Irish Language Hacks for Seachtain na Gaeilge

Irish Language Hacks for Seachtain na Gaeilge

Seachtain na Gaeilge has started and in a few days Lá le Padraig will be upon us. This year, with the centenary of Eirí Amach 1916 we seem to have a renewed interest in Irish culture and by extension in our language. So if you think that you don’t have any Irish, here are some hacks to get you going again.

#1 You have more Irish than you think!

You’re just out of practice.  You read my opening two sentences and you understood them, even though part of them were in Irish.  You did Irish in school, it’s there.  Our brain holds on to everything it has ever learned, it just needs practice.  You have Irish, you’re just out of practice – Tá tú as cleachtadh. It will all come with some practice.

#2 Your Irish doesn’t have to be perfect.

Irish is a language and the purpose of language is communication.  I once bought a beautiful hand woven rug in a craft shop in Spain.  I had no Spanish & the owner had no English, yet we were able to communicate because I wanted to buy the rug and she wanted to sell it!  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  Just start talking in Irish & if you need to put in an English word – put it in!  If you go to the Gaeltacht areas, you’ll find this happening all the time!

# Think like Yoda

Irish is a very unique language in that it follows a sentence structure that only 9% of the world’s languages follow.  Its structure is Verb Subject Object.  When directly translated into English I always think that it sounds like Yoda speaking in Star Wars.  No wonder the birthplace of the Force is in Kerry!

# Irish has very few irregular verbs.

Unlike English which has over 100 irregular verbs, Irish only has 11.  Once you know them (and you do already), you’re good to go.

# There is no Yes or No in Irish.

Ever wonder which you can never get a straight yes or no from an Irish person – it’s because it’s not in our psyche.  Think about it, listen to people around you.  Even in English we continue with the Irish structure – We’d ask – ‘was John sick yesterday?’  We’d never say yes, we’d say ‘he was / he wasn’t’, An raibh Seán tinn inné?  Bhí sé /Ní raibh sé

# Grammar helps but it’s not the be all and end all

Make mistakes, make loads of mistakes. Nobody is going to think less of you. You’re (re)learning a language, you’re going to make mistakes. Think about it when you a tourist asks you for information in broken English. Do you ignore them because they are not speaking the Queen’s English? Of course not.  The grammar will come and once you are speaking in Irish it will become easier to correct those little butúns – see you understood that!!

# The Modh Coinníollach cannot hurt you.

For some reason the modh coinníollach has been built up into this huge scary monster. But the truth is, the modh coinníollach cannot hurt you.  Have you ever thought about what you would do if you won the lotto?  Yes? Congratulations, you were thinking in the Modh Coinníollach.  It is the conditional tense, something happening on condition of something else happening e.g. I would go on a cruise if I won the lotto.  It is that easy.

# Learn the words that matter

A new (or forgotten) language means learning lots of new words, which can be very off-putting. But, here’s the big secret, you do NOT need to know all the words of a language to be able to speak it. The reality is that, although you are fluent in it, you don’t know all the words in the English language either. Use the 80/20 principle here, and realise that 20% of the effort you spend on acquiring new vocabulary could ultimately give you 80% comprehension in Irish—for instance, in English just 300 words make up 65% of all written material. We use those words a lot, and that’s the case in every other language, including Irish as well. So invest your time well and learn those words that you are going to get maximum use out of.  You can always learn the rest in the future.

# Take advantage of free stuff

What did we do before the internet?  Want to learn Irish – or any other language for that matter?  You Tube is great, just be sure to get the dialect correct.  If you’re from Munster, then learn Munster Irish! Find native speakers online & skype with them. Watch TG4 – there are some fantastic documentaries on it.

There is an excellent free app called Duolingo, which could a great place to start your Irish language renaissance.

#Listen to Raidió na Gaeltachta

I had it on in the background today while typing this and I found myself thinking in Irish while trying to type in English.  It was a surreal experience because I’m not a native speaker.  I could follow a good share of the interview, they were talking about exporting shamrock from Ballinskelligs & how it was sent to the UK by courier and they agreed , is iontach an system at DHL! 

 So if the native speakers are happy to throw in the cúpla focal Béarla, you can be happy to too.

If you’ve read all the way down to here you may be interested in ‘The Irish Course™’. It is a innovative approach to the Irish Language incorporating the Hummingbird Learning Method®. We are finalising dates at present so to be one of the first to hear about it just email me at elaine@hummingbirdlearning.com and I will put you on the advanced notice list.

Slán.

Elaine Sparling Founder & CEO Hummingbird Learning Centre®

Elaine Sparling is the CEO of the award winning Hummingbird Learning Centre®. Based in Adare, Co Limerick and Tralee, Co Kerry, she works with clients on a one to one basis and can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through their website www.hummingbirdlearning.com. They are currently developing a week long Irish Course for summer 2016. The online version of their popular workshop The Secrets to Successful Spelling™ is available through their website and Facebook page and they have launched their Study Success Program™ for second & third level students.

Dyslexia & Me: Richard Branson

At Hummingbird Learning Centre we always say that dyslexia is a wonderful thing – it’s just that it needs a different strategy for reading & writing.

I remember when the Virgin Megastore opened in Ireland. I was working in Dublin in the late 80’s early 90’s and it felt so cool,modern & kind of dangerous to be in there, browsing through the records. The store had caused all kinds of outrage because they were selling condoms openly on the counter, flouting the law at the time. The radio waves were jammed with moral condemnation, probably I suspect, to the delight of its owner, the maverick entrepreneur, Richard Branson.

Early in his life, Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Media, struggled with dyslexia. “I struggled with dyslexia when I was at school, long before it was widely known—my teachers just thought I was just stupid, lazy or both. Words just looked like jumbles of letters on the blackboard to me.”

Richard Branson has made a name for himself by mixing creative passion with business ideas. His first commercial success came after he founded his dream business: a record label. That company, called Virgin Records, produced the Mike Oldfield album “Tubular Bells,” which was later used in the film The Exorcist.

But that wasn’t Branson first business.  His first was a magazine that he started while still at school. The magazine was so successful that he left school early to continue with it.  I always think that this was incredible.  Here was a guy who struggled with reading and writing, yet he started a magazine, where his trade and tools were words!

In a blog post on Virgin’s website, Branson attributed the Virgin brand’s success to his dyslexia: “However, there are still many dyslexics out there, especially young people, who feel held back by their condition. I used my dyslexia to my advantage and learned to delegate those tasks I wasn’t so good it. This freed me up to look at the bigger picture, and is one of the main reasons I have been able to expand the Virgin brand into so many different areas.”

That ability to see the ‘big picture’ is one of the many positive attributes of dyslexia.

There are many, many talented dyslexics out there,” Branson wrote. “In fact, some of the most creative people happen to have the condition.”  One of his ‘big picture’ ideas really couldn’t be any bigger – he created a company to make commercial SPACE travel a reality!

In addition, Richard Branson owns his own train company, an airline, a media group and even a Caribbean island, but it’s not all about making money.  He takes a different approach to customer care.  He advocates for looking after your staff first, then they will look after the customers. “I have always believed that the way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers, and that people flourish when they are praised.” “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

Branson also knows the value of making mistakes, something people who do dyslexia often find difficult: “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it’s because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over.

He credits dyslexia with another of his signature management techniques: the habit of always taking notes. He writes in his 2014 book “The Virgin Way” that he learned as a child that if he ever had a chance at remembering anything, he’d need to jot it down. To this day, he says he carries a notebook everywhere.

The handwritten note habit has come in handy in management, negotiation, and even legal situations — he’s submitted his notebooks as evidence in lawsuits, he says.

It’s one of the “most powerful tools” in his “bag of business tricks,” Branson writes.

Dyslexia, Branson claims, actually made him a better manager, he wrote in his 2012 book “Like a Virgin,” and it became what he considers his “greatest strength.”

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month

Homework – A Thorny Issue

“Homework is one of the thorniest issues at primary level”. Not my words but those of Peter Mullen of the Irish National Teachers Organisation, in an article in the Irish Examiner in November 2013.

The Department of Education in Ireland has no formal policy on the length of time homework should take. I’m going to repeat that – there is no national policy on the length of time that homework should take or how much homework is given.  Each school is free to make its own policy.  In many ways, the lack of a formal policy is a good thing. Nobody wants a situation where home work is done with a stopwatch – not a second more, not a second less.

Homework is a contentious issue.  Some parents rate teachers based on how much homework they give – too much & the teacher mustn’t be teaching them in class at all, too little and the teacher is way too laid back.  Other parents decide that a school is more or less academic than other schools based on the amount of homework given. The consensus being that the longer the students spend on homework the more academic (and therefore better) the school.

I know of one parent, who decided that the teacher, who was also the principal, wasn’t giving enough homework to the class. That parent went to town on the teacher, who gave in and increased the homework from 30 – 40 min to 2.5 hours per night!  The pupils were in 4^th class and no other parents were consulted before the massive increase in workload.  The fact that there isn’t a formal national policy gave the other parents little comeback when this happened.  The school set the policy.

There is a lot more to doing homework than the time it takes to do it but giving a time frame is at least an easy guideline for parents.  However, when I checked the homework policies of various national schools on time to be spent on homework in sixth class, some schools recommend up to 50% more time than others.

An article in The Irish Teachers’ Journal in November 2014 entitled ‘An Evaluation of the Utility of Homework in Irish Primary School Classrooms’ by Joanne Jackson and Lorraine Harbison, concluded that,  based on their research  it is not the giving of homework per se that is of value but that the type of homework that is administered is more important.

They go on to say:  Homework remains a central part of the primary school curriculum that affects teachers and teaching, children and learning, families and home-school communication. Despite this reality, there is limited evidence on the utility of homework. As with the findings of Van Voorhis (2004), too little attention has been given to the purposes of homework and communication between home and school about homework policies. Communication should work both ways, but all the literature refers to home-school communication in relation to homework rather than what could really be deemed the more appropriate term, school-home!

A number of key themes arose during the questionnaire, namely the lack of knowledge of the expectations of parents, partially due to the homework policy being poorly communicated to parents and the juxtaposition of positive and negative views of homework amongst parents. Even more disappointing, is the absence of the voice of the child in the debate although the curriculum advocates that children should be active agents in their own learning rather than submissive partakers. What is apparent is that radical overhaul of homework needs to take place and it is vital that all involved are given opportunities to voice opinions in order to develop the most effective strategies possible which will maximise children’s learning potential.

In March 2015 the UK newspaper The Telegraph ran a story called ‘Homework around the world: how much is too much?’ In it they claim that there is little data on how much time primary school students spend working on homework, but studies have failed to find any relationship between time spent of homework during primary school and academic achievement.

The debate continues in secondary school. The amount of time secondary school children spend on homework varies hugely around the world, depending on the pressures and expectations of each country.

According to the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and various education research partners, 15-year-olds in Shanghai spend the most amount of time on homework, at an average of 13.8 hours per week. Students in Finland spend just 2.8 hours on homework per week, but manage to still perform well on academic tests, despite the correlation between time spent on homework and success. British 15-year-olds spend an average of 4.9 hours per week on homework, which is exactly the same as the overall OECD average.

Ireland was not included in the list of 62 countries.

Elaine Sparling is the creator of the Hummingbird Learning Method® and is about to launch an online version of their the popular workshop The Secrets to Successful Spelling™. Based in Adare, Co Limerick and now also in Tralee Co Kerry, she works with clients on a one to one basis and can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through their website www.hummingbirdlearning.com

An Education System that Doesn’t Teach Subjects.

Imagine a world where your school day was no longer dominated by subjects, such as maths or history or geography, but instead everything was jumbled up and you were taught by topic instead.

Crazy huh?  It would never work.  How could a teacher possibly teach a topic instead of a subject?  What’s the difference anyway?

Well in Helsinki in Finland they are doing just that – teaching by topic rather than by subject.  Finland has always taken a radical approach to education and its one that works!  Up to very recently, when they were taken over by Asian countries such as Singapore, Finland consistently topped the PISA international literacy league tables published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Every teacher in Finland, must have a minimum of a Master’s degree. Being a teacher in Finland is afforded the same social standing as being a doctor. So why are they changing what seems to be a very good system already?

Marjo Kyllonen, Helsinki’s education manager explains: “It is not only Helsinki but the whole of Finland who will be embracing change. We really need a rethinking of education and a redesigning of our system, so it prepares our children for the future with the skills that are needed for today and tomorrow. There are schools that are teaching in the old fashioned way which was of benefit in the beginnings of the 1900s – but the needs are not the same and we need something fit for the 21st century.”

Pasi Silander, the Helsinki City Council’s development manager, shared the council’s view: “What we need now is a different kind of education to prepare people for working life. Young people use quite advanced computers. In the past the banks had lots of bank clerks totting up figures but now that has totally changed. We therefore have to make the changes in education that are necessary for industry and modern society.”

Subject-specific lessons – an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon – are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching – or teaching by topic. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills.

More academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union – which would merge elements of economics, history (of the countries involved), languages and geography.

There are other changes too, not least to the traditional format that sees rows of pupils sitting passively in front of their teacher, listening to lessons or waiting to be questioned. Instead there will be a more collaborative approach, with pupils working in smaller groups to solve problems while improving their communication skills – mirroring what happens in the business world.

Given the resistance to the introduction of the New Junior Cert, I suspect that there would be little appetite in Ireland, currently, for going as far as ditching traditional subjects. Even in Finland, the reforms have met objections from teachers and principals – many of whom have spent their lives focusing on a particular subject only to be told to change their approach.

Helsinki’s education manager Ms Kyllonen has been advocating a “co-teaching” approach to lesson planning, with input from more than one subject specialist. Teachers, in Finland, who embrace this new system can receive a small top-up in salary.

About 70 per cent of Helsinki’s high school teachers have now been trained in adopting the new approach. “We have really changed the mind-set,” said Mr. Silander from Helsinki City Council. “It is quite difficult to get teachers to start and take the first step… but teachers who have taken to the new approach say they can’t go back.”

And it appears that students are benefiting too. In the two years since the new teaching methods were introduced, pupil “outcomes” – they prefer that word to standards – have improved.

All Finnish schools are obliged to introduce a period of “phenomenon-based teaching” (teaching by topic) at least once a year. These projects can last several weeks. In Helsinki, they are pushing the reforms at a faster pace with schools encouraged to set aside two periods during the year for adopting the new approach. Ms Kyllonen’s blueprint, to be published later this month, envisages the reforms will be in place across all Finnish schools by 2020.

The eyes of the education world will be upon Finland as it opts for change: will it be able to retain or improve its showing in the PISA league tables and if it does, how will the rest of the education world react? If Finland succeeds, would we ever adopt a similar approach here, in the ‘Land of Saints & Scholars’?

Elaine Sparling is the creator of the Hummingbird Learning Method® and is about to launch an online version of their the popular workshop The Secrets to Successful Spelling™ . Based in Adare, Co Limerick and now also in Tralee Co Kerry, she works with clients on a one to one basis and can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through their website http://www.hummingbirdlearning.com

Why Meaning is So Important for Spelling

When my boys were in primary school, they had an English book that was used for reading and spelling.  It was different to the type of reader that I had in school (who is old enough to remember the Maura, Seán and Rusty books).  Their English book was more of a workbook.  Along the left hand side were random words chosen simply because they were phonetically similar. Spelling homework was to learn off the words.  It was pretty easy to remember them, in the short term, because they all had the same sound.

Understanding what the word meant wasn’t really part of the process, but without meaning, learning how to spell the word is worthless.  Being able to use the word again, in the appropriate context, is an essential part of learning to spell. It is also an important aid in reading and composition. Why else would we need to do it?

In order to understand what a word means you have to either make a visual still image of it or create a contextual mini movie in your memory.  Creating this means that in the future when reading the word, for a fraction of a nano-second, that image pops back into your head and you have understanding.

This skill allows you to expand your vocabulary and comprehension.  It allows you learn new languages quickly and easily. Like all skills it must be learned and honed.  Controlling your images for spelling and comprehension is essential.  It is easy to make an image for nouns.  Imagine a dog – easy.  For abstract words it is more complicated but once mastered it too becomes easy.  This is where internal mini movies come into their own.

A good Thesaurus dictionary is a vital item in every home.  I think they are a wonderful way to connect words of similar meaning to the same internal image. If you come across a new word to spell and are unsure of the meaning, look it up in the Thesaurus.  Chances are that you already have an internal picture of another word that has a similar meaning to the new word.  Now all you do is tag the new word on to the same image.

Some skills are learned to do something that lasts for a short period of time.  Learning how to put meaning behind every word is a skill that will make spelling easy for the rest of your life.

Elaine Sparling is the creator of the Hummingbird Learning Method® and is about to launch the popular Secrets to Successful Spelling™ workshop, online, at the end of August. Based in Adare, Co Limerick, where she works with clients on a one to one basis, she can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through their website http://www.hummingbirdlearning.com

The Chaos (or why English should not be taught phonetically)

English is a difficult language to learn, not least because of the contradictions in pronunciation,  and yet children are still taught it phonetically.  This poem ‘The Chaos’ demonstrates the irregularity of spelling and pronunciation in English.  It was written by Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870 – 1946). Have a bit of fun and read it out loud.  I know its a little long, but it is totally worth it! I bet you will discover things about the English language that you never realised before.

The Chaos

 A poem on English Pronunciation by G Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation

Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say–said, pay–paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

From “desire”: desirable–admirable from “admire”,

Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You’ll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it”,
But it is not hard to tell
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

“Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker“,
Quoth he, “than liqueur or liquor“,
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don’t mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud

Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you’re not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
Don’t peel ‘taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget ’em–
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess-it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won’t it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying “grits”?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup…
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

Use Your Brain For a Change

One of my favourite quotes is by Dr Richard Bandler and it is “When you want new results, it requires new thinking”.  Thinking is just something we do.  We are always thinking about something.  Even when we are asleep our brain is still working.

We are born with this amazing inbuilt computer but unfortunately it didn’t come with a set of instructions.  We have to learn how to use it as we go along and mostly we use it out of habits we have formed from watching and listening to others, so if we want to change those habits we have to think differently and to think differently we have to use our brain to get that change.

Your Brain

There is a lot of talk about people being right-brained and left-brained.  You might have taken one of those quizzes online to determine which you are.  The assumption is that a person who is ‘left-brained’ is more logical, analytical and objective and suitable for jobs such as accountant, solicitor or programmer.  The ‘right-brained’ person is said to be more creative, intuitive, thoughtful and subjective and might want to be an actor, graphic designer or therapist.

The reality is that people are not one or the other, they are not ‘right-brained’ or ‘left-brained’.  The theory grew out of the work of Nobel Prize winner Roger W Sperry.  He discovered that cutting the corpus callosum, the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, reduced or eliminated seizures in people with epilepsy.

However, patients who had undergone the procedure also had new symptoms after the communication pathway between the two sides of the brain was cut. Some patients found that they could no longer name objects that were processed by the right side of the brain, yet they could still name objects processed by the left side of the brain. This led Sperry to suggest that language was controlled by the left side of the brain.

However, later research has shown that the brain is not nearly as neatly divided as this. The brain actually works best when both sides of the brain are engaged at the same time. Neuroscientists have found that the two sides of the brain work together to perform a wide variety of tasks and the two sides communicate through the corpus callosum.

In a study of over 1000 participants by the University of Utah, it was revealed that while activity was sometimes higher on one side or the other in certain critical regions, on average both sides of the brain were essentially equal in their activity. Dr Jeff Anderson, the study’s lead researcher explains “It’s absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or other side of the brain. Language tends to be on the left, attention more to the right, but people don’t tend to have a stronger left or right sided brain network.  It seems to be determined more connection by connection”.

This makes the corpus callosum key in using our brain to evoke and strengthen new thinking.  Mid line exercises help to make those connections.  We need both sides of our brain working together to create strong neuropathways, making focus and recall much better and easier.

So the next time you take one of those quizzes, know that it’s just a bit of fun. Now I must go and check my horoscope.

So, what is Fluent Reading?

A while ago I was on a course and the trainer told us a story about the time that he was dead late for a course he was due to give. He rang the hotel to ask them to pass on the message that he was on his way & would be there as fast as he could.  The receptionist asked him where exactly he was & when he told her, her reply was “you can drive as fast as like, but it won’t make any difference when you’re going in the wrong direction”.

Like everything, reading with fluency takes practice, however there is no point in practicing & practicing unless you are practicing the right thing. Reading aloud is right up there with public speaking as one of the biggest fears people have.  It’s easy to see why. In many ways they are one and the same thing.  Making a mistake while reading aloud in a class full of your friends (& mortal enemies too), is every child’s nightmare. Nobody wants to be laughed or sniggered at.

Reading Tips from Hummingbird Learning Centre

So what exactly is ‘fluent reading’?  Fluent Reading is the ability to read smoothly and automatically with expression and attention to punctuation.  The speed at which you read is called the ‘Pace’.  The goal is to read at just the right pace, I call it the Goldilocks pace, not too fast, not too slow, just right!

‘Phrasing’ is chunking words together into meaningful phrases rather than reading, each, word, at, a time.

When reading aloud, it is important to make it interesting for the listener, to engage them, and this is done using your voice. Reading with feeling, changing your voice to match a character, adding excitement or other emotion by moving your voice up and down, or making it louder or softer, adds expression to text.  Using intonation and expression adds to reading fluency. In a nutshell, you should read as you would speak.

Finally, punctuation is there for a reason!  When reading pay attention to the punctuation.  It is there to help you to read aloud with meaning.  It is an aid to fluent reading because it tells you where to pause, where to breathe, where to stop, where to change voices and add dramatic effect.  You stop for a second at every full stop (period). You have an intake of breath at a comma.  Your voice goes up for a question mark. You add excitement when you see an exclamation mark!!! (You read that with excitement, didn’t you?).  You can change your voice for a character when you see “inverted commas”.

I think it is really important that before you read aloud, you read the text silently to yourself first.  You may only have time to scan it but this gives your brain a chance to see what the text is about.  Then when you actually read it aloud, it will feel more familiar and this helps to create fluent reading.  If you are helping your child with homework, give them time to read silently first, that way if there are any new or unfamiliar words they can ask about them in advance, rather than getting stuck on them mid-sentence.  Stopping to sound out a word while reading interrupts the reading fluency, so a little bit of preparation goes a very long way.

When I was a teenager I used to read at mass and one Sunday I was to read the second reading.  Unfortunately, the person was doing the first reading didn’t show up and I got an elbow from my dad for me to go up to the altar and do both readings. Panic!  I had only practiced the second one! Panic turned into sheer horror when I started to read.  The second paragraph had lists of names and places and tribes that were just about pronounceable had I practiced them, but now were double Dutch!! I stumbled through the first five or six, feeling my face go redder and redder and then I got some divine inspiration – I just skipped the rest!  A quick glance down the page got me onto the final straight and it was over.  Thankfully I was able to read the second lesson with ease, because I had practiced it.  I thought my dad would be livid with me but I later realised that nobody (except perhaps the priest, although I couldn’t even be sure about him), noticed that I had left out a huge chunk from the first reading.  I think that if I had tried to continue to read that difficult passage I would probably never have read in public again.

So, give your child a chance.  Allow them to scan and silently read the piece before they read aloud.  It will definitely help them to become more fluent readers.

Elaine Sparling is the CEO of the Hummingbird Learning Centre who help adults and children maximise their learning potential.  Based in Adare, Co Limerick, she can be contacted on 087-2996054, through their website www.hummingbirdlearning.com or on their Facebook Page

Exam Weather Tips

As I write the sun is streaming in the window onto my back and it feels wonderful.  On days like today all seems good with the world.  My mum calls it ‘exam weather’; the freaky good weather we get just before the state examinations start.

But Elaine you say, the exams don’t start until June!  Ah yes, the written examinations are a few months away yet, but this exam weather arrived just in time for the oral language exams starting next week.  It does seem unfair that they begin just after the Easter holidays but c’est la vie (see what I did there?).

By now you will be ready for your test, with all of your revision done.  Now all you have to do is get through the short exam, so here are a few tips:

1. Remember that the examiner is your friend. They want you to do as well as you can.  If they ask you anything tricky it’s because up to that point they felt that you were doing really well and they wanted to develop that further with you. They are not there to make life difficult for you.
2. It’s ok to be nervous.  The examiner is trained to expect it and will do everything they can to ensure that you get off to the best possible start.  Once you get going you’ll be great.  Smile and tell yourself that you are relaxed.  Remember, fake it till you make it.
3. Breathe.  In through your nose, deep into your lower tummy and slowly out through your mouth.
4. Practice listening to yourself.  Use your phone to record yourself speaking in the language you are being tested in and replay it.  Listen to your diction, are you clear when you speak?  When alone in the room with the examiner, sometimes people become self-conscious as they hear themselves speak aloud in a very quiet room.  Practicing hearing yourself speak will make that experience a lot easier.
5. Know exactly what you want to say, so that even if you are temporarily thrown off guard you can easily bring the conversation back on track again.
6. Listen to your tempo.  The conservation should flow naturally. If you have learned off certain set pieces, practice them so that they seem unrehearsed and natural.  Use your phone here too.
7. Imagine yourself 2 minutes after leaving the exam room and everything had gone even better than you had hoped.  See yourself telling everyone how well it went, listen to the words you’re using like easy, brilliant, so nice, everything I practised came up.  Feel the smile on your face as you do.  Now see yourself float up over that happy excited person and turn and look back down your timeline to where you are sitting reading this now.  As you look become aware now of what you are doing now in the future to get to that happy place.  Float back along your timeline, taking in all of those learnings and float back into your body here and now, preserving all of the positive learnings.
8. Believe in yourself.  You have the work done.  Now just do it!

Learning Irish and the Benefits of Being Bilingual

I didn’t grow up in a Gaeltacht area.  I learned Irish in school like everyone else and no, I didn’t go to a Gaelscoil.  My Irish is often rusty, but it’s still there.  If the nuacht comes on the radio I can follow it for the most part.  I find Connemara Irish tricky and Donegal Irish close to impossible, but if I’m watching a documentary on TG4 (and they can be superb), if Munster Irish is being spoken, as the programme continues I find that I need the sub-titles less and less. Even when the programme is over, I’m still thinking in Irish. I admit I do have a grá for Irish.

Ireland today is a multi-cultural country.  I love seeing young families in the supermarket and the parents are talking to their children in their native language. Studies have shown that bilingual people have better task switching capacities because of their acquired ability to inhibit one language while using another. In other words, speaking two languages forces your brain to recognize two different language systems. So, basically, you become smarter. Did you know that people who speak more than one language tend to make fewer errors in their driving? A side benefit, but a benefit nonetheless!

So why don’t we recognise the benefits of being bilingual in Irish?  I think that too much emphasis is placed in school on reading and writing in Irish at an early age. Those toddlers in the supermarket speaking Polish or Bulgarian, they understand the language, they can converse in it, they are fluent in it; they just can’t read or write it yet.

In school, up to fourth class, the emphasis should be on spoken Irish only, so that children understand the language first, become fluent in Irish and only then learn to read and write in it. Once a child is fluent in the spoken word, the written word will be much easier.  There are excellent children’s programmes on TG4 and these should be shown in school.  In his book, Kerry footballer Paul Galvin mentioned that he used to record the programme Afric on TG4 for his Irish class.  There is a superb app available called Duolingo which is a free download and many progressive Irish teachers are using it to great effect with their students.

Being fluent in Irish has other advantages too:

• Studies have shown that monolingual adults tend to show the first signs of dementia at the average age of 71. This is in contrast to bilingual individuals who show their first symptoms around 76 years old.

• You will find it much easier to learn a third language when you are bilingual. Plus, your English will be enhanced as you are more aware of language structures, grammar, literacy and language skills.

• According to a study, bilinguals tend to make better rational and financial decisions.

Take it easy and speak in Irish

To sum it up, bilingual individuals have better social skills, more job opportunities and an edge on delaying Alzheimer’s disease, reasons enough to speak more Irish yes?

Happy St Patrick’s day, tóg go bog é.

Elaine Sparling is the creator of the Hummingbird Learning Method® and CEO of the award winning Hummingbird Learning Centre who help adults and children with their literacy needs. Based in Adare, Co Limerick, she can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through their website http://www.hummingbirdlearning.com