[показать]I guess, I was way too quick to decide that I like my French professor. Yes, he did claim to be pretty strict as far as assignments and class participation are concerned, but, not surprisingly, strictness does not necessarily guaranties being a good teacher. First of all, he is so freaking slow in his explanations that I, knowing most of this stuff anyway, feel like being tortured.

Today, for example, the only thing we did was playing some stupid game where every person in class had to give a translation to one of the assigned words. Not surprisingly, half of the people there did not know a thing, which I found to be both surprising and annoying since 15 out of 25 students claimed to have studied French before. Then for the rest of the class, we have been learning parts of human body. I mean, come on, are you kidding me? The book we had to buy for almost 200 bucks is pretty good; there are plenty of things to read, watch, and learn. Why not to open the first chapter and start explaining the material. Let me remind you that this is our third lesson. With this kind speed, the only thing are able to say by the end of the semester is going to be "Comment vous applez-vous?"

What bugs me the most, however, is that here in the US they practice the same method of teaching foreign language as they do at home (at least this particular teacher). Basically, for half of the class I have to listen to mumbling of too many students who don't give a shit about learning French. I have no idea what they are doing there, by the way. I had to deal with the same thing while learning Spanish back at home. This is why, from time to time, I get so pissed that I want to become a foreign language teacher myself. I've thought a lot about what I don't like and came to a conclusion that my dream teacher would be the one who assigns lots of homework, collects what had to be written, grades it, and gives some feedback. If the teacher whats to see how well students are prepared, there is a wonderful thing called quiz. With a perfect instructor, there is no going over every single sentence of the homework in class unless students have some specific questions because usually we have enough of our own mistakes to listen to poorly written sentences of our classmates. I believe that the classroom should be used for explaning new concepts and putting language we learn to practice, which is the whole point of learning it in the first place. Make students speak, for Pete's sake, that's why there are there! If a student can't put two words together, sit him or her down, give a bad grade, or whatever else makes you happy. Why should those who do want to learn be tortured by others' unpreparedness.

I really hope that this is just a beginning; otherwise, this class will be a waste of both my time and money. I've learned ten times as much in three weeks I've been practicing French on my own, so I'm afraid that, by the end of the semester, I'm going to be so far ahead of everyone that it won't even be funny. Unfortunately, I can't drop this class because it will completely mess up my schedule. I'll just have to see how it goes and hope for the best. I'll have to end my tirade on this since, in 30 min, I'm listening to State Senator Steven Oroho who is speaking in our college. I have never heard about him, but since I've never seen live politician before, I think that it's worth checking out :) He's going to be talking about leadership, vision and the current economic climate. I bet all of you are so jealous right now ;)))