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Project Background

Although English is the first language of the vast majority of Irish people, students are taught Gaeilge from the average age of 5. Despite years of schooling in the language 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 controversy. Politicians and pundits alike have accused educators of neglecting to teach Irish (Gaeilge) in a way that appeals and impacts on 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.

Finding Solutions

Increased emphasis in formal testing

In 2007, in an attempt to tackle this issue, the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin announced a significant change to the proportion of marks awarded for oral (spoken) Irish in the State exams.

With these changes applying to students enrolling in first year in 2007 it means that in 2010, there will be 40% of marks available for optional oral at Junior Cert and 40% for the oral exam in the Leaving Cert in 2012. This is a 4 fold increase at Junior Certificate level, and a 60% increase for the Leaving Certificate.

Innovative method of revitalizing Gaeilge

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.
Irish Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, 11th March 2007.

On the same day the then Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin announced an increased emphasis on the spoken language in the Junior and Leaving Certificate examinations, she initiated a project to investigate the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the teaching and learning of Gaeilge (Irish).

This project, and the project that followed it, take a new and innovative look at the teaching and assessment of the Irish language- focusing on the verbal communication skills of the student.

For these projects, Learnosity teamed up with the NCCA, NCTE and Foras na Gaeilge.

NCCA, NCTE and Foras na Gaeilge

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.

Large Scale Oral Assessments

Current Difficulties

Massive logistical problems exist in facilitating oral examinations at Leaving Certificate level. Traditional interview-style oral examinations take Irish 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 huge problems both practical and political. Teachers unions object 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 an ICT solution to facilitate such a large scale examination.

Solutions from Mobile Learning

In a country where the number of mobile phones exceeds the population mobile devices can play a vital role in the teaching of languages. Not only does m-learning use technology that most -if not all- Irish teenagers are thoroughly familiar with, mobile phones have an added advantage in the field of language learning.

The benefits of m-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 m-learning in second-level education has been somewhat overlooked.

During an initial the five-week pilot project, which took place in a school Ratoath County Meath, we developed, consulted and managed a m-learning system with the aim to facilitate large-scale spoken examinations on mobile devices and motivate students with the fun and familiar props of a mobile phone and web-chat.

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)

Further Reading