TIME was when French verbs and the like were every young linguists' nightmare. Students slogged away at Irish, French, German or whatever for years, with the result that many of them acquired great grammar, vast vocabularies and close acquaintanceships with the literary greats of the language they were studying.

The downside of all this erudition was that most of them were unable to order little more than a cup of coffee in the language. Today's students are much more fortunate. In recent years there has been a huge shift of emphasis in the teaching of languages away from literature and towards practical, verbal skills.

Oral Leaving Certificate examinations in Irish were first introduced back in the 1960s but it was only in the mid 1980s that Leaving Cert students began to take oral exams in modern languages. Three years ago, aural exams, which examine listening skills, were introduced at both Leaving and Junior Certificate levels. And in a further attempt to beef up the linguistic skills of the nation's schoolchildren from next year (1997) extra marks will be allotted to the aural and oral components of the Leaving Certificate exams in modern languages and to the Irish aurals.

Together, the aurals and the orals will account for up to 45 per cent of the total marks compared with 30 per cent this year. Meanwhile students taking Foundation level Irish, which is examined for the first time this year, can garner up to 55 per cent of points for their aural and oral exams.

This greater commitment to the spoken language has been welcomed by language teachers. Many teachers of Irish, in particular, would like to see a further expansion in this area, while continuing to maintain the study of literature, which has been dropped from some of the modern language programmes.

"Literature and written work are important, but a language can only be a living one if it is spoken," says Eamon Maguire, author of Caint Agus Cluaistuiscit (the oral and aural Irish Leaving Certificate exam book), who teaches Irish at St Oliver's Community College, Drogheda, Co Louth. With the greater emphasis on communication, "language skills have improved tremendously in recent years", he notes.

However, there are blips in the system. At Junior Certificate level, the whole thrust of the language programmes is now geared towards communication skills. Students take written papers and aural exams yet amazingly the oral tests remain optional" for the school rather than for the individual student and are rarely offered.

You are marked out of 400 if you take an oral exam and out of 320 if you don't. The oral remains "optional" simply because the Department of Education and the teacher unions have yet to agree on a mechanism whereby the orals may be examined.

"The Department of Education holds the view that teachers should examine their own students (rather than appoint external examiners) but there is an ingrained tradition among teachers that in the case of state examinations they don't get involved in awarding marks to their own pupils," says John White, who is assistant general secretary of the ASTI.

But the present stand off means that students and teachers are losing out. "The fact that they have to wait until Leaving Certificate before they take an oral examination, puts huge pressure on students and makes them unnecessarily nervous," says Treasa Ni Chonaola, who teaches Irish at St Michael's College, Ballsbridge, Dublin.

"The danger is that because the orals aren't examined, people may not give sufficient time to them in the classroom. It can be extremely difficult at senior level if you get a class that hasn't done a lot of oral work," observes one language teacher.

Many educators, keen to see the introduction of the orals at Junior Certificate level, believe that the issue of examination should be reexamined. "Teachers in other European countries examine their own students' work, so why can't we," asks a school principal. "The matter must be looked at again. We must be trained to examine the orals and be monitored externally. Some compromise is necessary," argues a teacher. And the ASTI's assistant general secretary says "If enough teachers came to us and said that they wanted to examine the Junior Certificate orals, we would listen to them".

This year's Leaving Certificate oral exams are due to start on February 15th. The Irish orals will be held in the south of the country on a line from Galway to Dublin, during the first week and in the north of the country, including north Dublin during the following week (commencing February 25th). Similarly, modern language orals will begin on the February 15th in the north of the country and on February 25th in the south.

The Leaving Certificate oral examiners all receive in service training and agree upon standards before they go into schools. Examiners are appointed to areas where they are unknown. Language teachers say that the Department insists that examiners adopt an encouraging and positive attitude towards candidates and help them to relax.

Richard Craven, who is chairman of the senior and junior cycles' Spanish course committee of the NCCA, believes that students benefit from being met by their examiners immediately before the exams. "It's important that examiners put people at their ease," he says. "I meet all the students just before the exam and talk to them in Spanish to accustom them to my voice."

The fact that orals are held during term time has long been a bone of contention among school principals, who claim that they totally disrupt school life and should be held outside the official school year.

LARGER schools are disrupted by the orals for up to two weeks," complains Sean McCann, principal of Leixlip Community School, Co Kildare, and chairman of the

Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools. When teachers become examiners the school loses their services for up to a week. Some schools could have up to three teachers away examining orals at any one time and are faced with the problem of finding substitute teachers. "We are lucky if we can find any substitutes," says McCann, "and Irish substitutes are nearly impossible to locate."

And even when they are found, they can only stand in for the absent teacher. "It's not satisfactory and it's unfair on both the children who are not sitting the exams and on those who are... The students taking the exam also lose out because school is still on and it can be difficult to keep the noise levels ....... If you have two or three examiners visiting at one time, it can be hard to find quiet space for them." Add to that the disruption caused by practical exams in home economics, wood and metalwork, construction studies and music, introductory visits to third level institutions, time spent filling in CAO forms, and final year students are left with a very short period in which to complete their Leaving Certificate studies, principals say.

But while many teachers privately admit that orals do severely disrupt school life, other teachers argue that it is better for students that these tests be completed in the spring and "got out of the way" long before the written papers begin. And some educators believe that the fact that the Department pays teachers to teach and at the same time pays them to conduct oral exams and finally pays for substitute teachers "is a crazy waste of resources".

The aural exams on the other hand, cause very little disruption to school life, since they are held with written papers.

Any controversy about the aural exam centres on whether it should be conducted in the mother tongue or in the language that is being studied. One argument supports the view that students who have been studying Irish since primary school should be able to answer questions in Irish and should be encouraged to think in Irish. A counter claim argues that examinations in the mother tongue are a truer test students have to give considered, detailed answers which prove that they have understood what they have heard. By answering in the language of the tape, students also have to demonstrate the ability to read and write in that language which is beyond the remit of the aural exam. Clearly, the modern languages departments have ruled in favour of the latter argument.

This year, students taking Leaving Certificate Irish at foundation level will be able to obtain more than half their marks on the oral and aural tests. Next year meanwhile, ordinary and honours level students will be awarded up to 45 per cent of their marks for these exams.

The fact that pass students will be able to pick up extra marks on the aurals is believed to be a fairer way of assessing their abilities. "Some students may have a good ear for languages but may be less able at written work," comments Maura McCarthy, who is president of the Italian Teachers' Association. The orals on the other hand are deemed to more demanding and therefore honours students are awarded a greater portion of their marks in this area.

BUT IS this new emphasis on communicative skills going to mean great changes in language teaching in our schools? Many teachers believe not and argue that they have always spent classroom time on listening and speaking skills. Students who become used to role play and conversation in their junior years at second level are less inhibited about speaking foreign languages when they are older, teachers say.

However, oral exam preparation can present problems in large classes. Conversation and role play demand a lot of one to one tuition, notes Ann Weafer, who teaches French at St Thomas Community College, Bray, Co Wicklow. "You need smaller classes in order to give students the amount of time they need. Thirty students in a 40 minute class means that you can only give them one minute each."

Meanwhile, English oral and aural exams are a possibility for the future, since increasing numbers of employers are calling for improvements in the communication skills of school leavers. And a recent draft of the new English Leaving Certificate syllabus recommends the implementation of a feasibility study on the assessment of oral and aural skills "as a matter of urgency".