W2A-006 Irish in education-0.txt
A LANGUAGE POLICY FOR IRISH SCHOOLS

Helen &/O Murch&/u

<&Irish> Comhar na M&/uinteoiri Gaeilge

This paper looks, in a general way, at the State's overall language policy in education (including some aspects of the current debate) and makes some proposals.

The reasons why people learn languages or - more significantly - are offered languages for learning are many and varied. They range from the exigencies of purely utilitarian short term needs to richly cultural long term aspirations. All - in their different ways - may be a source of individual and societal enrichment. Many, unfortunately, are often presented as being mutually exclusive, although this is not necessarily the case. Some aims, particularly when followed by successful outcomes, may generate others. No argument, however, is generally as clearcut as a purely superficial examination may convey. Most explanations on language learning seem too often embedded in a complex cluster of often almost contradictory factors, usually emanating from several sources, and rarely clearly grounded in some basic easily comprehended principles. Too often, they serve only to illuminate the particular personal/societal biases of the moment. This is especially, but not uniquely, the case in Ireland.

The individual's access to languages is constrained by three possibilities: self-instruction, what the market and commercial language schools decide as most lucrative, and what the state system offers. The state's language policy is then of crucial importance, needing clarity and coherence. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case in Ireland.

Languages and Educational Policy in Ireland
Policy is generally taken to mean 'any broad statement of aims' (Johnson, p.2) or 'general principles and courses of action designed to achieve some educational purpose' (Kellaghan in Mulcahy, p.193). However, the mere existence of the policy or idea is not sufficient, as Johnson shows. 'It must then be operationally defined. Any necessary resources must be prepared.' On this basis, it would appear that we have no lack of policy statements on the languages currently offered, or not offered, in our educational system; that some courses of action have not been defined; but that we still do not have a coherent language policy, encompassing all the linguistic possibilities of our actual and potential situation. I leave aside the vexed question of resources! Language policy, such as it is, is generally taken to refer to the Irish language only, which does little service to either Irish or the other languages in the school system. There are also parallel policies on the different languages taught at present. What is lacking is a coherent planning framework with some attempt at least at mutually complementary decision-making processes. This is not due to lack of advice. The Report of the Board of Studies on Languages (August 1987) to the (then) Curriculum and Examinations Board, for example, was a preliminary move in this direction.
A recent publication on Irish educational policy (Mulcahy and O'Sullivan, eds.) offers several reasons for this lack of coherence: piecemeal change, lack of longterm planning, the influence exerted by individuals and pressure groups on government planning. In other words, neither the existence nor the needs of systems are admitted by adhocery.

To this must be added the problems of the politician as policy-maker, 'the primary consideration of most governments being to maintain, and if possible, extend their power, influence and acceptability' - italics mine - (Johnson, p.3) and what O'Sullivan calls 'the atheoretical character of educational thinking in Ireland' (in Mulcahy and O'Sullivan, p.265) with subsequent over-emphasis on 'issues', often unrelated, and the need for Ministers to find 'a new issue which can be identified with them and provide a direction for their term of office'." No wonder'slogans', as short and pithy as possible, high-sounding, capable of many satisfying interpretations but deriving from no internally consistent set of principles, are popular as explanations of 'policy'. Our chief policy-makers wish to be unambiguously ambiguous, all things to all men, the stuff of survival. This is not, however, to preclude the use of some snappy formulations of coherent policy principles, a national language policy, - reflecting our vision of ourselves as Irish national and European citizens - designed to grab public attention and stimulate public imagination, not to mention placating our hard-pressed politicians.
The language policy of a country is, of course, most clearly seen in the total linguistic education it offers its populace. This should not, however, occlude the fact that this is not the only way the policy is either manifested or developed. '...language policy is formulated and implemented and accomplishes its results within a complex interrelated set of economic, social and political processes which include, inter alia, the operation of other nonlanguage state policies' (&/O Riag&/ain, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, No 70). 'National language policies are determined by socio-political pressures which vary from one culture and socio-political system to another' (Johnson, p.3). If 'coherence' is taken to mean the realisation by planners of the interdependence of all the factors involved in the decision-making process, two facts follow. First, there must be a clearly visible relationship between school language policy and general education policy in combination with state language policy - and overall state policy for the country and its people. A framework of the 'policy planning/determination' advocated by Rodgers (in Johnson) might be a useful place to begin such a consideration particularly by adapting it to local circumstances. Beginning with the syllabus and hoping that overall changes in state policy can thus be developed or inferred is not a course favoured by Rodgers. 'When new educational goals are sought or old goals are felt to have been inadequately realised, specification of a new syllabus has been the typically favoured solution' (p.25). This 'linear model' he rejects for 'more multi-dimensional qualitative, interactive participant extended' approaches. Secondly, since education is but a part of the larger state and social systems, Swales (in Johnson) argues for an 'ecological opportunity-cost based' approach, which would take into account the fairly precarious balance in which the various subsets of the system co-exist. He asks very valid questions about what one can (or cannot)'afford' to do (or not to do). Are we only planning changes or genuinely attempting radical new policies? Or merely trying to be in pace with the fashion? We must attempt to find out what we don't know, determine whether we are asking the right questions before we provide any solutions. There is a world of difference between: "<&Irish> 'An t&/e nach bhfuil a fhios aige agus go bhfuil a fhios aige nach bhfuil a fhios aige'

" and "<&Irish> 'An t&/e nach bhfuil a fhios aige agus nach bhfuil a fhios aige nach bhfuil a fhios aige!'

"
"('He who does not know and knows he does not know' and 'he who does not know and does not know he does not know!)"

In summary, what is needed then is a much clearer indication from our policy-makers (with perhaps much clearer guidance from those who counsel them) as to what constitutes the current national language policy of our state; how that is to be manifested across the state apparatus; how it is particularly expressed in and across the education system; how the aims of the policy are variously met by the specific objectives of the different language syllabi it encompasses. Coherent curricula are those 'in which decision outcomes from the various stages of development are mutually consistent and complementary and learning outcomes reflect curricular aims' (Johnson, xiii). Much has been accomplished, particularly in education and particularly in recent years. But the degree of parallelism that exists is still excessive, to the detriment of individual and organisational effort. It is not a case of attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable, but of ensuring complementarity instead of competition within our language syllabi. Fire-brigade action should ideally have no place in language policy. The fact that it is necessary is a clear admission of something rather less than perfection in this most important of state enterprises.

Two statements will serve to indicate what are considered to be the general aims of our educational system.
In his introduction to the White Paper on Educational Development of 1980, John Wilson, then Minister for Education, wrote in his Foreward that: An educational system serves a dual purpose - to conserve traditional values and to prepare for the future. It provides for the task of interpreting the essential features of a social and cultural heritage and, at the same time, that of preparing the young for life in a society characterised by ever-accelerating change. To contribute towards the development of all aspects of the individual, including aesthetic, creative, critical, cultural, emotional, intellectual, moral physical, political, social and spiritual development, for personal and family life, for working life, for living in the community and for leisure. (In our schools, March 1986)
Both appear to derive largely from the Socratic view of education, enlarging the range and repertoire of each person, in the root sense of 'educare'. Both are in some difficulty with other views current that, as Peter Abbs puts it, are concerned not 'about the interior meanings of education, but the external uses to which education can be put' - italics mine - (Sunday Times, November 1987). Languages, and their 'usefulness', relative to one another, are a major part of this argument. The aims of our various language syllabi attempt some accommodation with these differing viewpoints, but not within a clear overall policy statement relating simultaneously to all the languages on the curriculum. Little, if any, attemp is made at elaborating general transferable principles that could benefit both teacher and taught. No attempt is made at situating the languages and their stated aims within the general educational aim. There may well be good reasons for this but difficulty is not one of them.

It has been stated publicly by some closest to the evolution of our current syllabi that 'dirty words' such as 'profit' and 'cost-effectiveness' must be introduced into our educational vocabulary. This is perfectly legitimate - once the parameters for cost-effective analysis have been clearly and unequivocally marked out. Otherwise, it is education itself that will become the 'dirty word'. Criteria for the 'usefulness' of different languages, and the life-enhancing possibilities inherent in all of them need rigorous categorisation in relation to the state's language policy, the general aims of education and the objectives of the various syllabi. Such an extension of the concept of 'usefulness' would of itself be a most useful contribution to the 'rational consideration of the language policy in our educational system' which Dr. Edward Walsh called for in 'Comhairle', January 1988.

Irish and English

Looked at objectively, it is clear that our two indigenous languages, Irish and English (in historical order) serve the general educational aims cited rather well, each in their different way, and would have to be considered an indispensable component of state language policy. Questions have been raised, however, about the relative 'value' of the intensity and duration of school exposure to Irish as L2. But when seen against what should be their proper educational context, the argument which some people have made must be regarded as personalised and fragmented. A dispassionate discussion of the question of universal Irish at Senior Level, for example, requires that more fundamental questions first be answered. For example, is a specialist or broadly based Senior Cycle envisaged? Our present Senior Cycle is broadly based. It is a widely held view that such a broadly based system is not only a creditable one, but better than a specialised approach. Obviously, the opposite view is also held. But we are not alone in preferring our kind of system. Scotland, too, has rejected over-specialisation and England - and Wales - are considering certain changes in the same direction.

Anyway, if serious consideration is being given to the educational experience offered by our Senior Cycle, one must begin with the question of whether we continue with our broadly based approach, revised if necessary, or whether we opt for specialisation. In the absence of such a consideration of the first fundamental question, it seems perverse and tendentious to single out one subject without defining what the debate is really about. The position of individual subjects must surely depend on whether one is talking about a specialist system or a broadly based system.

In this line of argument, assuming that one is going to continue with a broadly based system, it is not unreasonable to review from time to time what the core subjects in that broadly based system ought to be.
