Korean Job Discussion Forums

[periwinkle]

My foreign language teachers were horrible, and I knew they were horrible even while I was in their classes. My French teacher was lazy. She had us do a lot of pair work, but she never came around to listen in on our conversations (there were about 14 of us in the class, btw). She gave us homework, but that was part of the curriculum. Her accent was horrid, and she never corrected any of us on our accents. She'd never even been to France, but whatever.

I took German in summer school (s.s was always voluntary for me 'cuz I got bored during summer break). The instructor was AWFUL. He used random hand-outs, and nothing ever built on previous lessons. He aimed more at teaching us vocab than anything else. He also never wrote anything on the board, so I had nothing to focus on and got easily bored. All he did was talk (in English)- he was trying lamely to be an edutainer, but he was just so boring. Also, none of the kids participated, and he didn't try to get us to, either.

So how were your teachers?

[elynnor]

...

[formerflautist]

In my Spanish class we had Taco Day every year. We also got to watch Man of La Mancha (in English) and Footloose (in Spanish). We did a lot of pointless things like that. When I was in school the Spanish 4 class got busted for bringing in a porno video and watching it while the teacher was out of the class.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Can you imagine if all Canadian secondary students had to take six years of French, and they gave them native French speakers who knew next to no English? Pandemonium. We have it damn well with our students over here.

My first French teacher was OK and interesting, but knew very little French himself. My second was a Welsh woman whose English was difficult to understand and whose class was full of goofballs. She was always running around like a nutball yelling at kids and she even hit a kid (Canada in the late 80s - big no-no and potential huge liability, even if he was bigger than she was). After I failed her class they wanted me to take summer school but I said no way. I couldn't understand the stuff we were already learning and had no desire to advance. I couldn't think in French of thing of what to say for almost any situation. I was finished, and completely gave up on French, deciding I'd have no use of it whatsoever.

Apres quelques ans quand j'etais a l'universite je suis devenu plus interesse en Francais et j'ai pris un cours seulement pour mon amusement. Alors, plus tard, j'ai demenage a Montreal pour quelques ans ou il y a beaucoups des ocaisions parler francais. Puis, j'ai demenage a l'Amerique et j'ai trouve une petite amie francaise; bientot j'etais presque couramment. Depuis cette fois, j'ai oublie beaucoup de francais mais c'etais possible pour moi apprendre seulement parce que j'ai eu le desir. Mes prononciation, eppellation, grammaire et comprehension sont tres affreux, mais pour moi c'etais bien mieux apprendre moi-meme que ayant un anglephone professer de francais. Sans assez de desir c'est pas possible.

[periwinkle]

[pet lover]

I took German. My mother could not understand a thing the teacher said unless he was speaking in English. My mother was German. One of the students lived in Germany until she was a teenager. Needless to say, she was fluent. He rarely spoke when she was in the room because everyone knew she couldn't understand him and she'd sit there and mutter about all the mistakes he was making and how his accent was incomprehensible and his grammar sucked. He sent her on daily errands. Enough said on his German ability.

He hated the principal and would do anything he could to p*** him off. ONe year, for the yearbook pictures, he insisted on putting his hair in pigtails...rather like Pippi Longstocking. He always said that the school was a sinking submarine and the principal was Daffy Duck at the helm.

When he was rampaging, we had a lot of fun in class, but learned nothing. When he was depressed, we sat around in bored silence and learned nothing.

I think I mainly learned how NOT to teach from him.

[Woland]

I took four years of Spanish, two years of French (one of which I taught myself at home), and a year of Italian (through a program with the local university) in high school. All my teachers were good, but I have to give a special shout out here to Mrs. Piepke (Spanish) and Miss Angell (French), who were just exceptional teachers. I can't judge today whether their pronunciation or grammar was good or not, but I can say that they made me interested in learning what they were teaching and improving my command of the languages, which is what good teachers do. They were also indulgent of a fair amount of goofiness in class on my part when I finished work early, as long as I had my fun in the right language.

[canuck in Ansan]

I guess I've got it all backwards!

I went to French school (not emersion) until grade 9, so I guess my foreign language class was English (of which I was already fluent)...

Finally in high school I took one horrid year of french because they wouldn't let me challenge for credit until grade 10. The teacher wasn't bad but she was at a loss with what to do with me. I doubt that most of the students learned much in class though.
The same day I wrote my last grade 9 final exam I challenged for credit, and got my grade 12 French without ever having to take the class! woohoo!

Where I'm from, if you take 5 or more (I think) French classes (French social studies was offered as well), you can graduate with a "bilingual certificate". What a joke. 95% of those who got one couldn't hold up a conversation if they tried.

[heydelores]

I took three years of Spanish, six years of German, and one year of Hebrew with a total of nine different teachers/professors. My first Spanish teacher spoke almost no English. A lot of kids paid no attention to him whatsoever, but for those of us who cared to learn, it really challenged us to speak Spanish because we had no other way to communicate with him. I ended up skipping two who levels after that one year with him when I moved to a different school. He wasn�t a great teacher, but the experience with a native speaker was really good for me.

My second Spanish teacher was a native English speaker who had studied in Spain. I remember her as one of the most caring people I've ever met, and I still get a Christmas card from her every couple years. She always had challenging games and exercises for us to do, and we'd occasionally get to watch a movie in Spanish. She gave all her students a lot of personal attention and had office hours before and after school for anyone who needed extra help. My Spanish professor in college was a nice man but not very challenging or strict. It was easy to slide by in his class with very little effort.

Two of my high school German teachers were horrible. One was fired when it was discovered that she had vodka in her water bottle at school. She also taught French and would frequently come into our German class with the lesson she had prepared for her French class and then get mad at us when we didn't know the vocabulary. My other awful German teacher lost was fired after he got mad and threw a piece of chalk at a student, piercing her eye. You could smell alcohol on his breath at 7:30 AM. When he returned our tests and homework, they usually had mysterious brown/yellow stains on them and wreaked of smoke and alcohol. He liked to talk about his 7 dachshunds. My third German teacher was okay. I don't remember anything horrible about her but nothing really wonderful either.

One of my two German professors was excellent. The other was just okay. The excellent professor was a native English speaker who studied in Austria. She kept classes challenging and interesting with a lot of class participation and discussion. She also incorporated a lot of German/Austrian/Swiss history into the literature and language classes. She set aside time each week for students to stop by and practice conversation skills one-on-one during her own time.

My Hebrew professor in grad school was terrible. She treated us like kindergartners. We had to sing the Hebrew alphabet everyday along with a video tape of Barney, the purple dinosaur, but we hardly got past the alphabet that who first semester. She never once corrected pronunciation. The whole thing was a joke. I took the two Hebrew classes that were required for my course of study and didn't take anything else with her again.

So, of my nine teachers/professors, I'd say two were excellent, three were awful, and four were just okay. I try to model myself after those two who were really excellent. It's made me realize just how hard they worked for my benefit, and I'm really thankful for them.

[Mr. Pink]

My grade 7-9 French teacher didn't speak much English. She was a full blown Frenchie. That made the class hard as hell for me. Was she a good teacher? I honestly don't remember. She never gave me extra help to catch up since I was behind most of my class. She never had office hours for questions etc. I guess she could have been better, but this was like 15 years ago or so, things seemed to be a bit different in language training back in the day.

In university I took French twice. The first time I think that professor was absolutely fantastic. It's sad but I don't remember his name...only took his class during first year. The second time I took French during my last year...the professor sucked so I only took it 1 semester.

The thing about talking crap about language teachers in high school makes me think: they ALWAYS need French teachers...I guess if supply is low and demand is high, below average teachers get a job. Kind of like another place we all know, huh?

[Kenny Kimchee]

Both my HS Spanish teachers were lame.

The first one, Ms. Fawcett, was supposedly a high school classmate of Mark David Chapman (or so she told us; she said that the BBC interviewed her). I learned more from that woman on how to (not) control a classroom than anyone else. Kids are like dogs - they can smell fear and weakness. We kept pushing that woman and testing her limits and made her crack; once she lost it, we lost respect for her and she never got it back. She quit after the first year.

The second one was from the School of Chalk n Talk/Drill and Kill - a lot of board work, a lot of grammar and verb conjugations, and not a whole lot of pair work/information gap/anything remotely communicative or interesting...but at least she knew how to control a classroom.

I took three classes of Spanish in university but can't remember a thing about any of them, so I don't imagine they were too good, either. Somehow, something along the way managed to stick; I worked in restaurants for many years and was able to talk with the amigos in the kitchen...

[ChopChaeJoe]

My 8th grade German teacher was a lesbian, my 9th an alcoholic. They were both adequate for their purpose. The 9th grade one was a native speaker, I think. I still sometimes confuse my y's and j's, think in German occasionally.

[Natalia]

My high school offered Chinese (yes, I know that isn't a language). The thing is, the Australian government basically provides no funding to government schools, so the principal couldn't afford to get a Chinese teacher.

Instead, they saw the woodwork/metalwork teacher had some free periods. So they made him the Chinese teacher. He spent half his free periods studying 'Beginning Chinese', and half teaching what he'd just studied.

Fantastic.

I didn't take that subject, thank God.

[Big Mac]

I had a French teacher in high school who everyone called scratch n' sniff. She had a habit of scratching herself in interesting places with chalk all over her hands.

For a country that prides itself on being bilingual, Canadian schools (well, Ontario ones anyway) do a horrible job at teaching French.

As far as I'm concerned, I should be fluent in French right now. I mean, I took French from kindergarten through to Grade 10. But yet I still can't speak it, and neither can 90 per cent of the people I went to school with. What's wrong with this picture?

Perhaps the fact that the French teachers almost always spoke English to us and were never Native speakers was the problem.

[crazylemongirl]

High School... the two teachers (french and german) really made an effort to make things interesting for us. The classrooms were decorated well, and there were trips to bakeries and cultural centers. The french class even went to new caledonia (and we hosted students from there too). I suppose they were trying hard to make up for the fact that NZ was so far from europe to keep us motivated.

One of my korean teachers I had was really good. Her classes were well organized and lots of whacky games to keep us entertained while using Korean. She helped me become a better teacher as well as a better language learner.