likely to succeed to the extent promised? I don't know. Maybe all methods should have a money back guarantee if they don't work.

Further debate about the effectiveness of various methods is probably a waste of time because we've been there before as Faoileag points out.

Well of course there shouldn't be a monopoly, but one of my main criticisms of Finlay (other than his refusal to hold a debate) was the apparent lack of separation of concerns in the way he built CNSA up into TAIC.

However much I hate the thinking behind the TIP methodology, it does have the potential to be commercially successful on the grounds that it's easy to market and the cost of teacher training is minimal -- perhaps even more so than Ùlpan. TIP might actually benefit from the closure of CNSA, because it might mean that Finlay starts talking about one thing at a time rather than everything at once.

But if he keeps talking about intergenerational transmission when he's trying to sell adult education, he'll never achieve the commercial success he could so easily get....

Mayhap, in the end, it'll resolve itself anyway. After all, in a big language you have the luxury of being able to study different acquisition methods because your target group is massive (usually). So you could research the effectiveness of, say, TIP vs Ùlpan vs College vs other methods and have some confidence that given a bit of goof filtering, you could indeed evaluate which method statistically works the best.

But this is Gaelic and there's very few if any who rely on a single method. I've yet to meet someone who has come to Gaelic who has solely relied on one type of course/teaching to get to some level of fluency. Strictly speaking, even switching BBC Alba on changes the conditions of your learning and I have yet to meet someone who has obeyed Fionnlagh's mantra of "no writing" or Ùlpan's mantra of "no explanations please, we're Scottish".

So in the end, all learners find their own mix. Which I guess only leaves the philosophical debate about whether they do what it says on the tin but then, there are other miracle cures out there from weightloss to bodypart enlargement, none of which actually work. So why should Gaelic be safe from that

Isn't it about 1% of learners that actually reach some level of fluency? Whatever the mix of learning methods? On that basis one could be forgiven for saying that none of them work but of course it isn't as simple as that, or is it? Perhaps we should spend £5 million on research to find out for sure?

It's not THAT bad. Alasdair MacCaluim did some research some time ago, based on 413 responses from CLI members. 15% said they were fluent, 10% advanced. See for yourself: http://www.akerbeltz.org/rannsachadh/gaeliclearners.htm

Tl 's ann air toradh Alasdair a bha mi a smaoineachadh air adhbhar air choireigin nuair a sgriobh mi sin gu h-ard. Co-dhiu mhothaich mi:

"It also must be remembered that many CLI members are not learning Gaelic – there are many “fellow travellers” – people who have tried and failed to learn Gaelic and people who are interested in Gaelic but are not learning it. There are also some members who are native speakers."

Tha sin dìreach a' sealltainn dhuinn de bha dol air adhart ann an Cli ann an 1998. 'S ann le moran dìreach dòigh airson ceangail fhaighinn leis a' Ghàidhlig agus chan ann gus fileantachd ruigsinn seadh. Mur a bheil comas leughaidh sa Ghàidhlig fhaodaidh tu beurla a leughadh air an darna taobh ceithir tursan gach bliadhna. Ciamar a tha cùisean a-nis? Ca bheil na luchd-ionnsachaidh a tha tighinn gu buil nar linn-ne? Tha Cli a' cumail a-mach gur e "Guth Luchd-ionnsachaidh na Gàidhlig anns an 21mh linn" a th' annta. 'S docha gu bheil ach seo guth eile:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5 ... 831&v=wall
Chan eil a h-uile neach-ionnsachaidh a' gabhail gnothaich le Cli. A bheil fios aig duine sam bi dè am ballrachd a th'aca an taca ris cia mheud luchd ionnsachaidh air feadh an t-saoghal? Saoil 50%? aig a char as motha? Dè a tha dol air adhart san fharsaingeachd. Bidh e inntinneach faighinn a-mach cia mheud san Fhoram seo a tha air ballrachd a thoirt a-mach leotha. Co-dhiù, air ais gu toradh Alasdair. Sgrìobh e ann an 2006 Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig - Air iomall an iomaill? td 192/193

"Tha barrachd luchd-ionnsachaidh a-nis a' fàs fileanta na bha aig toiseach nan naochadan mar thoradh air na dian-chùrsaichean. Ach feumar a ràdh gu bheil na h-àireamhean fhathast gu math ìosal agus gur e àireamh gu math beag anns a' cheud dhen luchd-ionnsachaidh a tha a' ruigsinn fileantachd aig a' cheann thall. Chànainn-sa gu bheil eadar 100 agus 200 a' fàs fileanta gach bliadhna aig a' char as motha."

"Chànainn-sa" Saoilidh mi gur e dìreach tomhais a tha siud, agus "Eadar 100 agus 200 aig a' char as motha" 15% no 30 % no 7.5% no nas lugha na sin? Ma tha fios mionaideach aig duine sam bith bhithinn-sa fada nad chomain. Saoil am bi Soillse an sàs dheth?

Just throwing this into the mix:

http://www.celticheart.ca/blog/g%C3%A0i ... aelic-home

Na bithibh a' diochuimhnicheadh ar co-oghaichean Ceap Breatannach!

Gràisg wrote:Isn't it about 1% of learners that actually reach some level of fluency? Whatever the mix of learning methods? On that basis one could be forgiven for saying that none of them work but of course it isn't as simple as that, or is it? Perhaps we should spend £5 million on research to find out for sure?

I don't think "whatever" is the right word here, or at least not next to "the mix".

I suggest that success many of us here have achieved is mostly down to "the mix of learning methods", and not to a single course.

Studies of language acquisition do not (and often cannot) know the mix that individuals have followed -- surveys are subject to the responder's bias, and to the limits of memory. If you ask carefully, I'll suspect you'll find that all Finlay's success stories have broken his rules. I remember a couple of years ago he posted a testimonial from someone in Canada, and she mentioned using grammar books and the like....