Minister all ears as pupils show off German skills

CHILDREN at a Cork school are starting their lives as European citizens early, thanks to a project to teach them German in primary school.

The initiative in about 500 schools is aimed primarily at fifth and sixth class pupils, but all 70 children at Vicarstown National School had a little bit of Deutsche to show off when Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe paid a special visit yesterday morning.

Since last September, visiting teacher Sheena Mulcahy has helped engender a love of the language among the boys and girls in the rural school, a few kilometres from Blarney.

“It’s all about listening and learning with fun activities, and I’d say some of the older boys and girls could even manage the Junior Certificate listening exam at this stage,” she said.

For principal Marc Sheehan, the programme means the children right down to infant classes have developed a skill for learning languages that applies to other subjects as well.

The minister joked that, for someone who had only learned Greek and Latin in school, it was enough for him to learn how to say “good morning” in German.

He also smiled heartily at the first verse of the senior classes’ song about colours, when the translation handed out to visitors read: “.. I love everything that is green.”

While the children were probably not making any reference to Mr O’Keeffe’s partners in Government, his mind was probably not too far from affairs of state as the cabinet continues its deliberations on how to save money.

However, Mr Sheehan was not slow to remind him of the school’s need for a two-classroom extension to help cater for their growing numbers. The school population has doubled in the past five years and the prefab in which fourth, fifth and sixth class pupils are taught is being rented at a cost of €18,000 a year.

The Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative was set up in 1998 and has helped about 20,000 pupils learn French, German, Italian and Spanish.

The project’s regional leader, Pascaline Horan, told the children of Vicarstown National School that German is one of the less-taught languages, but this could give them better chances of using it for jobs after they leave school if they keep the subject up to Leaving Certificate or beyond.