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Native teachers without linguistic talent | ||
Tags: Talent | Language Teaching | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6495 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 25 of 106 21 November 2010 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had an Italian teacher who had lived here for 15 years yet spoke Russian with a heavy accent. It didn't bother me at all, as soon as the deal between us was benefitial: I paid money, she taught me the language, in particular by pointing out my own mistakes. She laughed at some those of mine, and so did I, laughed at her mistakes too.
I think if tell them they make mistakes in a polite way, without being a grammar nazi, you'd probably be the first one to do this. Apart from grammar, or whatever nazis, there are too many people around not raising issues at all. What they do with it is another story though, and is outside of your control. Edited by Siberiano on 21 November 2010 at 9:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 26 of 106 21 November 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think I am perhaps too deamanding, since I used to be a language teacher myself, but Friday I was furious, and really had to control myself in order not to call up and yell at a teacher.
My daughter had an oral Spanish exam, where she and her classmates were to act out a little dialogue, and she had been told that the criteria she would be judged by would be: - Speaking loudly and clearly - Use the manuscript as little as possible - Good acting skills - The group must speak at least 4 minute Now already before the test I was a bit sceptical, both because my daughter, who was playing the waitress, had to juggle three plates and three glasses as well as remember her dialogue and because I am also unimpressed by the teacher who keeps making spelling errors not only in Norwegian but also in Spanish. She is from Colombia and not from Spain, and does not hear the difference between z and s and obviously makes little effort to learn it(she had asked the pupils to learn the word "gaspacho" for the last class). So I had coached my daughter because she was nervous about the test, and she felt it went very well. When she got her grade, she was given an A-, the minus being because the teacher said she had talked too fast. She admitted that my daughter had had a perfect pronunciation, and that she had spoken loudly and clearly but claimed that she had spoken so fast that she could hardly understand her. I must admit that this really made me mad. I can accept that she is told off for speaking too fast in Norwegian and English, which she knows pretty well, but she is only in her second year of Spanish, and speaks fairly slowly as far as I am concerned, and I suspect that it is simply because the teacher is not used to a Spanish accent. An A- may not seem like much to complain about, but my daughter is so dedicated, and has in her 18 months of having had Spanish made exactly 1 error in her written tests, (she wrote "ser" instead of "estar") so when she is is downgraded, I expect it to be because she actually made a mistake, pronounced something wrong, messed up her grammar, something tangible. On the other hand, I don't want my daughter to be dissatisfied with a A-, and I do not want to come across as one of those overambitious mothers, so I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6495 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 27 of 106 21 November 2010 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it's better for your daughter to learn earlier that some people can be unfair to her.
After all, do those marks matter in a long run? I had all marks from A to D for English in the 10 years of School and 3 of University. Yet I know I speak and write hell better than most A students. Just an example: the 1st year in Uni, we had a witch who'd try to make us jump in hoops doing stupid read and repeat tasks. I couldn't care of this and got a firm C in the end. The second year we had a cool and comunicative teacher, quite healthy emotionally. Guess what I had, a final A. Once the witch stood next to the cool teacher and said: "how come can he write that good? He must have copied." I laughed. Edited by Siberiano on 21 November 2010 at 9:47pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 28 of 106 21 November 2010 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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My French teacher from last year could speak English as she had lived in the UK and the US for many years, but she had a very strong French accent, so much so that often when I thought that I couldn't understand something she was saying in French, it was just that she was speaking English with a poor accent. This was further complicated by her habit of unpredictably switching back and forth, sometimes mid-sentence, between French and English during the class, so we were never quite sure which language she was speaking. This wasn't such a horrible problem because my class was supposedly a more advanced level and she could have (and should have) spoken in French the whole time. However, what I really took fault with was that she didn't quite seem to even grasp French sometimes. I'd often point out misspellings of words or have to help her remember words in French, wrong conjugations, incomplete negations, or agreement (either lack of it or a suffix where there shouldn't have been one).
Here are a couple that especially stood out to me: 1. When she was demonstrating the conjugation of the future, she wrote "nous parleront" and "ils parlerons" on the board... 2. On a test asking which monument of Paris interested me the most I wrote, "Les Jardins de Luxembourg m'ont intéressé le plus." When she returned the corrected test back to me, the sentence was corrected as "Les Jardins de Luxembourg m'ont intéressés le plus." I then had to remind her that I was not a plural person, the last time I checked. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 29 of 106 21 November 2010 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | ||
You are probably right. My only problem is that this woman is absolutely killing my daughter's motivation. Last year she had a different teacher who encouraged her, and she adored Spanish. She would go to Spanish class no matter how sick she was, and she would study it back and forth until she knew that week's topics better than I did (and most of my Spanish speaking friends). Now she is starting to loathe the whole subject because of her new teacher, and when she basically gets downgraded for being really good that doesn't exactly help. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6495 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 30 of 106 21 November 2010 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is it possible to change the class, or just drop it and take a course outside the school? I'd like to go further and suggest doing the following: ask her if she's sad or upset, if so, ask about details. At this point she may become angry. (It's absolutely ok to be angry, any psychiatrist will confirm this.) Then tell her she can change this and let her go, talk to the necessary people at school. What you can achieve is to direct this stored anger in a constructive way, improve your daughter's situation and moreover let her leart to take care of herself.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6859 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 31 of 106 22 November 2010 at 9:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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It sounds like it's not really the grade that's bothering you, but general teacher incompetence. That would bother me. I have no advice, but a lot of empathy. I got to sit in on a friend's English class in Barcelona in September. We met in the States, but I had no idea her English was so bad. It really offended me that she was teaching English. Her so-called advanced students couldn't even understand me, no matter how slowly I spoke, and she said it was because I didn't have the talent to teach English. It's something you are born to do, she told me. Such arrogance.
Ironically, she had been my Spanish tutor back in the states, but most of my learning was on my own, and I only met up with her for weekly conversations. I didn't enjoy it when she actually tried to teach me anything, and soon requested that she not do that, just talk normally, like in a "conversation," and when I hear something new, I'll write it down and learn that way. After awhile, she grew comfortable with this kind of unteaching, and it was invaluable to me. But it's just too bad that languages can't be taught in a school setting in such a natural way. I don't know whom to blame. I don't know if teachers necessarily have a choice. They might have some cirriculum to adhere to. I know that I could never do it, because I don't believe in the method. I really have no idea what to say, but it sounds like you're encouraging your daughter at home, which is probably more powerful in the long term anyway. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5593 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French | Message 32 of 106 23 November 2010 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Uncaring, incompetent, and with power. A bad combination and one, unfortunately, found in some teachers. This type of problem is not limited to teachers of foreign languages.
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