problems of language education with regard to regional and indigenous languages
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dietzgm at YAHOO.DE
Mon Apr 18 21:03:17 UTC 2011
I know the case of Ireland quite well. Yes, the education program is not effective if you measure the outcome for the money which has being spent on the teaching of Irish. But I do not think that Irish is a case of total failure. The success of Hebrew is the result of favourable factors having met together.
Due to education, the Irish language is far from being forgotten in the societal mind. And, as I have said, some people do have enough skills to converse with you in Irish throughout the country. Since a few decades, the prestige of Irish has continually risen outside the Gaeltacht. Today, people with fluent Irish have the respect from others because this is considered as one sign of well-educated people. Indeed, the percentage of fluent Irish speakers is highest among well-educated people beside native speakers from the Gaeltacht. This is one reason that more and more Irish-medium schools have been opened.
If you address people in Irish in Ireland, most people with sufficient skills will engage with you talking in Irish. I have remarked that many Irish speakers are quite shy to start in Irish and have the fear that their skills are not that good in front of the other persons. It is not rare that I have myself noticed people who stated that they would have only a bit of Irish being able to converse with you about different topics in reality, perhaps while you are giving
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