O'Neill's Bar Restaurant

Mark Worden (Standard English accent):

The September issue of Speak Up contains a feature on Ireland’s language schools. In this out-take Jonathan Quinn of the Centre of English Studies in Dublin talks about the country’s appeal for students of English:

Jonathan Quinn (Irish accent):

I think the people, probably: we don’t know when to shut up! Because we have the schools in England now, we see that, that the Irish are generally more talkative than the English would be, which is one positive. Possibly we talk too much, sometimes we don’t know what we’re talking about, but it’s a very positive thing. Also, Ireland is a small country, so it’s easier to get around, so we find that… when we organise, we’ve got a lot of students, for example, would go to Galway or to Cork and it’s not this huge arduous journey, they can travel around the country, see more of the country in a shorter time period. And also, the families that we use to host our students, we would find that most of them adhere to the traditional values, of they’re looking forward to welcome somebody into their house from another country because they feel that it gives them and their kids the opportunity to experience a little bit of difference as well. And we would also find that the families are genuinely concerned about the kids and about their welfare and, for a parent in Spain or Italy or France or wherever, that’s a vital comfort because they know that when they are sent over, that there is somebody going to be looking out for them.

(Jonathan Quinn was talking to John Young)