Redundant
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This is a very detailed and kind post, Liza, go raibh maith agat - I’m sure there are lots of people who will find this hugely helpful 
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Going to disagree with you here. Introducing an item after you have been using it as part of a meaningful chunk is good teaching IMHO.
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I don’t think there was a deliberate idea. Looks more like an artifact of the generic plan applied to different languages without taking into consideration that Irish already uses “with me” as part of “I would like”. I can understand it could make sense to use idiom as a whole and then explain it’s literal meaning (like with gabh mo leithscéal), but this one is simple enough, could be explained as “good with me” right from the start.
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Could be, I haven’t done the course. All I can say is that I enjoyed this kind of thing in the Manx course. For about 20 lessons, I thought the conjugated prepositions were verb endings until my mind finally figured it out. I love those, “Oh, so that’s what I’ve been saying!” moments.
Also, I don’t always find that what makes sense to me as a teacher who finds grammar interesting is the best order to introduce things to my students.
In this case, I can think of several reasons why the order in the course might be easier for students to learn than the more logical order.
You’re clearly a very smart person (like seriously, you are very impressive) and I share your interest in grammar (why else would I be reading your thread ha ha?) and I do take your point that it might be the application of a template; but honestly, I’m not convinced that the order on the course is a bad thing for the reasons I gave above.
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I spent eleven years working in the kindergarten and explaining complicated stuff to five year olds, some with mental disabilities, so I have some idea how to slow down considerably I don’t exactly like it, but I can.
Anyway, I’ll have to figure out what’s going on in the rest of the course. Order might not be inherently bad, doesn’t mean it cannot be improved.
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Fair enough.
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We generally intend not to use items until they’ve been introduced, but we also do feel that surprise theory suggests that it’s not the end of the world when we hiccup (and may have some benefits!).
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Funnily enough, I’ve just been reading Andy Clark’s popular book on predictive processing and this whole area is fascinating. The applications to teaching are huge.
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Interesting. Could you elaborate?
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Okay, i get the hint. Are you familiar with Alva Noë’s works, by any chance?
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I wasn’t, but I’ll certainly check him out, thanks.
What hint? I can promise you that I wasn’t hinting at anything. It was a good-faith answer to your question. What hint did you think I was making?
Edit: I’ve been trying to think what you might have meant by “hint” and the only thing I can think of is that you think it was a (rather rude) hint that you should buy the book. I can assure you that that wasn’t my intention. It was just an easy way to show you what book I was talking about with all the information (ISBN, synopsis, reviews) you might need to take it further.
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Something went wrong somewhere. I was asking about applications to teaching, book reference is okay too. Predictive processing was on my list anyway, thanks for the reminder. Let’s discuss applications later?
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Córas ceartúcháin_2018 (1).pdf (2.3 MB)
Oh, now that’s a lucky find. Fifty something pages of typical mistakes in Irish with explanations… in Irish. Should make the process much easier.
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03i an-caighdean-oifigiuil-2017_en.pdf (1.7 MB)
03j An Caighdeán Oifigiúil.pdf (3.3 MB)
I assume we want to align with the official standard for now. Luckily there’s at least unofficial translation into English. Wonder if anyone was kind enough to translate Gramadach gan Stró. For some reason Éamonn Ó Dónaill decided Béarla to be redundant on this level of pedantry.
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Nancy Stenson has reading rules for vowels in the first volume of her Irish grammar + workbook.
Irish vowels are read more or less like this (with dialect variations):
| Written | Pronounced |
|---|---|
| a, consonant+ai | a |
| ea, eai, ai (beginning) | English a |
| á, eá, ái, eái, a+n/nn/ll/rr/rd/m | á |
| e, ei (beginning), oi, ea (in beag) | e |
| Ă©, Ă©a, Ă©i, ae, aei | Ă© |
| i, io, ui, oi (in oileán) | i |
| Ă, oĂ, aĂ, uĂ, uĂo, i/io+n/nn/ll/rr/rd/m, ao, aoi | Ă |
| o, eo (in seo, eochair) | o |
| Ăł, Ăłi, eo, eoi | Ăł |
| u, iu | u |
| Ăş, Ăşi, iĂş, iĂşi, o+nn/m | Ăş |
| ia | Ă-ah |
| ua | Ăş-ah |
| o+n/nn/ll/rr/rd/m (Connacht), a+n/nn/ll/rr/rd/m (Munster), abh, amh | au |
| adh/agh/aidh/aigh (middle) | ai |
| a/o/u/e (unstressed) | uh |
| a/o/u/e (unstressed vowels in the end of the word before next word starting with a vowel) | silent |
| l/r/n+consonant | unwritten a/i |
Yes, there’s method to the madness and most of that is applied consistently, but that’s a lot of rules (and robot doesn’t model them well). Pretty much why I don’t believe reading will come naturally after picking up speaking by ear.
There should be a way to speed up the process of getting used to this set of reading rules. Without explicit guidance they tend to take months to become habitual. Spaced close-ups on one or two rules at a time, maybe, using words already confidently pronounced.
(I get the focus on oral speech, but yeah, I heard complaints about being unable to read the name of the pub, which makes discussing meeting places kinda complicated.)
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Irish traditional songs with fast articulation seem to do something similar to double speed recordings. After singing along to several of those, perception speeds up to the level where “chipmunks” sound like normal clear speech. (Just listening doesn’t do the trick.)
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“Irish is fun”, 1987.
…yeah.
Wonder if póg mo thóin belongs to minimally functional vocabulary, or is it more like Dia duit, i.e. we’ll be absorbed anyway.
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That’s hysterical @elizaveta! Interesting that they don’t translate Póg mo thóin - probably better not to ask! 
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