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AUTHOR Ihde, Thomas W., Ed.; Stenson, Nancy, Ed.TITLE Journal of Celtic Language Learning. Volume 1.INSTITUTION North American Association of Celtic Language

Teachers.REPORT NO ISSN-1078-3911PUB DATE 95NOTE 58p.

PUB TYPE Collected Works Serials (022) InformationAnalyses (070)

JOURNAL CIT Journal of Celtic Language Learning; vl 1995

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Computer Assisted Instruction; *Irish; Journal

Writing; Learning Strategies; Periodicals; SecondLanguage Learning; Speech Skills; Student Motivation;Uncommonly Taught Languages

IDENTIFIERS *Celtic Languages

ABSTRACTThis annual journal offers research articles, a

teaching forum, and announcements on Celtic language learning. Thepublication's mission is to provide a forum where teachers andapplied linguists can contribute to the literature presentlyavailable on second language acquisition as well as increasecommunication among Celtic language teachers and researchers.Articles included are: "Journal Writing as a Method of StudentMotivation in Irish Language Class" (Roslyn Blyn); "Dialects, SpeechCommunities, and Applied Linguistics: A Realistic Approach to theTeaching of Irish in Non-Irish Speaking Areas" (James J. Duran);"CALL With Methodical Explanations" (Annette McElligott and Gearoid 0Neill); nd "Teaching Speaking in Celtic Languages" (Zev bar-Lev). Alisting of materials receiyed concerning Celtic language is includedalong with a listing of conferences, workshops, and rules for articlesubmissions. (Contains article references.) (NAV)

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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thrt can be madefrom the original document.

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jocianAt ocCet:ocLAnsuaseLeArzramsVOLUME

1995

Editors

Thomas W. IhdeNancy Stenson

PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE ANDDISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL

HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

--Vc-cyn-ct,

TO THE EDUCATIONALRESOURCES

INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)

U S DEPARTMENT OFEDUCATION(Mice or Educabonai ReSearchana inIroovernen:E UCATIONAL.

RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

This document has been reproduced asecewed from the person or organizationoriginating il0 Minor changes

have been made toImprove reproduction quality-

_-,_Points ot view or opinions stated in this

C.C\document do not necessarily representofficial OERI position or policy

I Published by NAACLT:1--.1 North American Association of Celtic Language Teachers

2

NAACLTNORTH AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR CELTIC LANGUAGE TEACHERS

1995-1996 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Kara Smith, President, [email protected] lhde, Vice-President, ihde©pilot.njin.netRon Crow, Secretaryfireasurer, [email protected] W. Bid, Member-at-large, PWBIRT@UOTTAWAbitnetJohn T. Mc Crania, Member-at-large, [email protected] Ellyn O'Mullan, Member-at-large, [email protected] Blyn, Local Conference Chair, NAACLT'96

[email protected] Rudd, Constitution Chair, [email protected] Stenson, Co-Editor, Journal of Celtic Language Learning

[email protected]

NAACLT is a non-profit professional organization bringing together Celtic languageteachers and researchers In Canada and the United States. The association wishes toenable its members to contribute to the greater field of seconcirforeIgn languagelearning through conference participetion and publications.

Annual membership (1 August to 31 July) Includes a full year's subscription toNAACLT News, reduced registration fees at the annual conference, election ofc.fficers, and savings on Journal of Celtic Language Learning subscription rates.

MEMBERSHIP

(1 Regular Membership US$1511 Student Membership US$10

JOURNAL OF CELTIC LANGUAGE LEARNING (Vol. 2)

Wnstitutions(1 IndMduals11NAACLT Member

US$17 (US$20 Outside of North Am.)US$12 (US$15)US$10 (US$13)

Orders for volume two wfil not be taken after 1 October 1996. We hope to be able tooffer back copies on microfiche; however, this cannot be guaranteed. Checks shouldbe made payable to -NAACLT." Those outside Ulm United States of America shouldsend a money order In US dollars. Checks shoulu be sent to Mr. Ron Crow,Treasurer/Secretary - NAACLT, 3990 Havensport Road, Carroll, OH 43112-9711,United States of America.

Journal of Celtic Language LearningVolume 1 1995

Contents

RESEARCH ARTICLES

Journal Writing as a Method of StudentMotivation in Irish Language ClassRoslyn Blyn 4

Dialects, Speech Communities, and AppliedLinguistics: A Realistic Approach to theTeaching of Irish in Non-lrish Speaking AreasJames J. Duran 21

CALL with Methodical ExplanationsAnnette AkElligott and Gearbid 6 Will 38

TEACHING FORUM

Teaching Speaking in Celtic LanguagesZev bar-Lev 53

MATERIALS RECEIVED 55

ANNOUNCEMENTS 56

1.1

Journal of Celtic Language Learning

EditorsThomas W. lhde

Mexican Languagi PmfitaBergen Community Collage,

400 Paramus RoadParamus, NJ 07652-1595.

E-maii <Ihdatapilotnfin.net>

Martin J. BallUniversity of Ulster

Paul W. BirtUniversity of Ottawa

James J. BlakeNassau Community Colege

Marion GunnEverson Gunn Teoranta

Wayne HarbertCome university

Jeffrey L. KallenTitnity College Dubin

William MahonUniversity of Wales

Nancy Stensoninstitute of Linguistics and Asian andSki* Languages and Literatures,

University °Minnesota,190 laaeber Court 320-16th Avenue, SE,

Minneapolis, MN 55455.E-mail cstenson.masoon.lc.ummedu>

Editorial Board

Kenneth NilsenSt. Francis Xavier University

DOnall P. 6 Baoilllnstitiald Teangsolalochta Eireann

Liam 6 CuinneagiinMien Gael

Helen 6 Murch0Comhar na MOinteoiti Gaelge

Frederick SuppeBall State UnNersify

Marta WeingartnerIndiana University

Journal of Celtic Language Learning is an international review forresearchers and teachers of modem Celtic Languages. The officialpublication of the North American Association for Celtic LanguageTeachers, JCLL includes papers presented at the association's annualconference in addition to manuscripts submitted by Celtic languagescholars world-wide. It Is also a forum in which Celtic language teacherscan share insights into methodology with their peers.

JCLL's mission, similar to that of NAACLT, is to provide another forumin which teachers and applied linguists can contribute to the literaturepresently available on second language acquisition as well as increasecommunication among Celtic language teachers and researchers.

Journal of Celtic Language Learning(SorrcovEn ANNUAL - ISSN: 1078-3911)

JOURNAL OF CELTIC LANGUAGE LEARNING, 1, 4-20 (1995)

Journal Writing as a Method ofStudent Motivation in Irish Language

Class

ROSLYN BLYN

University of Pennsylvania

This article begins with a description of a journal writingassignment given in a first-year university class in Irish.Three sample journal entries are analyzed for grammar,vocabulary, and style. In each case salient errors areidentified and the journals are related to the students'overall performance. The pros and cons of using creativeprojects as part of elementary dasswork are discussed.Finally, recommendations are made for teachersconsidering the use of journal writing as a motivationalmethod.

Although there is abundant literatute on first-language(L1) journal writing (Elbow 1973, Elbow 1981, Shuman 1981,Sullivan and van Becker 1982, to name just a few), and ampleliterature on second-language (U) writing when U is a widelystudied language such as English, Spanish, or French(Connor and Kaplan 1987, Heald-Taylor 1989, Johns 1986,Kroll 1990, Raimes 1987, Zamel 1983), there is considerablyless information available on writing by students learning thoselanguages variously described as "minority languages" (cf.Crystal 1994), "less commonly taught languages" (a widelyused term endorsed by the Penn Language Center, where theclass under analysis was taught) or "lesser used languages"(the term used in the official name of the European Bureau forLesser Used Languages). These terms are fraught withambiguity and contradiction and reflect an insider/outsider biasregarding the language. This issue cannot be addressed herein sufficient depth to do it justice, it will perhaps suffice to saythat Irish is a "native minority" language within its home country

Journal Writing as a Method of Student Motivation 5

where it may be "lesser used" but, as a required subject in theRepublic of Ireland's school curriculum, is not less commonlytaught" In the United States, Irish can be described as an"immigrant" minority language which is both lesser used" and'less commonly taught" Among the few research endeavorswhich do address the use of journal writing in less commonlytaught languages in the United States are those concerningHungarian by Gedeon (1993) and Harlig (1993), which partiallyinspired this author's research on the topic as it pertains toIrish.

This "minority language" category includes Irish, alanguage whose population of active native speakers in Irish-speaking communities has been reported as having declinedto as low as 8,751 (Hindley 1990: 250) while its population ofat least nominally proficient speakers (native and second-language) has been reported at the high figure of 1,095,830 inpreliminary figures for 1991 by the Irish government(Breatfinach 1994). The latter statistic is generally consideredunreliable in that it includes many schoolchildren, who may bevery ambivalent about the language and who are assessed forthe census by their parents. Conservative, but not undulypessimistic, estimates for the mid-to-late twentieth centuryonwards generally range from 30,000 to 120,000 (Blyn 1991;Crystal 1987; Grimes: 1992). Although interest in thelanguage is growing among Irish-Americans (lhde 1994a),there is no cohesive Irish-speaking diaspora in the UnitedStates. According to lhde (1994b), there are few accreditedIrish language courses being taught in the United States.Many of the courses which do exist are community-focused,often unaccredited, and do not assign homework, even forbasic grammar drill, not to mention requiring an addedcomponent such as journal writing. Therefore, there is virtuallyno published information available on journal writing in Irish inAmerican university classrooms.

6 ROSLYN BLYN

THE 1994-95 ELEMENTARY IRISH LANGUAGE CLASS: ANOVERVIEW

Before proceeding with the journal-writing analysis, adescription of the class will be provided to set the assignmentin context. Accredited Irish classes were started at theUniversity in 1990 as an initiative of the Penn LanguageCenter, which sponsors the teaching of approximately fifty lesscommonly taught languages. The course continues for twoyears, at the elementary and intermediate levels, and it fulfillsthe University's language requirement, a fact which is veryimportant to most of the undergraduates in the class. Theclass meets for 4 1/2 hours a week.

All of the ten students were beginners to Irish, althoughone had had minimal exposure to the language in school as achild during the year his family spent in Ireland. All were atleast partially Irish-American, and most were taking the courseas an elective and/or for personal enrichment, not part of amajor such as Irish Studies or Celtic Studies, neither of whichis available at the University. One freshman planned to .

continue in Celtic Studies for graduate work but wanted abroader liberal arts background for her undergraduate work.

All of the students had previously studied secondlanguages, as this is required for admission to the University;most had studied Romance languages, particularly Spanish.In most cases however, their prior language-learningexperience had not motivated them to choose language-oriented majors. In a class survey, they reported career plansand majors in fields such as biology, engineering, finance,psychology and social work. Irish was clearly an electiveinterest for all except the one future Celticist

The journal-writing assignment was added to thecourse in an attempt to personalize the students' languagelearning experience and enhance the students' motivation tolearn material which otherwise may seem uninteresting tothem at times, such as verb conjugations or noun declensions.

8

1


The cultural differences presented in Irish pedagogicalmaterials, whether they represent contemporary Gaeltacht life,the urban revival, or folklore retold, make it difficult forAmerican college-age students to juxtapose learning Irish withtheir own life experience.

The proficiency goals in this class were in four areas:reading, writing, speaking and listening. Other methods usedin class were grammar exercises, dictation, reading shortfiction passages, conversations, and student presentations inIrish. Student attendance at Irish events was stronglyencouraged and the class as a group attended an Irish playand movie, which though in English, provided the basis fordiscussion of Hibemo-English idiom as a vehicle forunderstanding Irish. Assessment was based primarily onhomework, quizzes, tests, and class participation. Completionof the journal and presentation of one week's entry to the classcounted for 5% of the course grade; journal entries were notgraded though they were corrected and received commentary.

ME JOURNAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT

At the beginning of the semester, students wereinstructed to write approximately five sentences weekly,describing scenes or activities, or any other subjects whichthey chose. They were to use about five new words for eachentry, to be found in the Fockir Rica. New words were to belisted at the bottom of each entry, with gender. The instructorsuggested that students rely mainly on nouns for their newwords, since new verbs, other than verbal nouns, would bedifficult to use correctly at the beginning stages of learning thelanguage. The last day of class was devoted to students' oralpresentations of previous or newly written journal entries. Thepresentations were graded, not so much on correctness as onpreparation, delivery, and the students' familiarity with theirown material.

All students signed ielease forms indicating theirawareness of the study and that they would be identified by

8 ROSLYN BLYN

pseudonyms; unless otherwise stated, the students are all oftraditional college age. Journal entries are printed below assubmitted; all translations are by the author of this article.

JOURNAL SAMPLES

The first student. Sean, had a slight advantage overthe others in that he had spent one year of his elementaryeducation in Ireland and had studied Irish in school there,although Irish was not the family language. Sean's family isvery much in touch with its Irish roots, and his father recordedfor the instructor an informal session of reminisences whichdemonstrate a vivid memory of the idiom spoken by the oldergeneration of his family, including Hiberno-English and even afew Irish phrases.

At the beginning of the year, Seen claimed not toremember any of the language except answering "ta" ("yes") toquestions and a few phrases. As the semester progressed, itwas clear that some underlying memories were comingthrough. Of all the students, Seen seemed most able toexpress his thoughts in ratural Irish word order and toincorporate new grammatical structures or irregular forms intoan underlyingly Irish framework. Other students, in contrast,would often regress slightly as new and difficult forms werelearned; they would abandon recently learned grammaticalforms, vocabulary, spelling, or word order in favor of anEnglish framework, as they attempted to use new structures.

The following entry describes Sedn's visit home overthe Thanksgiving break:

Dé Ceadaoin chuaigh me abhaile. D'ith meturcai agus piog D'Ol me leann, dubh,pertar, agus poitin. Deirim raimeis cathainNairn porter. Catnain ni (Maim *tar, ti tartorm. De hAoine, bhi tart omi, agus d'Ol meleann dubh. Dé Sathairn, imeoidh me aris.

iO


Rachaidh me Washington D.C. POsfaidh mochol seisir. Ni Olfaidh me portar. Olfaidh meseaimpein.

Wednesday I went home. I ate turkey andapple pie. I drank ale, porter, and poteen. I

say nonsense when I drink porter. When Idon't drink porter, I am thirsty. Friday I wasthirsty and I drank ale. Saturday I will go awayagain. I will go to Washington D.C. My secondcousin will get married. I will not drink porter. I

will drink champagne.

Despite some awkward or incorrect usages, the textflows well and can be corrected with little difficulty. The mostobvious mistake, the omission Jf the relative "when" (nuair a)had not been covered yet in class. Sean had apparently triedto use this based on the dictionary entry for 'When" in Fuck*Poca. Even if the relative "when" had been covered by thistime in class, that is no guarantee that the student would haveused the correct form. Of the students in this class, only thosewho had studied German had prior knowledge of thegrammatical difference between the relative 'When" and theinterrogative "when."

The second entry is by an older, non-traditionalstudent, Seamus, who had frequently visited Ireland and whoremembered some Irish phrases and Hibemo-English idiomsused by his relatives. His writings included some deliberateuse of humor, such as a recaptioning in Irish of one of GaryLarson's "Far Side" cartoons, with a result that Larson'sfamous cows were drinking Guinness and grumbling about thefarmer in Irish. This work was presented orally in class andclearly achieved Seamus' desired result of making the classlaugh heartily. Sometimes Seamus' use of humor waseffective, despite grammar mistakes; other times, hisintentions were less clear, as the following example shows:

1 1

10 ROSLYN BLYN

Ta seanchat ag Brian agus Nôra, ach ta secaite. Ta a ceta salach agus stroicihe, agus nifaidir leis ag rith ar chor ar bith. Té siad ag dulisteach sa chathair agus ceannoidh siad catnua. Is féidir le cat ag canadh agus ag rince.Ta Brian agus Nera daoine aisteach.

Brian and Nora have an old cat, but he is wornout. His coat is dirty and torn and he can notrun at all (literally "he is unable at running.")They are going into the city and they will buy anew cat A cat can sing and dance (literally, "Acat is able at singing and dancing.") Brian andNora are strange people.

This journal entry not only contains some commongrammatical mistakes but also may give the reader, as it didthis author, an unsettling feeling regarding who is actually"aisteach" ("strange") and the proper care of pets. Brian andNora are described as "strange" but the unusual singing anddancing cat is not! The grammar mistakes reveal a tendencyto adhere to verbal forms learned first, even when instructed tochange them for certain purposes. For example, thepreposition "ag" ran is incorrectly retained followed theconsbuction "is féidir leis" ("he is able"), although the correctusage had been taught. Lenition was not applied following themasculine possessive adjective "a" ("his"), although this hadalso been taught The incorrect use of "ta" ("is') in a sentencewith a predicate subject is more understandable since thisstructure had not been formally taught yet in class; the classhad however been warned to avoid such constructions.

Seamus, like many older students who have been inthe Irish classes at Penn, is very diligent and thorough instudying the language. His grades are often very high, as longas the material being graded can be learned by memorizationor by applying rules. Unlike some of the younger students,

1 '


however, his basic grammar suffers in his creative applicationsof the language.

The third sample, by Mdire, the future Cefficist, was arecipe for flummery, a sweet oatmeal desert. The text of herrecipe follows:

Flummery, an t-oideas:

Cuir min choirce sa mias thanalacht. Nigh leuisce fuar agus fan an Id. Nigh le fionnuisce.Cuir min choirce, le fionnuisce, sa sdspan aguscocardil. Doirt sa mias. Ith le siOcra agus fion,leann, no ceirtlis.

Flummery, the recipe:

Put the oatmeal in the shallow dish. Wash withcold water and wait a day. Wash with freshwater. Put oatmeal, with fresh water, in thesaucepan and cook. Pour in the dish. Eat withsugar and wine, ale, or cider.

Mdire made good use of the imperative mood of theverbs, which was emphasized early in the course. In this sheefficiently related the grammatical structure learned in class toa natural context, such as a recipe, in which the structurewould occur. Of the two major mistakes, one could have beenavoided with closer attention to parts of speech as listed in thedictionary; the other was almost unavoidable based on thematerial covered up to this point in the class. The use of thenoun "tanalacht" ("thinness" "shallowness') in an adjectiveposition is a result of incorrect dictionary use, usuallymanifested in student journals by assuming that the first formof a word listed is the one desired; students had been advisedto use caution in selecting the exact form of the word theywanted to use. Mdire did however correctly apply lenition tothe word she thought was an adjective, as the students had

13

12 ROSLYN BLYN

learned to do with feminine singular nouns. The secondcritical error is the omission of the "h" usually prefixed to nounsbeginning with vowels which follow the preposition 'le." 'Thisdetail of usage had not been taught yet and could not havebeen predicted by a student at this level.

Stylistically, the entry shows some awkwardness, butnot enough to interfere with the meaning. In researching andtranslating this recipe for flummery, a food item originally fromWales and very rarely encountered in the United States, thisstudent demonstrated both a good intuitive sense for languagelearning and a disciplined approach to studying. Translating arecipe is an effective context for language instruction (Gambhir1994-95, personal communication) since recipes generallycontain the imperative mood, numbers and measurements,and a variety of ingredient names. By using a recipe for hersubmission, this student showed both an interest in the culturebeyond the immediate classroom and a practical application ofrecently acquired knowledge. In other submissions, shetranslated a song by Enya and a short poem by Ursula K.LeGuin, going far beyond the requirements of the assignmentas given.

PROS AND CONS OF JOURNAL WRITING IN IRISH CLASS

Journal writing clearly benefits students in that itenables them to apply and experiment with learned structuresin a non-graded context. The journal writing experienceshould be less stressful and more personally rewarding thanthe usual contexts in which students demonstrate theirknowledge (graded homework, tests, oral performance).Results of a course evaluation which included questions onjournal writing are given below and indicate a favorableresponse to the assignment; this course evaluation wasadministered by the instructor and is distinct from theUniversity's standardized, computer-coded course evaluation.

The potential disadvantage is that the openness andflexibility of the assignment leads to a high rate of errors or

14


Anglicisms. Correction of these may prove discouraging tostudents, unless overlaid with some form of praise. Older,non-traditional students frequently show greater difficulty inaccepting criticism, because their level of competence in theirfirst language is so high; these learners are often welleducated professionals studying the language out of interest intheir Irish-American heritage. Ironically, the older students,although they may apply themselves diligently, often have thegreatest difficulty absorbing the Irish idiom; consequently, theirjournals tend to show the greatest amount of interference fromEnglish. Students of traditional college age are still used tohaving their output constantly evaluated and corrected. And,also ironically, they are usually more receptive to new thoughtpatterns and modes of expression; in fact, in some of them,the process seems effortless. Consequently, most of theirjournals read well, despite straightforward grammar mistakeswhich may be due to carelessness, inadequate preparation, oroverly ambitious structures.

A pedagogical disadvantage results from theassignment of a non-graded project. Some students took theinstructions too casually and ignored the teachers warningabout using new verbs or complicated new structures. If suchactions detracted from a grade for the journals, students mightbe more careful about following instructions. On the otherhand, grading, especially grading based not just on the outputbut also on how well the instructions were followed, couldtransform the one individualized component of the class workinto a more strictly monitored, rigidly assessed chore,defeating its very purpose.

An anonymous survey yielded the followingassessment by students of the journal writing project. Thesurvey consisted of statements with which students couldagree or disagree, on a scale of 1 to 10, with "1" representingleast agreement and "10" rep:esenting very strong agreementIn the review below, "5" is considered agreement, "8" and "9"are strong agreement, ana "10" is very strong agreement:

14 ROSLYN BLYN

'Wang journals was fun": 60% agreed, with 66% of theseagreeing strongly.

'Writing journals was helpful": 90% agreed, with 44% of theseagreeing strongly and 11% agreeing very strongly.

"Instructor's comments were helpful": with the exception of onestudent who did not respond to this statement, all agreed, with60% agreeing strongly and 10% very strongly.

"Instructor's comments were encouraging": with the exceptionof one student who did not respond to this statement, allagreed, with 50% agreeing strongly and 10% very strongly.

"Journals were a positive means of creative expression": 90%agreed, with 40% agreeing strongly and 10% very strongly.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO INSTRUCTORSCONSIDERING JOURNAL ASSIGNMENTS

1) Students should write about topics with which they arefamiliar and which they enjoy.

2) Students should avoid humor unless they are sure they canrecreate the appropriate punchline or humorous effect

3) Initially, students should emphasize nouns and adjectives intheir selection of new vocabulary; they should avoid verbsunless they believe they can generate the correct cPnjugatedforms.

4) Students should familiarize themselves with theabbreviations used in their dictionary and make sure theyunderstand what part of speech is listed.

5) Students should double-check any word they find in theEng lish-lrish section of the dictionary with the same word in the

Journal Venting as a Method of Student Motivation 15

Irish-English section, being alert to any inconsistencies withtheir intended meaning. Further aids such as grammarhandbooks, for both Irish and also for English, should also beconsulted; most students observed in five years of teachingIrish at the University have little understanding of the standardEnglish grammatical terms used to explain Irish grammar(such as "conditional," "mood," "predicate," "case," or"indefinite").

6) Students should be advised from the beginning that journalwriting almost inevitably leads to technical errors as well asstylistic problems. They should be prepared to see thesecorrected and not be discouraged. They should beencouraged to work with recently learned grammatical forms.A balance must be struck between giving the students this onecreative outlet and helping them choose material they canwork with efficiently; instructors might want to require that thejournals for the week must include examples of the new formscovered in class, such as the past tense, or genitive case.Students should also be cautioned not to use sentences withpredicate subjects (such as "I am a doctor) until that materialhas been covered in class; unless forewarned, students willassume they can use "ta" for such constructions.

7) Teachers may want to experiment with the amount offeedback they provide, balancing their personal inclination withthe students' needs. Current theories on the appropriateamount of teacher feedback for compositions in L.1, 1.2, andforeign languages vary greatly. Opinions range from nofeedback (assuming the students learn to identify their ownmistakes and learn subconsciously from them) to thoroughfeedback on grammar, vocabulary, conteht and style. Areasonable compromise would be a) to correct basic grammarerrors, to help ensure that they do not resurface, b) to improvevocabulary choice, explaining that sometimes the dictionarymeanings are inadequate or that Irish idiom requires a differentbasic pattern, and c) to provide as much positive feedback as

1 7

16 ROSLYN BLYN

possible on content, so as to encourage the student. Even abrief note such as "suimiüil" ("interesting") or "greannmhar("humorous") or admowledging how challenging thecomposition must have been can counterbalance thediscouragement students may feel at seeing many corrections.

The time required to review journal entries variestremendously according to the sophistication of the writer. Theleast time is required for works by students who follow theguidelines suggesting that they adhere to grammatical formscovered in class; these may take only a few minutes to review.Other students may be more creative and ambitious, or morecareless, and thorough review of even a short passage full ofmistakes and unnecessary or awkward anglicisms may takehalf an hour or more. A student in a different class from theone discussed here once asked for and received permission tosubmit as a journal entry a translation of a course descriptionin her major field of study, constitutional theory; as one mightexpect, this required considerable attention not only to basicgrammar and meaning but to the underlying implications of thewords selected.

Teachers should carefully consider the time they candevote to reviewing the journals and what adjustments theycan make to their workload. Journal writing is not a standardfeature of secondlanguage classes although its popularity asa pedagogical technique is growing. Therefore, it is unlikelythat a university department would require teachers to includeit; by including journals, teachers may in essence increasetheir workload by volunteering extra time beyond what isrequired of them.

In comparison to teachers of the world's majorlanguages, such as Spanish or French, teachers of lesscommonly taught languages generally have greater autonomyand consequently greater responsibility for the material theychoose to cover. Teachers of less commonly taughtlanguages may have greater flexibility in adjusting their syllabito incorporate journals than teachers of major languages. Inaddition, although the journal writing experience can be

18


valuable in any language, including one's first language,journals can be especially helpful when there is littlesurrounding linguistic context available to students.

Students of major languages can usually access theirtarget language through many ways outside of class: newsbroadcasts (through the SCOLA channel), entertainment(video rentals, ethnic radio programs), reading material suchas daily newspapers, popular magazines, and novels, ethnicor regional restaurants, church services, and in, some cases,family gatherings. This is usually more difficult to achieve withless commonly taught languages, and in the case of Irish, itwould be almost impossible to assign or even suggest tostudents that they rent an Irish-language film from their localvideo store or speak Irish with the servers at the nearest Irishpub. In such cases, journal writing may provide at least someopportunity to use the language outside the classroom.

8) Teachers may want to suggest topics which they feelstudents can competently manipulate instead of leaving thecontent completely open.

9) Some students may prefer to record their journal entries andsubmit them on cassette. This method has the advantage ofalso demonstrating the student's pronunciation skills; howeverit makes quantitative assessment difficult and more time-consuming. This method was not used in the elementary Irishclass but has been reported as successful by other instructors(Gambhir 1994-95, personal communication).

10) Teachers should obtain release forms from the studentsindicating that they understand that their work may be part ofan analytic study, if this is intended.

Given the dearth of Irish language learning materialssuitable for use in American classrooms, and the lack ofinteresting interactive tasks in those which do exist, teachersand students both may benefit from including journal writing in

1 9

18 ROSLYN BLYN

the syllabus. With appropriate guidance to dictionary usageand reminders of grammatical boundaries, students canexplore areas of personal or cultural interest while comfortablytesting their grammar skills.

BIBUOGRAPHY

Andersen, R.W., ed. (1984). Second Languages: A Cross-Unguistic Perspective. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury HousePublishers.

Blyn, R. (1991). Over 630,000 Celtic Language Speakers inBritain and Ireland. Penn Language News 4 (Fall) 5,15-16.

Blyn, R. (1992). Review of kish-English/English-kish Dictionaryand Phrasebook (published by Hippocrene Books).Penn Language News 6 (Fall): 9, 20.

Breathnach, D., ed. (1994). Small Increase in Number of IrishSpeakers. Contact Bulletin 11 (2) 2.

Connor, U., & R.B. Kaplan, eds. (1987) Writing acrossLanguages: Analysis of L2 Text. Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley.

Crystal, D. (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Crystal, D. (1994). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Languageand Languages. London: Penguin.

Elbow, P. (1973). Writing without Teachers. New York OxfordUniversity Press.

Elbow, P. (1981). Writing with Power Techniques forMastering the Writing Process. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Gambhir, V. (1994-95). Personal communication based onexperience teaching Hindi and coordinatingMethodology seminars at the Penn Language Center,December 14, 1994 and March 2, 1995.

Gedeon, E. (1993). Using Dialogue Joumals to DevelopInteractive Communicative Ability and Student-TeacherRapport. Paper presented at the Hungarian Language

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-Journal Writing as a Method of Student Motivation 19

Seminar, Penn Language Center, University ofPennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa., March.

Grimes, B. F., ed. (1992). Ethnologue: Languages of theWorld. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Heald-Taylor, Gail. (1989). Whole Language Strategies forESL Students. San Diego: Dormac.

lhde, T.W., ed. (1994a). The Irish Language in the UnitedStates: A Historical, Sociolinguistic, and AppliedLinguistic Survey. Westport, CN.: Bergin & Garvey.

lhde, T.W. (1994b). 100 Years A-Growing: Irish LanguageCourses at American Colleges. Paper presented at theAmerican Conference for Irish Studies (Mid-AtlanticRegion), Immaculata College, Malvern, Pa.November.

Harlig, J. (1993). Using Dialogue Journals as a Lexical andGrammatical Diagnostic Tool. Paper presented at theHungarian Language Seminar, Penn LanguageCenter, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.,March.

Hind ley, R. (1990). The Death of the Irish Language. NewYork: Routiedge.

James, C. (1991). Indigenous Non-English LanguageCommunities in the United Kingdom. Contact Bulletin 8(2 and 3) 5-7.

Johns, A. M. (1986). The ESL Student and the RevisionProcess: Some Insights from Schema Theory. Journalof Basic Writing 5 (Fall): 70-80.

Kramsch, C. (1993). Proficiency Plus: The Next Step. PennLanguage News 7 (Spring): 1, 3, 13-18.

Krashen, S. (1985). Second Language Acquisition andSecond Language Leaming. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Kroll, B., ed. (1990). Second Language Writing: ResearchInsights for the Classroom. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Ni Ghrada, M. (1975). Progress in Irish. Dublin: EducationalCompany of Ireland.

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6 Domhnalliin, T. (1967). Bunters Cainte: C6im a hAon: A FirstStep in Spoken Irish. Dublin: Stationery Office.

6 Siadhail, M. (1988). Learning Irish. Dublin: DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies, 1980; reprint, NewHaven, CT, Yale University Press.

Raimes, A. (1987). Language Proficiency, Writing Ability, andComposing Strategies: A Study of ESL CollegeStudent Writers. Language Learning 37: 439-467.

Roinn Oideachais (1986). Focl6ir Peca. Dublin, An Gum.Shuman, A. (1981.) Retellings: Storytelling and Writing among

Urban Adolescents. Ph.D. dissertation. Department ofFolklore and Folklife, University of Pennsylvania.

Sullivan, N., & D. van Becker. (1982). Joumal to Essay: ASequential Program in Composition. Dubuque, Iowa:Kendall Hunt.

Zamel, V. (1983). The Composing Processes of AdvancedESL Students: Six Case Studies. TESOL Quarterly 17:165-87.

Penn Language Center401 Lauder-Fischer Hall

Philadelphia, PA [email protected]

2 2


Dialects, Speech Communities, andApplied Linguistics: A Realistic

Approach to the Teaching of Irish inNon-lrish Speaking Areas

James J. DuranMarymount College, Palos Verdes

An instructor, when asked to teach a modemlanguage in a college or university, usually sets aboutteaching a standard variety of the language, that is, avariety of the language which is considered the dominantvariety of a language which is not widely spoken, or else animportant regional variety of a language which is spokenover a broad geographical area. Such varieties are usuallyclosely tied to a written standard language, so that thevocabulary, grammatical system, and even the soundsystem of the spoken language are often reflected verydirectly in the written form of the language. The averagespeaker of the language may in fact play down any obviousdifferences between the spoken language and the writtenlanguage, ascribing such differences to imperfectacquisition of the language. The codified, often idealized,written variety may thus come to be seen as "correct","proper", or "educated" speech, while the spoken varietymay be seen as "grammatically incorrect", "slovenly","unpleasant" in its sounds, and characteristic of uneducatedpeople. There may in fact be strong pressures on theinstructor to adhere closely to the written standard, howeveridealized it may be, and however removed it may be fromthe speech of living people.

The problem is especially acute, perhaps, in theteaching of Modem Arabic. Here, very clearly, the instructormust carefully consider the needs of the students. Students

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22 JAMES J. DURAN

of contemporary culture in the Arab world cannot ignore theHoly Koran and the language in which it was written,Classical Arabic, a language which is anything but a "dead"language in the life of the Arab world. On the other hand,the student of current affairs will have to familiarize himselfor herself with "Cairo newspaper standard" Arabic. If,furthermore, the student wishes to travel and live in aspecific Arabic-speaking nation, that student must carefullyselect a regional dialect of spoken Arabic which may differsharply from any form of written Arabic and from spokendialects of all other regions.

To reduce the problem to its simplest dimensions, inteaching students the written, codified form of a language,we introduce them essentially to a body of written literature,representing the world of the past or the present. Inteaching students spoken dialects, we introduce them toliving, "organic" speech communities, where the linguisticheterogeneity and the rates of linguistic change within thedifferent speech communities can be bewildering to thestranger. In selecting a written Ptandard variety of alanguage, we may have little choice; we must teach theaccepted written standard variety of the region. In selectinga spoken variety of the language, we have far morelatitude, though here again we must emphasize the needsof the learner. In the case of British English, it might seemobvious that we must teach the dialect of educated peopleof the Greater London Metropolitan Area in its acceptedphonological form, the "Received Pronunciation". After all,this speech variety, taught in the British public schools andpopularized in recent decades by the British BroadcastingCorporation, reflects the speech of a dominant social groupin a dominant geographical region in Britain, and as suchcarries great social prestige'. Surely, then, the choice issimple; a newly arrived family from Pakistan coming tosettle in with relatives in a factory district of London will betaught "BBC English" and not "Cockney" English. Similarly,a family from Hong Kong newly arrived in Aberdeen,

24

DIALECTS, SPEECH COMMUNITIES, AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS 23

Scotland, will be taught "BBC English" and not theAberdonian dialect. Right? Perhaps not. Even in what mightappear from a distance to be the most clear-cut situations,the teacher who is sensitive to the needs of his or herstudents will temper the instruction to those needs; thesocial and geographical linguistic variation of the worldimmediately outside the classroom will be introduced intothe curriculum as needed to help the learner "settle into"the surrounding speech community. Even in regard to theFrench language, the bastion of linguistic correctness,instruction in "street French" is now considered necessaryfor the serious learner of the French.

These, then, are some of the considerations wemust bear in mind as we select materials and designclassroom activities for the conventional teaching of Celticlanguages in ordinary classroom situations for normalacademic purposes. If we concern ourselves seriously withhelping our students to acquire near-native fluency andaccuracy in a Celtic language as rapidly as possible,however, we will have to exercise considerable ingenuity. Ifwe take on the further responsibility of helping to provide aspeech community outside the classroom in which ourstudents can actually employ the language so arduouslyacquired, we will be taxing ourselves to the limit, but this isin fact the problem facing the teacher of Celtic languages.Unless teachers help to provide a context for the use ofthese languages, instruction in the Celtic languages maywell be a futile exercise and a waste of the teachers time.We will return to this issue later.

Turning now to the immediate problems ofclassroom instruction, we find that the standard, writtenCeltic languages offer no great problems in terms ofconventional classroom instruction. Celtic languages aresharply different in linguistic form from the major languagesof western Europe, but the industrious student mny expectto read written materials in the standard language with nogreat difficulty eventually. Even literature written in a non-

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24 JAMES J. DURAN

standard dialect may present few difficulties, especiallywhen up-to-date reference materials exist. But what of thespoken languages? Here we must deal with the effects ofat least a millenium of history. Spoken languages imply theexistence of speech communities, but speech communitiesin the Celtic areas of Europe are usually shattered orbattered communities which have withstood the gale forcewinds of the expanding imperial languages English andFrench. It has been estimated that the number of speakersof Irish in the Irish-speaking areas of Ireland who nowspeak the Irish language regularly in their daily activities isas low as 25,0002. Yet, according to a recent newspaperaccount of Irish-language broadcasting, there are anestimated 40,000 speakers of Irish in the greater Bostonmetropolitan area here in the United States3. Similarly,there are thousands of native speakers of Irish clustered inthe greater London metropolitan area in Britain, many ofwhom speak Irish regularly to family and friends, a situationwell described by the late Irish writer Dóna ll Mac Amhlaigh4.These speech communities, whether at home in their nativeareas or abroad in emigrant communities, represent thekinds of marginalized, "dislocated" speech communities sooften described by Prof. Joshua Fishmans.

If we prepare students to use spoken varieties ofCeltic languages in speech communities outside theclassroom, toward which speech communities do we directour efforts? Even before instruction in a spoken variety of alanguage begins, the student would have to have a clearidea of the speech community, or cluster of communities, inwhich he or she would like to find himself/herself. Manystudents, nevertheless, haven't the faintest idea of whichcommunity they would like to visit. They do know, however,that they will never find themselves in the unnervingsituation of having to find food and shelter at night in anarea where no one speaks English (or French). On thecontrary, they may find it difficult to pry loose a few words inthe Celtic language in question from a local speaker of the

26


language, a situation so painfully described in Whin 6Cadhain's "Aisling agus Aisling Ei le"6. Teaching "survivalIrish", "survival Gaidhlig", "survival Welsh", or "survivalBreton" (to say nothing of "survival Manx" or "survivalCornish") could be a bizarrely unreal activity, though thestudents might not suspect it initially. Similarly, some of theproblem situations described in Di Pietro (1987) might behopelessly out of place at least in the first encounters ofstruggling language learners with native speakers. Similarproblems exist with all communicative approaches toteaching Celtic languages. Unlike the student of Arabic lostin the Riff Mountains of Morocco attempting desperately tomake himself or herself understood in local Arabic (orBerber() before nightfall, a student of a Celtic language in aCeltic area would very likely find himself or herself in theopposite situation; that is, after an initial attempt tocommunicate in the local language, the local inhabitantaddressed might reply in the local dialect of the language,in the standard variety of the language, or in English (orFrench), depending on his or her assessment of thestudent's proficiency in the local dialect. The student wouldcount himself or herself lucky indeed if the local personcontinued the conversation in a relaxed manner in the localdialect of the language. For example, eqnce I spokeConnemara Irish before beginning my research on AranIrish, I was always responded to in Aran Irish, but I

remember approaching a man I knew on one of the islandswho was engaged in a friendly conversation with a neighborin a very public situation in front of a shop. I approachedthe man, hoping to join in the conversation. Instead, theconversation stopped abruptly, and my convertationalopeners were responded to politely but laconically. Sensingthat I was not to be included in the conversation, I politely"butted out" of the conversation, and the conversationcontinued its course in my absence. This situation wouldnot be an unusual one for a stranger in an Irish-speakingarea. The point is that, as teachers of Celtic languages, we

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26 JAMES J. DURAN

might have to prepare our students for a linguistic etiquettequite different from that normally envisioned incommunicative syllabi.

Keeping these considerations in mind as we turnmore specifically to the problems of teaching Irish in non-Irish speaking areas, what can we do in the classroom tofoster both the learning and the acquisition of Irish, andhow can we prioritize the tasks? First, Standard Irish shouldbe taught in its written form, and students should be at leastfamiliar with the recommended pronunciation for thestandard orthography (an Ldrchantaint)1. I suppose it ispossible to imagine situations in which one might not teachthe standard written form of Irish, but it would be difficult fora teacher to justify not equipping students to readroadsigns, directions, and simple literature written inStandard Irish. Another important reason for teachingStandard Irish is that it is the source of a flood ofneologisms coming into the living, rural dialects via theeducational system and the Irish-language broadcastingservice for the Irish-speaking (and non-lrish speaking)areas, Raidió na Gaeltachta. One cannot talk about themodem world without these new terms, and people in theIrish-speaking areas take a lively interest in the outsideworld. As I have mentioned elsewhere, they are proud ofbeing able to discuss world affairs in Irish if they so choose.To them, Irish is one of a number of small but importantmodem languages in the new Europe, along withlanguages such as Norwegian, Danish, or Czech, not acluster of neglected, antiquated and dying dialects spokenin an impoverished rural backwater. Raidió na Gaeltachtahas also helped to increase mutual intelligibility amongspeakers of different dialects, to the point where theyoungest of listeners may no longer be able to identify theorigin of many dialectally marked expressions9, and thisalso should contribute to the unconscious use of StandardIrish terms in the different dialect areas. In sum, I think itentirely appropriate for the speech of learners of Irish to


reflect this "new growth" in the living language, even whenconversing with speakers of Irish in the most traditionalIrish-speaking areas.

So much for the standard language what of thenon-standard dialects? First, it would be an unusual class inwhich all., or even most, of the students were stronglyinclined toward learning a given dialect. In most cases, theclass as a whole is largely neutral in terms of the dialect tobe selected. In such cases, the non-standard dialect inwhich the teacher is most comfortable might be a goodchoice. Provided that the teacher makes a consistentattempt to link non-standard forms with equivalent standardforms, any increases in the complexity of the material to belearned might be offset by gains in the "naturalness" and"authenticity" of the vocal "input" coming from the teacher.The oral input of the teacher can also be supplemented indue course by the rich literature, oral and written, of thedialect area in question in printed form and on video andaudio cassettes. Such material might include folklore, folksong, modem creative writing, autobiography, anddescriptions of traditional life.

In those cases where the teacher has acquired only,or mainly, "school Irish", the teacher can simply useStandard Irish alone. In any case, the classroom is theprimary acquisition context for the target language, and theteacher is the sole "live" source of input and interaction fornatural speech in that language. Artificial though it may be,the classroom is the first Irish "speech community" that thelearner usually experiences.

What of the world outside of the classroom? Howdoes the learner relate to the world of "rear speechcommunities, particularly to speech communities composedof native speakers of living dialects, whether mixedcommunities of dialect speakers in large urban areas orsmall, dialectally homogeneous rural communities? In thecase of those language classrooms outside of Ireland whichare far from any communities of Irish speakers, the

2t)

28 JAMES J. DURAN

classroom can be extended into the student's livingsituation in both space and time. This is especiallyimportant because students of the spoken language tend toassume the existence of an idealized speech community inwhich somewhere, sometime, they will exercise their newlyacquired language.

Provision can be made for "language houses" oncampus where students can "live" the language they areacquiring in the classroom; summer "language camps",where students can practice the language in a pleasantrural environment which reflects the natural world in whichall languages are born; and at the very least, "languagenights", where at least a handful of people can cometogether to "process" their world through their acquiredlanguage and enjoy each other's company over the years.My own experience has shown that four or five people is anideal number for such a conversational group. If the groupcontains six or more people, there is a natural tendency forthe group to split into two separate conversationalsubgroups, each pursuing a separate topic. If only two orthree people are present, the burden of carrying on theconversation in a newly acquired language may be tooheavy for the participants. The role of the teacher, nativespeaker, or near-native speaker in such a group would beto help maintain a healthy conversational flow. Stableconversational groups can exist over decades, and,according to my observation, can produce steadyacquisition of both active and passive language skills. Insuch artificial environments, of course, there can be noquestion of selecting a dialect. The dialects of the mostfluent speakers will tend to predominate, and thepredominant dialects on any particular occasion will reflectthe composition of the group on that particular night. Mutualintelligibility in the group is not seriously diminished bydialectal diversity, provided that the rate of speech of themost fluent speakers is not too rapid, and provided, ofcourse, that individual speakers are willing to backtrack and

30


to paraphrase words and expressions not understood. I

myself once offered to try to use Standard Irish in theconversational group to which I belong in place of theheavy Aran dialect I now speak. To my surprise, even theless fluent members of the group asked me to continuespeaking in unmixed dialect. They said that they muchpreferred natural speech with its occasional risks ofunintelligibility to a clearer but more stilted or artificialspeech variety.

Returning to the conventional classroom situation,which dialect should be selected when the classroom islocated near a sizable community of native speakersoutside of Ireland? Such communities are typicallydialectally mixed concentrations of emigrants in a largeurban area in an English-speaking host country. In suchcases, it seems reasonable that instruction be given in thedominant dialect of the local Irish community, and that closeties should be maintained with that community.Intermediate and advanced learners of Irish can beexposed formally to contrastive presentations of thephonological, grammatical and lexical systems of otherdialects, and informally to the spoken Irish of a wide rangeof speakers from different dialect areas at events co-hostedwith the local Irish-speaking community. One goal ofinstruction might be the eventual absorption of languagelearners into the local community as functioning membersof the community.

In Ireland itself, the selection of a dialect for theclassroom might be determined largely by geographicalconsiderations. With the exception of Dublin, the nation'scapitol and the home of a large population from all areas ofIreland, it might be wise to view Ireland as divided into threeeast-west belts, each characterized by the dialect spoken inthe westernmost areas of the belt. Moving southward on anorth-south axis, one would find three broad belts wherethe Ulster, the Connacht, and the Munster dialectsrespectively would each be nurtured and given pride of

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30 JAMES J. DURAN

plaze in classrooms within its own belt. Within each of thebelts, one would place relatively strong emphasis on theliving regional dialect in the westernmost areas, whereas anopposing emphasis would be placed on Standard Irish inthe eastemmost areas of the belt The object of thisscheme would be to lessen opposition (covert or overt) fromIrish speakers in Ulster and Munster, some of whom tend toregard Standard Irish as thinly disguised Connacht Irish. Onthe other hand, it would give more legitimacy and scope tothe regional dialects now cramped in their tiny "reservation"areas in the West. The people of the larger and smallerurban areas within the belts might feel better then about"adopting" and promoting a form of Irish historicallyassociated with their region. Glór na nGael activities mighthelp nurture forms of Irish which have a strong regional"flavor", yet which have the modernity of Standard Irish andconverge in their linguistic form toward it. This "latitudinal"approach to the "spheres of influence" of the old regionaldialects might even help resolve the problem of the lack ofa regional constituency for Standard Irish. It has beenpointed out that the LárchanCrine, the pronunciationrecommended for Standard Irish, bears a strongresemblance to the sound system of the Classical Irish ofNorth Connacht. If this point were driven home to thepeople of Connacht, and proper respect shown to thesurviving dialects of North Connacht (as well as to those ofSouth Connacht), might Standard Irish be given a betterreception in the eastern areas and in the urban areas ofConnacht? As for Leinster, which, of course, has lost itsregional dialect entirely, there is no local obstacle to theexpansion of Standard Irish, but even here the cultivation ofrespect for the authenticity of the surviving Connachtdialects might cast a more favorable glow over StandardIrish itselflu. The success of the Ráth Cairn community,whose Irish-speaking population was resettled fromConnemara to County Meath over a half-century ago, mightbe regarded as a favorable omen.

3 9


CONCLUSION

A language implies a speech community, acommunity which may be as small as a group of friendsmeeting together over the years or as large as the entireIrish-speaking diaspora. Instruction in a language impliesintelligent nurturing of the language acquisition process inlearners, to the extent of even helping to create speechcommunities for the learner. The two principal contexts oflanguage acquisition historically have been the householdand the children's playgroup. Prof. Fishman has stressedthe vital importance of "home-family-neighborhood-community" in the "intergenerational mother tonguetransmission" processfi.Teachers of Celtic languages asliving languages must be committed to assisting in thatprocess12, both out of respect for the communities ofpeople who speak Celtic languages and out of respect fortheir own studentt, who hope to have the opportunity ofvisiting such communities one day.

The language classroom cannot be a family, nor canit really be a playgroup, but the language teacher, like allgood teachers, can be a catalyst for beneficial change in acommunity -- in this case, a speech community, howeversmall. After all, the language classroom, if it is what itpurports to be, is a threshhold, a place of arduous initiation,across which the candidates, once properly prepared, stepinto a timeless world of literature (in the case of theclassical languages), into a living human community (in thecase of the modern languages), or into a blend of both (inthe case of modem literature and the performing arts). Therole of dialects in such a community of learners is toprovide authenticity and historical continuity for the learner,on the one hand, and a place of honor and a valuedfunction for the native speaker, on the other hand. Aboveall, Standard Irish must be seen as complementing and

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32 JAMES J. DURAN

completing the regional dialects in Ireland and abroad, notas competing with them or replacing them.

Notes1. In speaking of "dominant" linguistic varieties or

"dominant" dialects, we are speaking of the characteristicspeech forms of those social or geographical groups ofpeople who are distinguished from neighboring socialgroups by concentrations of wealth, power, and prestige.Neighboring groups with different speech norms may orientthemselves linguistically in the direction of the dominantsocial group or speech community. This may begin the"snowball process" characteristic of the growth of standardlanguages.

2. See 6 Murchü (1985), p. 29.3. The article was published a couple of years ago,

in reference to a projected hour-long weekly digest ofevents from RaidiO na Gaeltachta to be broadcast on aradio station in Boston, with Sean Ban Breathnach as host.The projected listenership was an estimated 40,000 Irish-speakers.

4. See Mac Amhlaigh (1960). A claim for some100,000 people in London able to speak a Celtic languageis reported in the weekly newspaper Anois, 3 December,1989. The London Association for Celtic Education is citedas the source of the figure.

5. See Fishman (1991).6. See 6 Cadhain (1970).7. Standard Irish is normally considered to be the

written form of the language as outlined in the officialhandbook Gramadach na Gaeilae ems LitriO na Gaeilae:An Caighdeán Offigiüil, published in 1958, and assupplemented -- and revised -- by the Foclair Gaeilae-Nada, published in 1977 (cf. 01 Danall, 1977). TheLarchaniiint (cf. 6 Baoill, 1986), on the other hand, isregarded as an effort to provide a spoken standard form ofthe language, one which follows closely the form of the

34


written standard as set out in the Foclóir Pôca (cf. RoinnOideachais, 1986) but one which is ultimately based on thereference works for the standard written language citedabove. Some might regard the Lb-chant:lint simply as thewritten standard Irish of the Caiohdeán Official and of theFocIóir Gaeilge-Béarla "wired for sound". In fact, this wholematter is a good deal more complicated (cf., for example,Nic Mhaolain, 1985, or 6 Baoill, 1993).

First, there are a number of changes made in theFock5ir Gaeilge-Béarla (henceforth, FGB) in regard to theform of written Irish laid out in the Caiahdeán Oifigal(henceforth, CL)). Unfortunately, these changes are notconveniently listed for the reader of FGB; he/she musthappen upon them while consulting the dictionary entries.Therefore, the student of modem Irish cannot be confidentof CO as the authoritative canon of modem Standard Irish,nor does he/she have easy access to the revised canon inFGB. Furthermore, a number of permitted changes arementioned in the Larchan6int, particularly in Chapter Nine,the chapter on verbal forms. The changes involve the useof the pronouns muid/sinn in a variety of linguistic contexts,the use of the pronoun siad in an analytic verbalconstruction in the third person plural of the past habitualtense, the use of the future relative marker -s (permitted,but not exemplified, in go, and the phonetic shape of thesecond person singular inflectional ending /a:/ in theconditional tense (for 46/-fei). The last-mentioned changewould have to be admitted as a morphological revision ofthe written form in CO, not simply as a straightforwardphonological realization of the written form; certainly anolder generation of us familiar with Bunkis Cainte tapeswould notice the change!

True enough, constant and careful reference ismade to CO and FGB, and the changes are described as"permitted" ("Ta rogha tugtha...", etc.), but nowhere areprecise references made to the authorizations. Clearly,then, the reader must rely on the authority of the

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34 JAMES J. DURAN

LarchanOint itself when using such forms; the LarchanOint,therefore, becomes de facto part of the defining canon ofmodem Standard Irish, along with Q0 and FGB.

Second, what of the status of other reference workscompiled since the publication of CO? What of the English-Irish Dictionary (henceforth EID) of Tomas de Bhaldraithe(cf. de Bhaldraithe, 1959), still the most modem andcomprehensive Eng lish-lrish dictionary in existence?Though written in the "Standard Grammar and Spelling" (cf.de Bhaldraithe, 1959, p. vi), the reader will notice a numberof differences between EID and FGB, e.g., An Laitve(EID)/An Laitvia (FGB); sgivaideach (EID)/sgiveadach(FGB); and maidhm talün (EID)/maidhm thalCin (FGB).What of the Graimear Gaeiloe na mBraithre Criostai (cf.Christian Brothers, 1960), the unofficial but invaluablereference on modem Irish grammar and syntax for some 35years? What of thc, new Urchürsa Gaeilge (cf. 6 Baoill &Tuathail, 1992), which contains the new forms, "aguscomhOdaras a thabhairt dgibh" (cf. (3 Baoill, 1993, p. 30).As a number of scholars have urged (e.g., 6 Baoill, 1993,and (3 Ruairc, 1993), it is time to issue a revised version ofCO, so that many pending questions can be resolved andthe Irish-speaking public can have access to the revisedcanon. Meanwhile, Standard Irish, along with the traditionalspoken dialects, continues to evolve.

8. See Duran (1994), p. 258.9. See Feirtear (1990), p. 81.10. The "middle belt" of Irish, including both Leinster

and Connacht, may have had an historical precedent in adialect which once stretched in a wide, curved swathe fromthe whole area of Connacht east through middle Leinster,dipping southward through southeast Leinster, a dialectwhich Nicholas Williams calls "Gaeilge Ghtileonach" (cf.Williams, 1994). The existence of such an *listoricalprecedent, of course, in no way affects the practicality ofthe "triple-belt' proposal, but it does, perhaps, lend it a little"authenticity".

at;


11. See Fishman (1991), especially Chapters Fiveand Fourteen.

12. Here the teacher of threatened modemlanguages parts company with the teacher of classicallanguages and literatures, as well as with the teachers oflanguages that have or have had the force of an empirebehind them.

36

REFERENCES

JAMES J. DURAN

Christian Brothers. (1960). Grairnéar Gaeilge na mBráithreCrlostal. Dublin: The Christian Brothers.

de Bhaldraithe, T. (1959). English-Irish Dictionary. Dublin:Stationery Office.

Di Pietro, R.J. (1987). Strategic Interaction: LearningLanguages through Scenarios. New York:Cambridge University Press.

Duran, J.J. (1993). Review of The Irish Language inSociety, by C.L. 6 Huallachdin, in The InternationalJournal of the Sociology of Language, No. 100/101,pp. 264-269.

Duran, J.J. (1994). The Irish Language in Aran. In J.Waddell, J.W. O'Connell, and A. Korff (Eds.), TheBook of Aran, Newtownlynch, Kinvara: Tir Eolas.

Feirtéar, B. (1990). Raidió na Gaeltachta agus anLdrchant5int. In D.P. 6 Baoill (Ed.), Clsáid agusForbairt na Ur-chant:ma, Dublin: I nstitiüidTeangeolaiochta Eireann.

Fishman, J. (1991). Reversing Language Shift: Theoreticaland Empirical Foundations of Assistance toThreatened Languages. Philadelphia: MultilingualMatters, Ltd.

Mac Amhlaigh, D. (1960). Dialann Deoral. Dublin: AnCk5chomhar Tta.

Nic Mhaoldin, M. (1985). A Thuilleadh faoin gCaighdedn.Teangeolas, Journal of the Linguistic Institute ofIreland, No. 20, Summer, pp. 5-7.

6 Baoill, D.P. (1986). Lárchanaint don Ghaeilge. ResearchReport No. 14. Dublin: The Linguistics Institute ofIreland.

6 Baoill, D.P. (1987). Cén ChanClint I Sin?. Teangeolas,Journal of the Linguistics Institute of Ireland, No. 23,Winter, pp. 8-12.

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6 Baoill, D.P. (1993). Aitheantas agus Caighdetn.Teangeolas, Journal of the Linguistics Institute ofIreland, 32, pp. 29-34.

6 Baoill, D.P. & 6 Tuathail, E. (1992). Orcharsa Gaeilge(rev. ed.). Dublin: The Linguistics Institute of Ireland.

6 Cadhain, M. (1970). Aisling agus Aisling Eile. In AntSraith dhá Taghil. Dublin: Sdirséal agus Dill.

6 Dónaill, N., ed. (1977). Focl6ir Gaeilge-EMaria. Dublin:The Stationery Office.

6 Murchir, M. (1969). Common Core and UnderlyingForms. Eriu, 21, pp. 42-75.

6 Murchü, M. (1984). Smaointe faoi Chaighdeánü na Nua-Ghaeilge. Teangeolas, Journal of the LinguisticsInstitute of Ireland, No. 18, Spring, pp. 14-19.

6 Murch0, M. (1985). The Irish LangUage. Dublin:Government of Ireland, Department of ForeignAffairs\Bord na Gaeilge.

6 Murchil, M. (1993). Some General Observations.Teangeolas, Journal of the linguistics Institute ofIreland, 32, pp. 59-61.

6 Murcht5, S. (1988). Gnéithe de LárchanOint Ui Bhaoill.Teangeolas, Journal of the Linguistics Institute ofIreland, 24, Spring, pp. 10-12.

6 Ruairc, M. (1993). Forbairt na Gaeilge Caoga BliainAmach. Teangeolas, Journal of the linguisticsInstitute of Ireland, 32, pp. 35-44.

Roinn Oideachais. (1986). FocIóir Peva. Dublin, An Gilm.Stationery Office. (1979). Gramadach na Gaeilge agus

na Gaeilge: an Caighdean Oifigal. Dublin,Stationery Office.

Williams, N. (1994). Na Caranti a Theacht chun Solais. InKim McCone, et al. (Eds.) Stair na Gaeilge: in Omósdo Pftgadraig 0 Fiannachta, Maynooth: ColtistePhddraig, Roinn na Sean-Ghaeilge.

3J


CALL With Methodical ExplanationsANNETTE MCELLIGOTT

011scoil Luimnigh

GEAROID 6 NEILL011scoil Luimnigh

Work on the design of a CALL package for Irishgrammar is continuing at the University of Limerick. TheCALL system is organised around a dictionary, whichhas an object-oriented structure. The main dictionaryclass has a subclass for each part of speech and wfthineach subclass there may be further subclasses. As wellas having the methods of higher classes available, eachsubclass may have its own methods. The methodsspecify various properties pertaining to inflexion andpoints of grammar. From these methods, exercises oninflexion and other grammatical points can be generatedby the system. The system can offer explanations ordirections on how to determine what the particular formof a word or phrase should be. The system should besuitable for a student working alone or as supplementarymaterial for taught courses.

KEYWORDS

Irish, CALL, explanations, automatic, object-oriented,dictionary

INTRODUCTION

Work is continuing at the University of Limerick onthe design of a CALL system (MacGall6glaigh et al., 1991,McElligott and 6 NCH, 1993a,b; 1994) on inflection andaspects of Irish grammar. The focus of this paper is on theautomatic generation of explanations for the student. The

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CALL WITH METHODICAL EXPLANATIONS 39

system is designed around a dictionary, which is object-oriented in organisation (McElligott and 0 Néill, 1993a). Theapproach is similar in ways to the work of Ide andassociates (ide et al .,1993) and.modelled on an approachsuggested by Pratt and Adamski (1991). The computerdictionary is based on An FocIóir Beag (Roinn Oideachais,1991).

DEFINITIONS

Most Irish words are orthographically representedusing 18 letters including vowels (Joyce 1920). In TheChristian Brothers (1988) the 26 letters of the Romanalphabet are given, with the five vowels being subject tomarking. Each letter may be lowercase or uppercase.

Some basic components are shown below:

Alphabet: {a..z,A..Z,d,A,6,E,I,1,6,00,6,1)}% no order is implied by the order ofspecification

Vowels:u,C1,U,01

broad: {a,6,A,A,o05,0,6,u,6,U,O}and (e follows a)

slenderand not (e follows a)

Consonants: Alphabet - Vowels

Other symbols: {',-)

Word: Li m>=1%gives a structure for a word

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40 ANNETTE McELLIGOTT & GEAROID 6 NEILL

where, for all i, 1.1 in Alphabet(CIV)V1V2C*

where C in Consonants, V,V1,V2 inVowels

Follows e follows a in S if S = S1aeS2where S, S1 and S2 are stringsand S1 or S2 may be null.

The primary parts of speech, together with somecharacteristics, are (Mac Giolla Phtdraig, 1963):

parts of speech: {adjective, noun, article, verb,conjunction, adverb, pronoun, exclamation,preposition}

gender {feminine, masculine}

number: {singular, plural}

case: {nominative, vocative, genitive, dative}

tense: {present, future, past, past habitual}

mood: {conditional, imperative, presentsubjunctive}

person: {first, second, third, autonomous)

noun: gender, case, number, declensionindicator

% a noun has a gender, one ormore cases, number and adeclension indicator


adjective: gender, case, number, declensionindicator

article: gender, case, number

verb:

declensionindicator.

noun:

tense, mood, person, conjugationindicator, root, verbal noun, verbaladjective

{1,2,3,4,5, irregular, null)

adjective: {1,2,3, irregular, null)

conjugation

indicator (1 ,2,irregular, defective, copula)

A word within a category may not have all theproperties specified for the part of speech, such as,defective verbs and nouns which do not have plurals. Forsome verbs, there are two forms of a tense, dependent andindependent. Other parts of speech also may have a choiceof forms for the same set of properties. These particulardetails are obtained from the dictionary entry for therelevant word and override the general case.

There is also some variation on classifications andnaming in grammars and dictionaries (6 Siadhail, 1989,Stationery Office, 1968, Roinn Oideachais, 1986), forexample, some authors give only four declensions.Although some words have distinct endings for dative case(in current use), for example, li (day) has 16, the dativecase tends to be one of role. However, there is often initialmutation when a word has the dative role. The accusativecase occurs only with certain pronouns. Generally then, thenominative is used in this system for nominative, accusative

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42 ANNETTE McELLIGOTT & GEAROID 6 NEILL

and dative, but there are a few entries in the dictionary witha distinct form given for the dative. In the New IrishGiammar (Christian Brothers,1988), the word "common" isused.

In the following is shown the forms and theproperties of the article (where the article remains aseparate form)

an: feminine, singular, nominativean: masculine, singular, nominativean: masculine, singular, genitivena: feminine, singular, genitivean: feminine, singular, dativean: masculine, singular, dativena: feminine, plural, nominativena: masculine, plural, nominativena: feminine, plural, genitivena: masculine, plural, genitivena: feminine, plural, dativena: masculine, plural, dative

METHODS

The dictionary is organised in an object orientedmanner (McElligott and 6 Mill, 1993a). Part of the classstructure is indicated below

focalmethods: applicable to all words

ainmfhocalmethods: applicable to nouns

briatharmethods: applicable to all verbs

briathra rialta

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methods applicable to all regularverbs

etc.aidiacht

etc.

There is a method at the top class for determining if a lettermay be lenited and a further method for leniting a word.

Lenitable L:letterL in {b, c, d, f, g, m, p, s, t}

Lenitable WordL2@Word <>h

and((L1@Word lenitable and

L1@Word <> s)or

(L1@Word= $ and L2@Word not in{c,f,m,p,t,v}))

% L2@ Word - second letterwithin the word

LeniteL:letter

Lenitable Laction : L 4 Lh

not(Lenitable L)action:

WordLenitable Word

action: L1L2..Lm 4 (lenite L1) L2..Lmnot(lenitable Word)

action:% no action required

Other classes can then use the general methods forlenition.

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44 ANNETTE McELLIGOTr & GEAROID 6 NEILL

GRAM MATICAL POINTS

There may be methods associated with a word orset of words or class of words to deal with othergrammatical points. Below is shown part of the specificationof the effect of the article on the following noun. The part ofspeech is specified together with the subset ofcharacteristics which apply. The class of the following wordupon which the word has an effect is given together withthe relevant characteristics. Each condition is specifiedtogether with the corresponding action.

The general format for specifying the effect of aword on a following word is

Part of speech, {form of word , subcategoriesyProperties,

Part of speech2 {form of word,subcategories} : Properties2

conditionaction: expression

conditionaction : expression

where properties, is a subset of the properties of the part ofspeech, and properties2 is a subset of the properties of partof speech2 and properties, = properties2. Condition is asubset of properties,.. Expression specifies the actions tobe performed on the word (concatenation, removal ofendings and so on) and is constructed from methods andProlog operators, similar to frames (Lucas and Van DerGaag, 1991).

Specification (partial) of effect of article on following nounArticle: number gender case

Word: noun: number gender casesingular feminine nominative

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action : lenite Wordsingular matculine nominative

action :singular feminine genitive

action :singular masculine genitive :

action : lenite Wordsingular feminine dative

action :singular masculine dative

action :% typically the dativerole would bedetermined by apreposition

The methods used for specifying the effect of oneword on another can be used in different ways. It can beused to determine the effect the appropriate forms of thewords to be used or if a phrase is consistent.

Example:Given an bhean (the woman),

an:feminine, singular, nominativemasculine, singular, nominativefeminine, singular, dativemasculine, singular, dative

bhean is not in the dictionary, so the lenition isremoved and the word bean is found.

bean:feminine, singular, nominative

So the match between the article and the noun is:

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46 ANNUTE McELLIGOTT & GEAROID 6 NEILL

feminine, singular, nominative

In the specification of the effect of the article on thenoun, the action associated with the feminine, singular,nominative is lenition. When bean is lenited it gives bheanand hence, matches the given noun phrase. (The effect ofprepositions on the noun and the article are separate andtake precedence over the article and noun on their own.)

Similarly, given two parts of speech and a requiredcondition, the forms of the words which match the conditioncan be determined. So, for example, given the article anand the noun fear (man) and the required condition genitivecase singular, the form an fhir is generated. The dictionaryreturns the form an of the article and fir for the genitivecase singular of fear. The rule determined by the articlenoun combination is applied to return fhir.

EXERCISES

The system can generate and correct exercisesautomatically. The exercises are based on the methods andthe grammatical points. So, at the simplest level, there is amethod for the lenitable letters. Hence, there is an exerciseon lenitable letters. There are various methods for thevarious parts of speech and so, for example, there areexercises on forming the tenses of the verb. As justindicated in the previous section, there is information on theeffect of the article on the following noun and hence, thereare various exercises possible.

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EXPLANATIONS

The explanations are obtained by applying theinformation contained in the methods and grammaticalpoints. A simple exercise is to give the student a word andrequest the lenited form, for example, bord (the lenitedform is bhord). The student can supply the form or requestthe system to return the form. In either case, the studentcan request an explanation. The explanation is determinedfrom the methods:

to lenite bordcheck

bord lenitablecheckL2 = o is not h

andLI = b lenitable : L.1 in

{b,c,d,f,g,m,p,s,t}word lenitable

therefore to lenite bordbord 4 (lenite b 4 bh)

gives bhord (applying theaction specified)

Check corresponds to a condition which must be matched -in this instance lenitable Word

In the example of the effect of the article on thenoun there is an additional level which requires theconsideration of properties. The properties of article andnoun which are required are number, gender and case. Thetotal number of properties a part of speech possesses maybe greater than the number of properties used in someparticular situation. A noun, for example, may also be

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48 ANNETTE McELLIGOTT & GEAR6ID 6 NEILL

categorised as belonging to a declension (although suchcategorisation is not an essential quality of a noun).

an fhiran

the properties to consider arenumber gender and case

the article an matchesfeminine, singular,

nominativemasculine, singular,nominative

fhir + firthe noun fir matches

masculine, singular,genitive

masculine, plural,nominative

the conditions common toan and fhir

aremasculine, singular, genitive

with such a matchthe word fir is lenited giving fhir

(the student can then, of course, request an explanation of"lenited.")

Phrases such as "the conditions common to" arepredetermined, the structure of the responses is based onthe application of the methods and related material. Thesystem is Prolog based and from the properties of Prologderive the general workings of the system (Lloyd, 1987,Lucas and Van Der Gaag, 1991).

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SPECIFICATION

Although the style of the specification is formal, itresembles the approach used in grammar books. Hence, itis hoped that it will facilitate the generation of specificationssuitable for processing by computer, while allowing thegrammarian to use his or her more usual approach.

The explanations also provide a mechanism fortesting the specifications.

SYSTEM USE

The system is developed with different kinds of userin mind. It is hoped that the system can be used by a(determined) student working on his or her own with little orno access to a teacher. It can also be used assupplementary material in taught courses. In a taughtcourse it can serve to give as many examples andexercises as the student needs, without the time constraintcaused by the class time. It can also be useful in revisionduring a course, either at the prompting of the teacher or asthe student deems necessary.

INTERFACE

The system is being developed in a Windowsenvironment, which should facilitate ease of use. Thesystem is intended for use by children (from about tenyears of age) or adults.

RESTRICTIONS

The system can cope with much of inflection,mutation and other grammatical points. However, in somesituations to determine whether a word should undergomutations requires semantic information. For example, onpage 15 in New Irish Grammar (Christian Brothers, 1988),

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SO ANNETTE McELLIGOTT & GEAROIli O NEILL

is given lámh duine instead of *Minh dhuine since the firstnoun denotes part of a person. The dictionary requires tobe extended to include information on semantics to allowfor automatic treatment of such cases.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to acknowledge advice and generalassistance received from various people and organisations,including: Kevin Ryan, Sêamus O'Shea, Liam 6Dochartaigh, Lillis 6 Laoire, 011scoil Luimnigh; AST,Luimneach; Dell, Luimneach; Niamh Bhreathnach, AireOideachais, Rialtas na hEireann; An Gum.

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REFERENCES

Christian Brothers. (1988). New Irish Grammar. Dublin: C.S.6 Fa Ildn.

Ide, N., Veronis, J., & le Maitre, J. (1993). Outline of aDatabase Model for Lexical Databases. InformationProcessing, and Management, 29.

Joyce, P. (1963). A Grammar of the Irish Language. Dublin:The Educational Company of Ireland.

Lloyd, J.W. (1987). Foundations of Logic Programming.Springer-Verlag.

Lucas, P. & Van Der Gaag, L. (1991). Principles of ExpertSystems. Addison-Wesley.

MacGalloglaigh, C., Maclonnrachtaigh, P., 6 Flaithearta, P.,& 6 Néill, G. (1991). The Computer As TutorialAssistant For The Teaching Of Inflexion In IrishWords, AICS 1991, 011scoil Corcaigh, tire,September.

Mac Giolla Phddraig, B. (1963). R&M:yea Gramadai.Longman, Brim agus 6 Nualláin.

McElligott, A., & 6 Néill, G., (1994). CALL with Lexical andGrammar Objects. The Second Technologies &Language Learning Conference. IBM Centre,Lahulpe, Brussels.

McElligott, A., & O Néill, G. (1993a). An Object lesson in AnIrish CALL. Fifth International Conference on MinorityLanguages. Cardiff, July.

McElligott, A. & 6 Néill, G. (1993b). A Dictionary for Call.Et oCall 93, CTI Centre For Modem Languages,University of Hull, Hull, September.

6 Siadhail, M. (1989). Modem Irish. Cambridge UniversityPress.

Pratt, P. & Adamski, J. (1991). Database SystemsManagement and Design. 2nd edition. Boston, MA:Boyd and Fraser.

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52 ANNETTE AcELLIGOTr & GEAROID do NEILL

Roinn Oideachais, An (1986). Fock5ir Aka. Dublin: AnGum.

Roinn Oideachais, An. (1991). An Fockir Beag. Dublin: AnGum.

Stationery Office (1968). Gramadach na Gaeta agus LitriOna Gaeilge: an Caighdedn Oifigiail. Dublin: TheStationery Office.

Luimneach, EireE-mail: annette.mcelligott@uLie

E-mail: geamid.oneill@uLie

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Teaching Forum

TEACHING SPEAKING IN THE CELTICLANGUAGESZev bar-LevSan Diego State University

"Sheltered Initiation Language Learning" [SILL] is aninnovative initial method for teaching foreign languages,aimed at creating confident and creative speaking abilities."Its startling methodological assumptions, instructionalprocedures, and degree of success present a boldchallenge to prevalent language acquisition theory."(Marianne Celce-Murcia, ed., 1991, Teaching English as aSecond or Foreign Language, second edition, Rowley,Mass.: Newbury).

SILL is based in acquisition theory, but its approach,relying on "output" (production) over "input"(comprehension), is opposite to mainstream methods (see"Sheltered-Initiation Language Learning," in AppliedLanguage Learning, vol. 4, #1-2, 1993). Instead of"immersing" students in a mass of linguistic data (whichthey may understand communicatively but possibly notgrammatically), SILL presents an orderly sequencing ofwords and sentence-patterns (and, later, of grammaticaldetail as well). Learning five or so words at a time in atightly incremented sequence of short lessons, eachfocusing on a sentence pattern (starting from "X, please,"and moving on, lesson by lesson, to descriptive andnarrative sentences), students gradually learn to expressgiven meanings, without wading through masses of input.

Immersion may work well for languages like Spanish(at least when students are able to study for the manyhours per week that it requires), but it is not widely practicalfor Less Commonly Taught Languages. While "immersionweekends" may be wonderful motivators, they are notsufficient to produce true speaking abilities. But speakingis the very definition of "knowing a language" in the mind of

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54 TEACHING FORUM

most students, just as confident, creative speaking ability isthe sine-qua-non of any language "revival," abroad as inthe home country.

SILL sequences grammar innovatively, deferringcomplications until they are actually needed. By startingwith masculines only to encourage initial fluency, it delays(for a few lessons) the complex explanation of eclipsis thatbegins most Irish textbooks. Also delayed: the copula (is),and corjugation of Irish (in favor of the periphrastic presentwith ag). Teachers may fear that some students will neverlearn the delayed difficulties. However, I have found(op.cit.), in some specific instances already studied, thatSILL allows faster, more effective introduction ofgrammatical categories than other curricula.

For Irish and Welsh, SILL has been implemented in"Samples" of 1-3 hours (containing some "optional"lessons). They can be taught before, or along with, regularcurriculum. They are supplied with instructions about thefour simple "study-steps" that teachers need to follow. (Foreach of the lessons mentioned above, students need to:read aloud the "associations" provided for learning words(step 0); learn the words thoroughly and fluently (step 1);practice substituting different words in the sentence-pattern(step 2); and practice "Talkathon," saying sentences indifferent patterns, and thus practicing fluency (step 3).)

Teachers of Irish and Welsh are invited toparticipate (by writing to me at the address below) in anexperiment to evaluate SILL formally, by teaching the"Sample" and filling out short evaluations.

Dept. of Linguistics & Oriental Languages,San Diego CA 92182, USA

E-mail: [email protected]

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Materials Received

Comhar na Mitinteoiti Gaeilge. (1994): Who Said That?Dublin: CMG.

Teach yourself Irish video (2 hrs. US$25, p+p inc.).NTSC (North American) version. Suitable for adultclasses or home study (introduction). Availablefrom Comhar na MUinteoiri Gaeilge, 7 MerrionSquare, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Singleton, D. & Lengyel, Z., eds. (1995). The Age Factor inSecond Language Acquisition. Philadelphia:Multilingual Matters.

Contents include Introduction: A Critical Look atthe Critical Period Hypothesis in SecondLanguage Acquisition Research by DavidSingleton, Can Late Learners Attain a NativeAccent in a Foreign Language? A Test of theCritical Period Hypothesis by Theo Bongaerts,Brigitte Planken, and Erik Schils,Mutticompetence and Effects of Age by VivianCook, Some Critical Remarks ConcerningPenfield's Theory of Second LanguageAcquisition by Hans W. Dechert, Evaluating theNeed for Input Enhancement in Post-CriticalPeriod Language Acquisition by Georgette loup,Some Critical Remarks on the PhonologicalComponent by Zsolt Lengyel, and Is there an AgeFactor for Universal Grammar? by GitaMartohardjono and Suzanne Flynn.

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Announcements

CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS

ACTFL'96: American Council on the Teaching of ForeignLanguages Annual Meeting. 22-24 November 1996. Philadelphia,PA, USA.

Celtic Language Teachers' Professional Development Day. 22November 1996. Penn Language Center. University ofPennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. To register, contact KaraSmith at R1, Blenheim, ON, NOP 1AO, Canada or via e-mail atkarasmit©village.ca.

NAACLT'96: Second Annual Celtic Language Learning Conference.23 November 1996., University of Pennsylvania. Proposals forpapers should be sent to John T. McCranie, NAACLT'96, Dept. ofComputer Science, San Francisco State University, San Francisco,CA 94123, United States of America or via e-mail [email protected]. Deadline for proposals is 15 March 1996.

SUBMISSIONS

0 The Joumal of Celtic Language Learning is published each autumn.

0 The deadline for submissions is 15 April of each year.

0 Those interested should submit four typed copies of their manuscriptto Nancy Stenson, Institute of Linguistics and Asian and SlavicLanguages and Literatures, University of Minnesota, 190 KlaeberCourt, 320-16th Avenue, SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Keep a disk(computer) copy of the paper. It will be requested in the case ofacceptance.

0 All submissions should be double spaced. Articles should be 2,500to 3,000 words and short descriptions of a program or techniqueshould be 200 to 500 words.

0 All submissions will be refereed blind by two anonymous readers.

0 Comments from the referees will be forwarded to the authorstogether with the editors' decision regarding publishing after 15September of the same year.

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