http://www.naaclt.org/

nom::h .lI.mellicon IlssocloClon rOilCelclc-Lon6uo6e Ceochells

(nMCLC)

Fifth Annual Conterenceoflhe

orth American Associationfor Celtic Language Teachers

University of Ottau)(I, Ontario, Canada7--8 Ma'V 1999

Cinquieme congres annuel deI'Association nord-americaine

des enseignants et enseignantesen Iangues celtiques

Universite d'Ottm.va (Ontario) Canadadu 7 au B mai 1999

•

The North American Association forCeltic Language Teachers

The North American Association for Celtic Language'Teachers (NMCLT) was fanned with thesegoa/s in mind:

1. To permit mstTUClOTS w exchange ideas and researchthrough meetings and an annual publication.

2. To increase links ofCelric language teachers with thoseof ocher languages and ocher umb rella organizations.

3. To increase opportunities for Celtic language teachersin North America.

Despice its name, the NMCLT u.relcomes members fromoutside North America, researchers in Applied Linguis­tics, and graduate scudents in related fields. Queries aboutmembership and the organization in general can be sent10 info@naadl.011i.

The Progmmme

7

Friday 7 MayLc vendredi 7 mai

12:00-13:30RegistrationArts Building First Floor MezzanineTIle Arts Building i:l located at 70 Laurier AtJenue East on the comer ofWaller Street.

13:45Welcome/AccucillFailte/CroesoSimard Hall, Room 222Simard Hall is directly behind the Arcs Building, and can be accessed fromWaller Street. All papers will be delilJered in this room.

14:00--14:45SLic Scon, University of OttawaOnawa, Ontario (Canada)"The Acquisition of Irish: Guidelines for Comprehension"

14:45-15:30Kenneth E Nilsen, St Francis Xavier UniversityAntigonish, Nova Scotia (Canada)"Ceart oa Gaeilge: a Plea for Improved Standardsin the Teaching of Irish in North America"

Coffee BreaklPause~Cafe

16: 00--16:45Nancy Stenson, University of MinncSOG1,Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA)"Language Attitudes Among First~Lang:lIag:eSpeakersof Irish in the USA Today"

16:45-17:30Robert BurkeColumbia, Maryland (USA)"From Accountants to Zoologists and In Between:Experiences in Irish language Teaching"

8

17:45Executive MeetingArts Building Seminar Room 141

18:30ReceptionSimard Room 123Sponsored by Hi> Excellency Mr Paul Demp,ey, Ambas,ador for Ireland.

20:00An evening at the pubDunvegan Pub, 244 Laurier Avenue EastWith music by 'R6isin Dub!!'. The Dunvegan Pub is a centre of ScoHishcultural accivity.

•

9

Saturday 8 MayLc samedi 8 mai

9:00-9:45Simard Building, Room 222Jol111 Donahue, Champlain Regional CollegeSt-Lambert, Quebec (Canada)"Theories of Language Acquisition"

9:45-10:30Robert Orr, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)"Celtic as Non-Exotic: a Comparative Approach"

10:30-11:00Coffee BreaklPause-Cafe

11:00-11:45Marta Wcingartncr~Diaz,Indiana UniversityIndianapolis, Indiana (USA)uNcw Learners for a New Century? A Welsh Case Study"

11:45-12:30Paul W Birr, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario (C~mada)

"Teaching Welsh in a Hispanophone environment:the Welsh-Argentinian experience"

12:30-14:00LunchID~jeuner

14:00- 14:45Thomas W lhde, William P~ltCrSon College of New Jersey (USA)

"The Independent Language Learner and Technological Advances"

14:45-15:30Gcar6id 6 Neill, Ollscoil Luimnigh, Luimncach (Eire)"A Guide to the Pronunciation of Irish"

15:30-16:00Coffee BreakJPause·cafe

10

•

16:00-16:45Muiris 6 Laoire, Institiuid Teicneolaiochta, Tra U (Eire)"Learning Irish for Participation inthe lrish~SpeakingCommunity in Ireland"

17:00Round Table Discussion:"NAACLT Five Years A#Growing:the Future of the Organization"

19:00FeastLa Creperic, 47 York SrreetBreton pancakes wiclt cider in [he historic By Ward Market district ofOlwwa's Lower Town.

After dinnerThe Heart and Crown, 67 Clarence ScreeeA visit LO che Irish communi[)' pllb, also in tile Markel area.

I I

Sunday 9 MayLc dimanche 9 mai

9:00-13:00Study trip to the Village of Dunvegan in the District or Glengarry.Guided tour by Mr Kcnnedl MCKenna.Meet before 9:00 on the green in from of Tabarer Hall, across uu~rier

Street from die Arts Building.Glengany was ,,<tied in 1784 by Gaelic-speaking refugees [ram New

York Province after the American War of Independence. Scmrish ~ule~

ment continued for many years, and Gaelic concinlfed to be the languageof everyday life until well into the 2cP Century.

12

•

•

Abstracts of Papers

13

Paul W BirrUniversity of OttawaOrrawa, Ontario (CAnada)

UTeaching Welsh in a Hispanophone Environment:the Welsh.Argentinian experience"

The \'\Iclsh Argentinian sctdements in Chubur Prov­ince in southern Argentina are the only location out­side of Wales where the Welsh language has survivedas a partial community language over a number ofgenerations since the first arrival of Welsh-speakingcolonists to the region in the mid 1860s.

This paper examines the rapid language·shift whichtook place during the early pan of the 20lh Century inthe major areas of the eastern Chubut river valleyaround Trelew, Dolavon, Gaiman and Porth Madryn,and the relatively isolated western settlements aroundTrevelin and Esque1 in the Andean lowlands. From aposition ofrelative strength with institutional supporrin the earlier perioo of the colony, the Welsh lan­guage has become restricted to specialised dom..ains(Chapel. theeisreddfod) albeit remaining predominantin the home life of SOffie families.

Although attempts were made to revive interest inWelsh in the 60s and 70s it was not until the 90s thata real boom became apparent with financial aid fromthe Welsh Office and the Chubut Provincial Govern­ment that allowed professional reachets from \Valesto come to Argentina to create a new network ofcourses and to pave the way towards the training ofWelsh-Argentinian teachers. Questions will also beraised abour the integration of aspects ofArgentinianWelsh speech forms into the curriculum and also theimplications of the language revival for the largelyHispanophone Welsh.Argentinian community.

14

,

,

Robert BurkeColumbia, Maryland (USA)

'''From Accountants to Zoologists and In Between:Experiences in lrish#Languagc Teaching"

•

15

Jolm DonahueChamplain Regional CollegeSt·Lamocn, Quebec (Canada)

flTheories of Language Acquisition"

Two views predominate of language acquisition - theimitation school and the innateness school.

According to the imitation school, children acquirelanguage by imitating adults around them. They learnthrough a process of observation (unconsciously, ofcourse) and trial and error, eventually assimilating thestructures of language. Skinner, the behaviourist, isan example of this. Language methods based on theimitation school use Skinner's stimulus-response thea,ries and techniques to teach structures. Language bbo,ratories, pattern drills on tape or in written textbooks,follow the same pattern: stimulus, response, repeti,tion, and correction, until the form is assimilated.

The innateness school, on the other hand, sees theacquisition of language as a process taking place instages with the assimilation of the program of the lan,guage in segments. Chomsky and others argue thatthe human brain is the language organ, geneticallyengineered to acquire language. The essential struc­tures of language are genetically wired into the brainwhile the details of a particular language are pickedup after birth. This scheme is the way Mother Natureensures that any human will pick up the system mostuseful in his environment. Consequently, learning lan­guage is not a question of stimulus and response, imi­tation and trial-and,error correction but the internal­izing of the rules for generating linguistic structures.

The process is the same for both first-language learn,ers and second,language learners. These theories gettranslated into language methodologies.

16

The Skinnerian approaches require the memorizingofdialogues, repetition ofbasic sentence panerns withsubstitution of elements to reinforce the panern.

The Chomskian approach leads to methods that stressthe creative dimension of language, highlighting in­stead the rules (or generating statements that let thelearner internalize the rules for generating language.

The methods currently available (or teaching Irish asa second language reflect these theories. Dumas Cainrc,an audio-lingual method, is designed with the imita­tion theory as foundation. Students are expected tomemorize dialogues, to repeat sentences to assimilatepatterns. Vocabulary is introduced as part of patternsthrough repetition. reac/l Yourself Irish, by 6 Se andSheils, uses the communicative approach which is anadaptation of the Chomskian school of thought. Lan­guage is prescllted in terms ofcontexts where languagemust be uscd. Those Structures essential to speak abouta particular topic or in a particular situation are pre­sented. Many complain that this approach presentsthe structure of a language in a very choppy, haphaz­ard way. For example, the student would only learn {Q

form the genitive case of those nouns to be used in aparticular context, while the use of the genitive casein general is not presented.

My presentation will explore these contrasts in greaterdetail and study some of the methods for teaching Irish,emphasizing the theoretical foundations of the vari­ous methods.

17

Thomas \V IhdeWilliam Paterson College of New JerseyWayne, New Jersey (USA)

"The Independent Language Leamerand Technological Advances"

Self~[augll[ students in any language have often pro,vided curious stories for language enthusiasts.

These stories have become more frequent with theuse of teach-yourself materials that have includedrecords and, more recently, ca5Senc capes. Languagelabs with their link to audiolingualism in the 60s werea medium for teaching the masses. Students were re­quired to spend a specific number of hours per weekin the audiotape labs repeating phrases until they ac­quired the right "habit."

Although many labs were dismantled during the 80s,with the increase of technology in education, multi­media labs have gained popularity.

The focus of this paper is on the merging of these twoseparate situations. What we are now seeing in. thelate 90s is a new kind of learner. Although many peoplecontinue to study Irish on their own, they do so withthe aid of modern technology. Many such studentshave the components of their own multimedia lab intheir home already, using newly introduced softwarewith their personal computer, cassette player, andvideo player.

As technology progresses, we must ask the question"What is the role of the teacher?" Do independentlanguage learners want a teacher's help, or do theyjust want to be given all the resources and left to planout their own language learning agenda? This paper

18

will share the results to research I have carried ouramong independcnt learners of Irish and English.

Thc results show that although these students enjoyworking on their own, they ask very much for the di­rection of a language teacher. They value the adviceof a professional in designing a personal study planthat will identify what software they should use. Es­pecially in the area of writing, they want a tutor tocheck their work and provide feedback, a challengewhich cOlnputcrs have ye£ to meet.

,

19

Kenneth E NilsenSt Francis Xavier UniversityAntigonish, NOtia Scoria (Canada)

IlTowards Establishing Guidelines forIrish Teachers in North America"

In the last 15 years or so, Irish language classes havesprung up throughout orth America. In the last fiveor six years Irish has come to be used on a daily basison the Internet by a large number of teachers andlearners in North America.

At the same time it is obvious from the effusions ofthese people, that many of them, and most notablysome Irish teachers, have only an imperfect knowl~

edge of Irish and have anained a level of languageability that would be unacceptable in widely t<lughtand used languages.

In recent times, a number of Irish teachers in NorthAmerica have raised the question for the need for rec~

ognized sets of standards by which the language levelof teachers and learners can be gauged. I believe, how,ever, that before such guidelines can be establishedteachers of Irish must endeavor to improve their ownknowledge ofIrish and learn to correct erroneous pro~

nunciation, grammar and syntax.

With this in mind, my paper will take a look at someof the most egregious but nevertheless frequent er­rors made by many Irish teachers themselves (both inNorth America and Ireland). The paper will covermatters of pronunciation, grammar and syntax. Spe­cific questions to be dealt will include:

a) the pronunciation of'is e,' 'is i,' and 'is ind' in vari­ous contexts.

b) the pronunciation oflenited 'c', 'd' and 'g'.

20

c) the treatment of the preposition 'ag' before aver;bal noun.

d) infinitive clauses, including infinitive of purpose.

All items dealt with will be illustrated by extensivedocumentation drawn from scholarly sources as wellas from recorded sources. The paper is intended notas an exercise in chastisement but rather as a step to~

ward establishing a set of guidelines for Irish teachersin North America.

•

21

Muiris 6 Laoirelnstitiuid TeirneolaiocluaTra U (Eire)

"Learning Irish for Participation in thelrish~SpeakingCommunity in Ireland"

Until the early 1970., Irish-language pedagogy (ILP),as parr of the state's interventionist role in languagerevival, was seen to constitute a symbieric strategy forlanguage maintenance, status planning and acquisi~

rion planning for the language.

But since 1970, has there been a change in statc policyfor ILP? Is Irish still being taught and learned as asccond language (L2) with the objective of achievinga societal bilingualism? To what extent does learningIrish in schools at present guarantee r(ltes of repro­duction of sequential bilinguals to ensure consolida­tion and extension of the speech community pobal naGaeilge?

Pabal na Gaeilge, as well as including the territoriallydefined Gaelrachraf, significantly refers to a growingnumber of networks of users of Irish outside that re~

gional, territorial <lnd linguistic entity berh at homeand abroad.

In contrast to the Gaelweht, where the student of Irishmay have the support mechanisms of home andneighbourhood domains in sustaining or increasingproficiency through use, for the learner of Irish <IS L2outside the Gae/cae/H, the school alone may be theonly source of language learning, which mayor maynot be reinforced by participation in and integrationinto the speech community.

In the social organization of pobal na GaeiIgc. lrish~

speaking networks outside the Gaelwellt h.we never

22

been sufficiently numerous to form a readily identifi~

able and easily visible speech community. The spatialdistribution of Irish~speaking networks poses a seri~

OllS problem for the learner of Irish within the com~

municative framework, where the relevance oflearn~

ing is wholly identified with societal use. For manystudents, there is no readily identifiable speech corn~

munity, where such communication might be mean~

ingful, other than communicational transaction in theGaelcacllt.

This paper examines the present requirements for ac·countability in IL? (eg, syllabus, societal bilingualismand state revival policies). The author argues that ILPneeds to <lddress realistically the present focus of re~

vival policy programmes, as well as [Q empower learn~

ers to be more aware of the Irish· language contextand the process oflanguage learning itself, in order toachieve meaningful and purposeful language learningin the classroom. "

23

G,amid 6 NeillOllscoil Luimnig/lLuimneaclt (Eire)

ItA Guide to the Pronunciation of Irish"

Robert OrrUniversity of OttawaOttawa, Ontario (Canada)

"Celtic as Non~Exotic"

Many people approach the study of Celtic languageswith apprehension, believing them to be exotic andtherefore of above-average difficulty.

On first acquaintance with certain aspects of Celticlinguistic structure, such as the mutations, VSO or­der, the lack of a verb "to have", prepositional pro­nouns, and certain items of the phonology (thepalaralisation in Goidelic, the voiceless lateral inWelsh, etc) such apprehensions seem justified.

This paper will argue, however, that most of the sa­lient phenomena of the Celtic languages are not infact that uncommon cross-linguistically, and suggestthat this might be highlighted in introductory bro­chures.

In this context the paper will also include brief dis~

cussions of the vigesimal numerical system and verbalconstructions with auxiliaries. These are as rare asmany of above1enumerated constructions, but as theyare familiar from French and English respectively theysomehow seem less "exotic" to the learner.

15

Marta Weingartner~ DiazIndiana UniversityIndianapolis. Indiana(USA)

nNcw Learners for a New Century?A Welsh Case Study"

This session will examine the changing nature of themarket for the Welsh language in North America, trac·ing the experience of several organizations offeringWelsh instruction (week-long intensive courses, com­munity·based classes, and university.level courses).

I will consider enrollment trends over the last few de·cades, the increased availability of multimedia teach·ing materials, and the growing role of the Internet inpublicizing courses, reaching potential students, andhelping current students learn better.

These issues should also have relevance to teachersof Irish and Gaelic.

28