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[Hod]

Never generalise my dear old Dad used to say. He�d still be saying the same today if it wasn�t for that fateful day in 1999. I became a TEFL teacher. He never spoke to me again. That is until I was fired and got a real job. Now, I�m like a son to him.

I was an appalling teacher of English. Rarely a day went by without at least four complaints, and that was just the illegal immigrants from my CELTA course. Things went downhill after that. Students would ask questions and I�d answer concisely and accurately. Then I�d realise I�d mixed up first and second conditionals (or was it third), apologise and start the entire lesson again. For the record, the three students who didn�t walk out later told my boss I was quite a good teacher, when I turned up.

But I was talking about generalising. Imagine how na�ve my students would�ve been to say how all other British Council teachers were like that. I never worked at the British Council I should add. I was an ICT Coordinator there so didn�t need to. But the point is the British Council, Cervantes Institute and Alliance Francaise are at the pinnacle of high quality language instruction. They employ only the finest teachers and charge their students an arm and a leg. The Goethe Institut, on the other hand, just charges an arm and a leg. I should know I�m a 600 euro student there.

I�m no slouch when it comes to German learning. I recently took and passed the Zertifikat Deutsch, which for those in the know is about CEF B2 level or a very good pre-intermediate. OK, I�m far from fluent, but I�m halfway there in a language with the world�s weirdest grammar.

So, I enrol on my second 600 euro Goethe Institut course and soon find myself asking why oh why in god in heaven�s name am I sitting in this classroom. The teacher talks non stop. Last week, she gave a fifteen minute monologue on a grammar point. Believe me, I was checking my watch throughout. I had not the foggiest what it was all about; I was too busy watching my fellow students lose the will to live. I�ve got to know the other students quite well. There�s that guy from Spain and the girl from India and oh yes the other Brit. Their names? Well, you see, we rarely get a chance to get a word in edgeways what with the teacher talking non stop and all that. Mind you, my listening skills are wicked now. If only I could string a sentence together, I�d be able to well�tell her to put a bloody great sock in it.

But that 98% Teacher Talking Time thing is not a big deal. It just sends me and the other students to sleep. We probably understand less than 30% of what she�s waffling on about. At times, I feel sorry for her. She might have some very valid points. It�s just that I have no clue what�s she�s going on about. What bugs me most is the four-to five-minute written exercises, essential to any lesson, but during which time she sits at her desk none the wiser if we�re getting all the answers right or doodling swastikas over each other�s books. Then comes the open class feedback afterwards, different answers abound, mass confusion too, and I�ve long since given up, promising myself I�ll look at it when I get home.

As of today, enough was way more than enough. A colleague at work helped me write a long e-mail in German cataloguing the horrors I�d been through, complaining about my teacher�s woeful performances and demanding a refund. To be fair, the Goethe Institute were on the phone within one hour, but then again I work at a big company with many many students at or planning to go there�.

To be continued�.

And when I said I was a crap teacher before, I think that was a lie. I was probably quite good, but like all teachers even I got complaints. I taught in some tough countries after all. There was Thailand, Malaysia, Morocco, but the only country I ever got complaints in during my two years as a teacher there was � Germany. It�s called karma.

Wie schade und so spielt das Leben.

[Deicide]

[Hod]

Well, indeed. Excuse me for not answering in German because umm I can�t and anyway this is an English board innit.

I�m not the first person on earth to say German grammar is a pain. If you know of other major languages with even more complex rules, then name them. Yes, I�m sure others will swear the likes of Mandarin and Thai are the most difficult what with all those tones and all, but the grammar doesn�t seem to have so many rules � in my own experience of those two other languages.

I think I�ll soon be avoiding language courses of any kind when teachers are that woeful. In all my life I can�t remember being so bored as I was with that Goethe teacher over the last few weeks. But who says language courses are only good for the absolute beginner? Sources?

A German bride? No thanks. Once you go Asian, you can�t go Caucasian.

[Deicide]

[Hod]

German grammar is easy. Try Hungarian; 24 cases, tons of verb endings, vowel harmony, etc....or Finnish, which is a little easier...or Polish which makes German look like a joke.

Umm well, I can see you know your stuff so I�ll have to concede. I promise to learn all of the above and get back to you.

[Deicide]

[Hod]

Nyet.

[poro]

[Hod]

Polish, Finnish, Hungarian? Hardly world-beating languages.

And who else is going to come on here and make out you can learn German in a day and still be home in time for tea. I do 10 hours a week at this Goethe place, but if I went every night for the next ten years, I'd still struggle with some of the grammar.

Stating the obvious, some students are better than others at language learning. I'm average at best. But German, being quite a big player as far as worldwide languages go, gets mentioned time and time again as tricky to learn.

Going the other way, the people who really say German is easy, it's the same as English and other such waffle are those who've never even uttered a sentence of German.

Phew! Anyway, ich habe die Nase voll with this bloody Goethe Institut and the two crappy untrained teachers I had. A lot of universities run Tandem schemes, which are very popular, so we'll see.

I'm still with the Goethe. I paid 600 euros after all! After I complained about the teacher, they moved me to another much smaller class. More Goethe bashing soon.

[Deicide]

[Hod]

Let the (free) corrections roll.

Nicht besonders. Ich brauche kein Deutsch fuer meine Arbeit weil ich fuer eine britische Firma arbeite. Aber bis 2009 mindestens wohne ich in Deutschland und finde ich eine gute Idee.

Ein Kollege von mir kommt auch aus Grossbritannien und hat seit zehn Jahren in Deutschland gewohnt. Spricht er Deutsch? Nur ein Bisschen vielleicht? Er kennt absolut kein Deutsch. Fauler Sack oder was? Na ja, typisch Britisch.

Uebrigens das Deutsch Fernsehen hat nur langweilige Programme. Ich moechte natuerlich lieber in Asien arbeiten, aber mag ich auch Geld. Ich sollte das Beste aus einer Situation herausholen. ...

Ooh not bad for a B2 slacker.

[Deicide]

[abusalam4]

Since the great Goethe left this earth to go home, it seems the Institute bearing his name has deteriorated.....
Or has iut not????
Goethe Institute language teachers, eat more sauerkraut and this will make you "high"...

Some sauerkraut each day will keep entropy away!...ha!

[japanman]

One thing that interests me about German which i'd like to ask. Do Germans have a racial connection to their language? By this I mean that i'm English (white) and living in Japan. Japanese people have a disturbing race/blood/langauge mentality. Many people find it odd that a white person can speak Japanese but would feel more "comfortable" speaking Japanese to another asian. This does my head in alot because Chinese people are often pretty bad at Japanese but the racial thing makes their mistakes acceptable. As soon as mr white man opens his mouth it's different.
So how about German?
I ask this because i've got fed up of learning Japanese and Chinese and this mentality. So, i've recently decided to start a European language. My love of Herman Hesse and Pete Namlook made German the obvious choice.

[Deicide]