Actas da - Xunta de Galicia

Language Policy Implementation: Constraints and Feasibility Barriers
observed that while immersion-type programmes are more effective, they
involved less than one tenth of these adult samples in their school years.
Thus, the contribution of these programmes to the production of fluent
bilinguals is limited.
ÓRiagáin and Ó Gliasáin (1994) sought to relate the level of speaking ability
more exactly to the academic standard in Irish reached by the respondent. For
the majority of students in post-primary education in Ireland there are two
public examinations. The firstis taken at about fifteen or sixteen years and is
not discussed here. The second examination - The Leaving Certificate - is taken
by students at about their seventeenth year. The student has (or had) a choice of
following a Higher (formerly Honours) or Lower (formerly Pass) syllabus.
Some statistics relating to this examination are discussed below. (Of course, it
may be argued that these ratios, based as they are on a national adult sample,
are as much measures of language retention as they are of programme
effectiveness. While this is the case, cross-tabulations by age show that the
relative effectiveness of the different programmes holds across all age-groups.)
Although the programme is less effective, the majority of fluent bilinguals
among current adult populations appear to have studied Irish only as a subject.
In fact, nearly 60% of those with high levels of speaking ability in Irish
followed this type of programme.
Thus, it would be useful to disaggregate more finely the large group who
study Irish as a subject only. This may be done by examining the achievements
of respondents in the post-primary public examinations. In Table 3, the data
relates only to the examination taken at the end of post-primary education - The
Leaving Certificate.
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