“I am a bad English teacher”

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Yerg
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

Post by Yerg »

Freightdog wrote: Thu Feb 20, 2020 3:15 am
AndyKK wrote: Probably the hardest of all English accents to understand and master would be that of a Glaswegian
Strictly speaking, Glaswegian is not an English accent. It’s a Scottish accent, but still largely unintelligible. Especially on a Friday/Saturday night.
I have many Glaswegian friends and associates, of all walks of life. Some in academia are actually very easily understood.
I’ve often thought that Received Pronunciation is unfairly associated with money and power. Maybe more accurate to say that money and power affords the better education opportunities, and by virtue of education, exposure to RP.

A very good friend of mine has a very broad Glaswegian accent, and on a night of beer, he can lapse into unintelligible. (Mainly after 2 pints.). But he’s also well regarded in education, and despite the accent is easily understood by his mainly Asian student groups.

In my line of work, I have managed to work with a great many nationalities, and in a great many places. English spoken too fast by someone who doesn’t speak English well (slang, pronunciation etc) is a common problem.
Try speaking to a well educated Indian when he’s excited.

Those best understood (native and non native speakers) are those who speak with a consistent cadence. It’s easy to speak too fast when one gets animated about something, and that is often where understanding breaks down.
I recall a particular FO from Asia who was far more easily understood at all times than his Australian counterpart. The Asian FO spoke Russian as a second native language, then English and a couple of other languages. The Australian spoke some sort of Sydney ghetto slang, often requiring someone to ask him to ‘say again’.
Kinda with you there, FD. Good pal of mine is ludicrously Northern Irish, and at times I fail to understand him (the 2 pint thing being a common denominator), but he's a great English, Geography, Physics and Chemistry teacher in a non-native English speaking country. He has been for approaching 20 years. If RP is the perceived wisdom, I'd be the perfect English teacher, but I am simply not. My skills lay elsewhere.
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newkidontheblock
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

Post by newkidontheblock »

Cinnamon Cat - thanks for the most generous offer.
I go over homework with her on a semi-regular basis. Current homework assignment topics not covered in class. Most recently, the teacher went over everything students got wrong. Didn’t mention the correct answer nor why they were wrong. Missus asked him what the correct answers were and why they were correct. He ignored her. It’s been years since I’ve gone through Warner’s Grammar.

Bitte_Klein_Lexus - admin doesn’t care. They exist to collect money. Attend or not, it isn’t their problem. Just make sure to pay.

And thanks for all the suggestions everyone!
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fazur
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

Post by fazur »

imho, too much focus on grammar in studying any language

native speakers of any language don't learn it that way and they have highest rates of fluency

monkey see monkey do better approach
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newkidontheblock
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

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The teacher told missus that she ‘ruins’ his day by telling him in class what she doesn’t understand (ie, how do to his job). Well, he got his revenge. On the final exam that isn’t required for passing the course, he decided to bomb her.

Image

Over half the required exam assignments had answer attachments that had to be sent back that never made it, despite confirmation messages that it did. And the teacher didn’t even bother to let her know that it didn’t work. And the exam covered topics never mentioned in class or on the syllabus.

She usually scores 90s-80s, and now nuclear bomb.

She just wants it to be over and out of his class. Her spirit was beyond crushed.
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AndyKK
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

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newkidontheblock wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 10:46 pm The teacher told missus that she ‘ruins’ his day by telling him in class what she doesn’t understand (ie, how do to his job). Well, he got his revenge. On the final exam that isn’t required for passing the course, he decided to bomb her.

Image

Over half the required exam assignments had answer attachments that had to be sent back that never made it, despite confirmation messages that it did. And the teacher didn’t even bother to let her know that it didn’t work. And the exam covered topics never mentioned in class or on the syllabus.

She usually scores 90s-80s, and now nuclear bomb.

She just wants it to be over and out of his class. Her spirit was beyond crushed.
newkidontheblock did you ever look into the problem personally by approaching the teacher or school on behalf of your wife's problem with her teacher and his ways of his teaching skills?
Thing is how it is written above it sounds like your lady may have come across has the classroom bully towards the teacher and disruptive to class maybe. That maybe totally wrong has only an assumption, I hope too I am wrong, and the teacher my have had no skills, how did the other students fair?
Always "hope" but never "expect".
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John Bingham
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

Post by John Bingham »

newkidontheblock wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 10:46 pm The teacher told missus that she ‘ruins’ his day by telling him in class what she doesn’t understand (ie, how do to his job). Well, he got his revenge. On the final exam that isn’t required for passing the course, he decided to bomb her.

Image

Over half the required exam assignments had answer attachments that had to be sent back that never made it, despite confirmation messages that it did. And the teacher didn’t even bother to let her know that it didn’t work. And the exam covered topics never mentioned in class or on the syllabus.

She usually scores 90s-80s, and now nuclear bomb.

She just wants it to be over and out of his class. Her spirit was beyond crushed.
I don't know anything about IELTS or whatever English language certification these exams concern. However I might be reading it wrongly but it looks like the properly capitalized words were wrong and words with full capitals were correct? Someone explain this to me?
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Yerg
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

Post by Yerg »

John Bingham wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2020 12:58 am
newkidontheblock wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 10:46 pm The teacher told missus that she ‘ruins’ his day by telling him in class what she doesn’t understand (ie, how do to his job). Well, he got his revenge. On the final exam that isn’t required for passing the course, he decided to bomb her.

Image

Over half the required exam assignments had answer attachments that had to be sent back that never made it, despite confirmation messages that it did. And the teacher didn’t even bother to let her know that it didn’t work. And the exam covered topics never mentioned in class or on the syllabus.

She usually scores 90s-80s, and now nuclear bomb.

She just wants it to be over and out of his class. Her spirit was beyond crushed.
I don't know anything about IELTS or whatever English language certification these exams concern. However I might be reading it wrongly but it looks like the properly capitalized words were wrong and words with full capitals were correct? Someone explain this to me?
I'm no expert, but you'd hope that the poor student wasn't bombed for capitlisation?
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

Post by Electric Earth »

That certainly does look like something's up with those answers, but in order to actually know, we'd need more information. What were the instructions, what were the questions, etc. The answer key being written in all caps, while dumb, doesn't strike me as particularly unusual. I've seen it before.

A teacher telling a student that they ruin his day doesn't sound right at all. Something more is going on. What sort of conversation did they end up in that the comment would have even been said? This is the sort of thing someone would say in a confrontation. ACE isn't the sort of school to have a random hallway argument, and surely this wasn't in class. I'm sorry to say, but I suspect more and more that your lady is giving you her own dramatic interpretation of what happens. Maybe it comes from frustration due to difficulties understanding the material, or from not wanting to admit that she's struggling in the class? Only you could guess. But something definitely doesn't sound right.

When you say things like "she keeps giving him tips on how to be a better teacher" and "ie. how to do his job", I hope that's just coming from you, not how she's approaching the teacher in class. If she were speaking like that to me during class while I was trying to teach, I'd nicely ask her to stop and recommend to her that we speak about it after class. If she wouldn't let it go, I'd probably ask her to leave so that the class could continue, and speak with her about it later with a mediator(director, head of the program, etc.). But I can't really imagine a student doing that any more than I can imagine a teacher at ACE telling a student that he's a bad teacher and that she ruins his day by asking questions. This all sounds like it's having a healthy dose of drama sprinkled on top. I don't think she's being straight with you.
Do you think the parents of baby boomers whined so much when the boomers started changing society? And yet the whiney ones like to call young people "snowflakes." Hmm...
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

Post by TeachingForPeanuts »

NKOTB has been complaining about all of his wife's teachers, for years. The theme is usually "My wife is smarter than the other students” “My wife is smarter than her teacher" and "My wife has to tell the teacher how to do his job and how to help other students learn.”

I'm concerned he is setting his wife up for failure in life by encouraging her to have this "I'm better than you and let me show you why" attitude towards teachers, doctors, authority figures, co-workers etc. If she is making such a nuisance of herself that her teacher says she ruins his day and then retaliates by failing her, then she is doing something very wrong.

newkidontheblock wrote: Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:38 pm She’s in level 7 (of 12). Today’s class was another substitute Khmer teacher. This one went to great lengths to hide and not have interactions with the students.
newkidontheblock wrote: Fri Jul 13, 2018 9:42 pm It’s expensive. Affluent Khmer and Khmer kids. New lesson for today. Teacher was explaining the word ‘aggressive’. She pointed at missus as an example.

This is girl that avoids foreigners, soft voice. The exact opposite of aggressive. WTF?
newkidontheblock wrote: Tue Aug 07, 2018 8:01 am Teacher rotation seems to be the norm at this particular ACE. Longest a teacher been teaching missus’ class is 1 week. Some teach for only 1 session. Quite a few don’t even bother to introduce themselves. Maybe it’s because they won’t be teaching the next class?

Coursework and teaching fluctuates as a result. No overall lesson plan.

This week’s new teacher talks so fast he needs to repeat himself in order to be understood. Kept calling in missus. Maybe because she likes to sit at the front center? This week’s homework? 8 pages of possessives, non-challenging coursework.
newkidontheblock wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:57 am Finally missus got to the ACE level that she gets a native English speaker. First class was last week. A bit of tell us about yourself session.

The teacher starts off by telling the class that he doesn’t like teaching English. He is only doing it part time to get paid. His real job is some on-line company, and has a few people working for him. He then asked students to submit one question for him to answer. Most of his answers were - personal question, I don’t answer personal questions.

Primary teaching method was sitting down and having students watch YouTube? videos. Quite a few students were nodding off during this high level instruction.

I thought getting a native speaker is the pinnacle of ACE education. Maybe I was mistaken.
newkidontheblock wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 11:32 am Missus’ teacher continues to play videos in the darkened room for his lessons. The students desks are pushed out to the far corners of the room, while he remains seated at the other end of the room next to the whiteboard and the dying aircon. In the heat, the dark, and the column that blocks their view of the teacher, students are fading fast.

Teacher tells them he will be going over the material in class on page X. He goes over the wrong page. Half the students are asleep, the other half are too zoned out to notice. Missus reads all the pages before the lesson so she just follows along. Later he plays a game of sell and tell. He tells each student to pretend to sell something of value to them and to tell the story. He points to missus and tells her she should sell him her diamond ring.

Missus sees this semester as an experience in survival. A survival lesson she’s paid for.

This wonderful teacher goes way beyond the book. When he goes back to Texas and has breakfast with his parents, there is a hummingbird feeder outside their dining room.

Students got a story and extra lesson about a bird that most Khmer would have never known about. Missus now knows what hummingbirds eat, what their migration patterns are, what they sound like, in addition to a cute picture.

Just another example of how good this guy is.

Supposedly he is full time ACE all his teaching career.

Again, this outstanding guy totally justifies ACE’s reputation.
newkidontheblock wrote: Sun May 12, 2019 5:18 am
Everyone in class is fighting to not fall asleep. The guy to the left of missus is watching movies, the girl to the right is watching music videos. Missus is volunteering to answer questions so she doesn’t doze off herself and maybe keep the entire class from going into a group nod.

Teacher is oblivious. He keeps doing question and answer straight from the book without ever explaining WHY the answer is correct. And of course, the endless parade of videos in a dark, hot room to further stimulate student focus and attention.

newkidontheblock wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2019 9:27 am After the excellent last level at ACE, this new English teacher rushes through every lesson so that he can end it with the class watching a Thai movie. Or sometimes a Khmer movie. Today’s lesson was listening. The lesson speaker was some famous movie director with hands that couldn’t stop shaking and a speech impediment (maybe he had a stroke?). Missus had to ask the teacher to replay the video a few times in order to understand what he was saying. So the class could end with a everyone watching a scary Thai movie.
Six years ago, he was complaining on TOF about the state of her nursing school:
Her nursing school is a joke. Photocopied books, worthless lectures. She's forced to learn nursing by watching you tube videos. Then the clinicals. Told by the secretary to report to hospital x at a certain time. At x hospital, she's thrown to the wolves. No supervising nurse, no mentoring nurse over her. Just told to go and do. Hospital x isn't some po' dunk no place, either. Includes all the big places in the city. Hospitals include the name National as the first word.

The nurses are troubling. Required paperwork - like charting blood pressure and stuff, not done. In one of the places, she starts doing this and is told promptly that it's a staff nurse's job (that of course won't be done.). Another nurse was placing an IV, missed the vein and injected anyways. When my birdie offered to put an IV in to fix it, she got scowled at. Local nurses who trained in other places like the Phillippines are frustrated to no end at the hospitals.

The attending docs are even worse. The nurses see all the patients at night, even the new patients, start therapy, and treatment. In the morning, docs just sign the orders. No calls, no discussion. In some hospitals,?there are in house docs. These docs go out to the karaoke bar and drink on duty. One night a doc was pissed because the supervising nurse refused to go out and drink with him.

Now this may be the occasional horror story, but she keeps telling me scary stuff almost daily.
Garbage school, Birdie's been living the nightmare. Birdie's asked around - unfortunately all the nursing schools Cambodia are equally lacking. 
What exactly does she do that is so different from the other nurses? She examines her patients. She cleans them (and their room), changes IVs, Foley bags, cleans and dresses wounds, educates families, assists doctors with bedside procedures, teaches medical students and student nurses, and gives medications as directed (doesn't pocket 2 ampules of a 3 ampule antibiotic, etc.)
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Re: “I am a bad English teacher”

Post by phuketrichard »

TeachingForPeanuts wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2020 3:23 am NKOTB has been complaining about all of his wife's teachers, for years. The theme is usually "My wife is smarter than the other students” “My wife is smarter than her teacher" and "My wife has to tell the teacher how to do his job and how to help other students learn.”

I'm concerned he is setting his wife up for failure in life by encouraging her to have this "I'm better than you and let me show you why" attitude towards teachers, doctors, authority figures, co-workers etc. If she is making such a nuisance of herself that her teacher says she ruins his day and then retaliates by failing her, then she is doing something very wrong.



fucking amazing>>>> didn't read all the quotes and removed them so others dont need bother with them, but you seriously have either
WAY to much time on ur hands
or an
unhealthy fascination with NKOTB
:stir:
( who i agree, complains way to much about things concerning his wife)
In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. HST
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