The modern languages you can learn for Junior Certificate are French and German. In learning a modern language, you will begin to understand what you read and hear, and to talk and write in the language.
Subject Overview
The syllabus in each language is a communicative one organized around the needs, expectations and interests which pupils bring to the foreign language classroom.
The general educational aims of each syllabus include:-
- Contributing to pupils’ awareness of language as a system of communication.
- Giving pupils an awareness of another culture, and thus a more objective perspective on aspects of their own culture.
- Contributing to the development in pupils of the capacity to engage in fruitful transactions and interactions with others.
- Through the above, contributing to pupils’ overall personal and social development.
The general communicative aims of the syllabus include:-
- Enabling the pupils to cope with the normal classroom use of the target language.
- Equipping pupils with a competence in the target language, which would enable them to provide themselves with basic necessities.
- Furnishing pupils with linguistic skills making it possible for them to pursue aspects of their general interest through use of the target language.
- Through these aims ensuring that competence in the target language is conducive to the fulfillment of the general educational aims.
Content
The programme content of each language syllabus comprises tasks, activities and exponents. The communicative tasks are divided into two broad categories:
- those involving receptive use of the target language only
- those involving some productive use of the target language
Within these categories tasks are grouped under headings which point to general activities and themes to which such tasks might relate. They are presented in this way for ease of reference.
A selection of linguistic exponents is indicated for communicative tasks involving productive use of the language.
Information on Junior Cycle Modern Foreign Languages
❝One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.❞
‒Frank Smith
