It makes me mad

[Jo53]

A French friend of mine teaches English in colleges as a supply teacher. She has only just started this year and is shocked at how little English the pupils know at 15 or so. She told me the teaching of English in France is a 'catastrophe'. She gets in front of classes of 15 year olds and finds that they have, in her words, no level of English at all. Her own English is pretty good. Not fluent (she has never spent any time in an anglophone country, whereas I think a year abroad is compulsory for a foreign language degree in the UK).

I don't know how accurate a view hers is. I'm sure the English teachers on this forum do a great job.

Jo

[KathyC]

I think a French teacher of French in many English schools would also be shocked at the level of language skills shown by 15 year olds and could also describe language teaching as a catastrophe. However, you are right that a year abroad is normally compulsory for a foreign language degree from a UK university.

[Suze01]

I give private English classes to two 14 year olds.  Their level is lower than it should be IMO.  I always check through various work books for their year (and below) when I'm preparing their lessons to make sure that it is a grammar point that they should be learning or have already learnt and it always amazes me that they they don't know grammmar points that they should have done in sixieme. Also their vocabulary level is very low, which makes it difficult sometimes. Can we expect them to remember different grammar points when they're having a couple of English lessons a week at collège and not using English outside of these lessons? - we know how hard it is to learn French when we are almost 'immersed' in it.

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="Suze"]Can we expect them to remember different grammar points when they're having a couple of English lessons a week at collège and not using English outside of these lessons? [/quote]

Maybe it's just a surprise, because it goes directly against the commonly-held (British) belief that the British are the only people in the entire universe who aren't fluent in 6 modern languages by the age of 10?

Reality checks can be hard to take!  [:)]

 

[Mistral]

[quote user="Suze"] it always amazes me that they they don't know grammmar points that they should have done in sixieme. [/quote]

It amazes me that they don't know grammar points they were taught 20 minutes before. [:)] As you say 3 hours a week is not enough for it to fix in their minds. Plus it's one of the few subjects in collège where they are expected to remember whet they did years before. One of my 4emes was complaing that he didn't remember what he had done in 6eme (not very surprising; knowing who the teacher was, he would have done about a quarter of the programme) and I asked him how well he would expect to do if he was suddenly asked to write and essay on egyptian gods (6eme Hist-Géo)

 

[Owens88]

>That d**m teacher has raised my blood pressure again this past week. He deducted two points off my son's contrôle for refusing to believe that there is such a product as Marmite.

I can appreciate the frustration. Two questions:

1) Is there such a thing as a lead / specialist teacher within the school / lea equivalent / department ?

2) While the expats are gpod at forums (or fora) and cricket and Irish bars is there also a role for some cultural education - fun stuff to invite teachers to, but also having Marmite and other quirks on display. Perhaps even as a fund-raiser for the school ?

I apreciate that I am sitting here with rose-tinted glasses and no anger because its not my child that is suffering. But sometimes the oblique way is best ?

 

Cheers

 

John

[Pangur]

Have people gone done and actually spoken to the teacher directly and discussed the problem face to face rather than relying on what their children and neighbours are saying? 

Surely the teacher is the very first point of call if you are having a problem with him/her that isn't particularly sensitive.  There doesn't seem to be much point in going to the principal or lead teachers without talking to the actual teacher first and getting his or her point of view.  Perhaps he marks down for using words that are not in the dictionary, perhaps native english pupils have spent years making up words or constantly challenging the teacher and this is a reaction, who knows?  Surely going directly to superiors just antagonises situations. 

Has anyone ever spoken to their child's teacher directly about incorrect marking and received any kind of explanation?

 

 

[KathyC]

Two people earlier on in this thread spoke of children "correcting" their teacher. Obviously this could have involved saying various things but it doesn't seem to be the best way of addressing a teacher, particularly in France. Perhaps this was not meant this way but it could explain some people's difficulties.