Let Down By French Teacher and School

p4radox said:
England is pretty much the laughing stock of the world when it comes to our skill with language. We come across as ignorant because of our inability to make sense of other people and make ourselves understood.
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Yet they all speak our language anyway. So who is the real winner? :rolleyes:

I don't doubt languages are important and they are an incredibly valuable asset to have and I would very much have liked to continue my studies in French and German, but the fact is that they would be of little use to me beyond holidays abroad. Even in that situation, I can speak enough to get by as a holidaymaker and make a reasonably polite effort to acclimatise to their culture.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
Pondering this myself.
Days of the week, total to 7...

Does she mean they all take an extra day for a weekend? What could she mean?
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I have no idea what she is on about. We've got a Paris office which I talk to a couple of times a week (in English ;) ). They work the same days/hours we do... give or take the 1 hour time difference.
 
Theophany said:
Yet they all speak our language anyway. So who is the real winner? :rolleyes:

I don't doubt languages are important and they are an incredibly valuable asset to have and I would very much have liked to continue my studies in French and German, but the fact is that they would be of little use to me beyond holidays abroad. Even in that situation, I can speak enough to get by as a holidaymaker and make a reasonably polite effort to acclimatise to their culture.
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I've been on holiday to france.

I tried reasonably hard in my French GCSE and got a C in it. I tried to speak to them in french, but ended up speaking english because it was easier !

Face it, we have no need to learn french or german etc.. when they all speak english because English is the dominant international language.
 
MrLOL said:
I've been on holiday to france.

I tried reasonably hard in my French GCSE and got a C in it. I tried to speak to them in french, but ended up speaking english because it was easier !

Face it, we have no need to learn french or german etc.. when they all speak english because English is the dominant international language.
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:rolleyes:
 
p4radox said:
Languages are some of the best regarded GCSEs because they're challenging.
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lulwut?

GCSE languages are far too easy. I have an A in GCSE Spanish and I can barely string a sentence together. They're not that hard in all fairness.

And those of you who don't think languages are important, perhaps you've not travelled the world, or spent significant amounts of time abroad?
Languages are so, so valuable and so devastatingly underrated in the UK.
 
You haven't even started your GCSEs and your fretting?

Don't worry about anything, you'll have a nervous breakdown before college anyway.

My advice, get a bike, ride it, play some football, be a kid ffs.
 
A waft of Sauerkraut drove by the breeze through Ardenne pine should send her packing. Either that or have a recording of the sound of arrows aloft handy.

lolWWIIAgincourtlol
 
All schools have the odd rubbish teacher, so you're not alone. For you the best bet is get some private tuition to help you for the exams. For the future students the best bet would be get your parents and your classmates parents to write to the head. They'll (rightly or wrongly) listen a lot more to your parents than they will to you.
 
My old French teacher screamed in my face when I asked her why learning French was important. That didn't solve anything though, I only know one word; Bonjour.
 
Telescopi said:
You haven't even started your GCSEs and your fretting?

Don't worry about anything, you'll have a nervous breakdown before college anyway.

My advice, get a bike, ride it, play some football, be a kid ffs.
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you're out of touch with the world my friend, there's only two options available for kids these days.

1. Study hard
2. Go out and stab someone
 
Even if the teacher is identified as a rubbish teacher, removing them is near impossible. The best a head can do, is minimise the damage they do in the school by rotating them.

I spoke to a head of science teacher at a certain school, and they told me they had to do this whilst desperately trying to manipulate the teacher into retiring early.

Something like 15 teachers have been removed for incompetence in the last 10 years. It is remarkable that of the tens of thousands of teachers, only 15 were rubbish.
 
I did the controlled assessment this year and it was the most easy thing to cheat in. You are told the question before you go in so how could you fail? What I did was write down the question on a scrap piece of paper and stick it in my pocket. Go home, make use of all my notes and add as many structures as possible and even searched up more complicated ones such as the subjunctive mood. I'm not good at French by any means but when you have notes and the internet and the question in front of you, it's relatively easy.

Three days before the exam, with essay prepared, memorise the essay word for word, go in and write out the essay. You don't even have to be at French to get an A/A* and someone who has never done French in their life could probably manage a B/C.
 
You're fretting over a most pointless subject. Unless you plan to actually move to France or get a job where most of the people in it speak French.
English is the most common language in Europe and North America. Learning something like French or German is so pointless. I think something much more distant such as Japanese would be far more useful. Not all Japanese speak English where as most French people (in the cities etc) do.

I got an F grade at GCSE French. ****** around evey lesson as did the rest of the class. When I bailed on my oral exam and was brought into the office about it I told them as it was. I had no interest in learning French and did not care if they wanted to press it. They gave up and let me do as I pleased. Concentrate on your other subjects instead. Especially Maths, English and Science.
 
I'd definitely get your parents and other pupils parents to write into the head. If they all write in then they can't deny that there is a serious cause for concern and something will have to be done. That said, In my experience French may seem hard but I'm sure you'll do just fine. And If your school is a language specialist then surely you'll have some sort of extra support. i.e after school/lunch help lessons?

From years 7-9 we had some pretty bad trainee teachers "teaching" us, if I can call it that. I felt I learned nothing at all. Then for GCSE we had a pretty good teacher, however I hated french as I was pretty useless at the writing side of it. I felt as though I was on track for a C grade. To my surprise I got an A but this was mainly due to the coursework being marked over and over again until it was perfect, the teacher even gave corrections...I even used google translate for >50% of it.

If all else fails then just go to that other grammar school in your area...they did alright by me ;)
 
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