“The desirability of an oral assessment at junior cycle is accepted but the model in place at Leaving Certificate is not replicable due to issues of examiner supply and school disruption. The NCCA work on the FÓN project testing mobile phone and information communications technology approaches to language learning... will help to inform how this issue might be addressed in the longer term.”
Minister for Education, Batt O'Keefe.
Although English is the first language of the vast majority of Irish people, students are taught an Gaeilge (the Irish language) from the average age of 5 years. Despite years of being taught the language in school, a great number of students leave school in their late teens with a less than satisfactory grasp of Irish
The way in which to educate Irish students in their native tongue is a subject that has long caused debate. Politicians and pundits alike have accused educators of neglecting to teach Irish in a way that is appealing and relevant to Irish teenagers. They argue that this apparent lack of enthusiasm towards the Irish language is ultimately leading to the cessation of conversational Irish amongst young people and the language is slowly dying out with each new generation.
In 2007, in an attempt to tackle this issue, the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin announced a significant change to the proportion of marks to be awarded for oral (spoken) Irish language in the State exams.
With these changes applying to students enrolling in first year in 2007, in 2010, there will be 40% of marks available for an optional oral exam at Junior Certificate (14-15 year olds) and 40% for the oral exam in the Leaving Certificate (16 to 17 year olds) in 2012. This is a 4 fold increase at Junior Certificate level, and a 60% increase for the Leaving Certificate.
Minister Hanafin realised that in order to keep the Gaeilge language alive, there needs to be changes in the way Irish is taught, not just in the way it is tested.
“The way to bring a language to life is to be able to converse in it every day. The Irish language is interwoven with our history and our cultural heritage - we need to nurture and preserve it and pass it on to the next generation.”
Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin.
On the same day the then Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin announced an increased emphasis on the spoken language in the State exams, she initiated a project to investigate the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the teaching and learning of Irish.
Learnosity teamed up with the NCCA, NCTE and Foras na Gaeilge for this project and the project that followed. The team embarked on a new and innovative look at the teaching and assessment of the Irish language, focusing on the verbal communication skills of the student.
The aims of the project centered on the promotion of student oracy, motivation, and language competency while promoting the use of Irish for communicating. However, ultimately the aim of the project was to trial a possible ICT solution to facilitating a large scale oral examination.
The aims of the project centered on the promotion of student oracy, motivation and language competence while promoting the use of Irish for natural and normal communication. Ultimately the principal aim of the project was to trial a possible ICT solution with a view to facilitating a large scale oral examination.
Sizeable logistical problems exist in facilitating spoken examinations at Leaving Certificate level. Traditional interview-style oral examinations take Irish language teachers out of schools, allowing them to act as examiners in another school. This system takes large numbers of teachers out of their schools at a critical time of year, presenting problems both practical and political. Teachers unions objected to the adoption of the optional Junior Certificate oral examination under the current regime, arguing that the absence of teachers at the vital time has a detrimental effect on exam students.
Given such circumstances, it is virtually impossible to provide oral Irish examination at Junior Certificate level on a mandatory or optional basis to a large candidature. Learnosity was asked to develop a solution to facilitate such a large scale examination.
In Ireland the number of mobile phones in use exceeds the population; mobile devices can play a vital role in the teaching of languages. Mobile learning uses technology that most Irish teenagers are thoroughly familiar with.
The benefits of mobile learning in language education have been widely documented. However, while projects using mobile devices and computer-mediated communication have been integrated into third-level language education, the use of mobile devices for learning in second-level education has been somewhat overlooked.
“The mobile phone has one facility that makes it better than most PCs. It has been designed to deliver audio. You can listen to, or even talk with a real person. It is this mix of audio and text that make delivery of certain types of learning content possible.”
Clark Quinn, Director of Cognitive Systems at Knowledge Planet, cited in Shephard (2001)
Learnosity Voice was used for both phases of the NCCA project known as MALL and FÓN. Here are some of the key findings from the projects:
Read more the MALL and FÓN projects by using the links over to the left. See more about NCCA projects in the media.
