To be late for parents evening

[42bunnytails]

DD2 (Y9) has made an appointment with her German teacher.

She hates him, she's absolutely useless at German, gets put in detention and has made no progress in three years.

She's a straight A student at everything else

She's done it purely to see if I can keep a straight face, when she knows I think he's an idiot too.

It's not fair, she knows I had a fit of the giggles watching one of her class just wander off mid bollocking, leaving her parents to hear the end of it.

To make it worse you can see the French teacher trying not to giggle too

I hope he sees through it tells you to leave

So do I. He shouldn't have to put up with a silly giggling parent who doesn't know how to behave and who thinks it's funny to model such poor behaviour to her daughter. I doubt he's by any means solely responsible for this pupil's lack of engagement and progress. However the OP's incapable of understanding that.

RufusTheReindeer

It's just that I took it to mean that people who can't do a foreign language struggle with their own...and obviously you didn't mean that at all

Sort of in between. If someone doesn't struggle with their own, they're a lot better than they give themselves credit for. If your brain learnt one language and continued to acquire words like tablet computer, iPad, iPhone, blackberry, texting, and all the other new words over the last ten years, then there were lots of brain cells there, devoted to communication, and they're still there! It's a defining feature of us as a species- the fact we have language!

Over the last few years, I've lost count of the adults I've met on beginners' language courses who all thought they were terrible at languages, but needed it for some reason or other. I used to discreetly inquire how much time they'd had to work on it and what they'd done in between classes, what with work, children, seeing aging parents, shopping, commuting, making costumes for the school play, volunteering, collapsing on the settee and all that. Answer each time? Very little to nothing. Did they say, "eh, I'm doing brilliantly, considering I have fuck-all time to myself apart from one evening class"? No, they thought, "Mrs Smith was right when she said I had no talent back in 1979". Two women in particular were actually genuinely gifted linguists, but referred to it as "well, I always manage to get by". And they truly believed that was all they could do, and thought themselves incapable of progressing on to intermediate classes. They just signed up for beginners' something else the year after!

However patronising it may sound , people in Britain are just too hard on themselves with languages. They make no allowances for themselves, lose confidence totally, and then it's all a self-fulfilling prophecy from there. If someone can't read an Oxford Reading Tree book about Floppy the dog in the language of their choice after a year's classes with fellow non-disruptive adults, then I'll write them off as incapable of learning any other languages.

You see the same thing with maths, as well. I do actually have a small talent for that, as I don't for languages (just enthusiasm and sheer bloody-mindedness there) and there are so many people out there whoaren't "bad" at maths, but scared. And frankly, if I'd had their experiences with maths, I'd be shit-scared too...

Officially, the pupils make appointments, but clearly who they see cannot be entirely their free choice.

Parents and teachers tend to intervene in the process telling DCs, who they Should see.

Tutors nag, to ensure appointment sheets are filled, which also means pupils making appointments with teachers they would prefer their parents didn't meet.

In any case parents evening gets very very busy and appointments slip and you invariably miss someone.

If it's a teacher you really want to see, you then hover as someone else is sure to have the same problem and you can jump into the gap.

Mostly it works pretty well if you are patient.

99% of teachers do their best to make it a pleasant experience. 1% doesn't

However patronising it may sound, people in Britain are just too hard on themselves with languages. They make no allowances for themselves, lose confidence totally, and then it's all a self-fulfilling prophecy from there

I think that's a really good point. I don't think we regard learning a language as a natural or mainstream thing to do. When you tell people you speak another language, particularly if it's an unusual one, you're often greeted with responses such as "Isn't that really difficult?" It isn't. I find lots of things difficult that other people take for granted.

No we don't think of learning languages as easy, mainstream or necessary in this country, where as my linguist DF says in Spain learning English is.

She worked for a year teaching English to business people, who knew they wouldn't get promoted without it.

There is no such motivation here.

Noone in schools today would be allowed to study languages like I did. I managed to accomplish it by dropping all practical subjects at theearliest opportunity.

I don't think I had particularly gifted or inspiring language teachers but they were technically competent. I got my motivation from being prepared to put the work in, and I had parents who were supportive and instilled absolute respect for teachers.

My weak area was Maths and my teachers on the whole weren't much good, but I was taught to respect them as well as the learning process whether or not I was enjoying it.

Pupils are likely to underachieve without effective role modelling, as I said previously.

This thread makes me remember why I'm currently loving my job as MFL teacher. Parents like you, OP, make my life even harder!
In fact I have a parent like you, who has actually made complaints about me and did make a parents eve appt just to be rude and disrespectful.
I'm sure she thinks her son is doing well in all other subjects and that I'm a rubbish teacher who gets bad results and should be got rid of- in fact she has said as much, to my line manager....
Nothing to do with the fact her son has done no homework outside of detention time in two years and refuses to do any class work.

I fail to see how a student who is getting As in other subjects cannot perform in year 9 German. That's just pure laziness.

But some parents and students always want to blame the teacher.

Luckily all the replies on this thread have restored my faith and got me ready for another day of 'why do I have to learn German anyway, I'm never going to go there'.

Chips - I am really glad I learned German - it is a logical language, and I can still remember some of the grammatical rules (like which words take the dative). Ds1 did German too - he was interested in engineering at that point, and was told that German was a more useful language for an engineer than French.

42bunnytails - ds3 professed to hate French, told me he hated the teacher and she hated him (she told us at Parents' Evening that he was a pleasant pupil, behaved well in class and she liked him) - and he still managed to get a 2 in his Standard Grade (we are in Scotland, and it's my understanding that this is equivalent to either a B or an A at GCSE). Maybe the difference is that he knew dh and I wouldn't accept him doing no classwork or homework, and wouldn't have condoned poor classroom behaviour either.

Can't believe the OP is a grown up, and then moans about immerseive learning. This is the best way to learn another language. My DS's cousins were lucky enough to have 3 years immersive language learning (not in the UK) in a non-European language, and they are confident speakers of that language.

And why the OP thinks that Latin, French. and Welsh won't help with earning German! Well, I can see why her DD got detentions.

Goodness I'm glad I don't have to deal with the parents of my students.

queen

Between you and me

I found my old French report....apparently I was really good like ds1

The massive difference, I believe, is that ds1 and I have little confidence and don't want to 'fail' in front of people...dd on the other hand has an over abundance of confidence and is just flying

I thought that immersive language learning was meant to be the best method. I know that when I've observed the trainee language teachers here that they are encouraged to use the target language wherever possible.

We should never be rude about teachers, bosses, politicians or anyone in authority even if they are total and utter twats!

This is interesting. I think you're right that we can never say never be rude about people. We often are, although more rarely in the deliberate way you're planning Humans disagree, that's being human.

But what I object to here is your very unreflective assumption that a teacher is a total and utter twat when the evidence suggests that your daughter is at least half to blame: detentions and low grades.

I think people need to think about the difference between teaching and learning. Good teachers don't automatically have good learners; and reverse is also true.

And some of the deepest most solid learning I did at school was in response to mediocre teaching, which drove me to work harder to a) understand it myself; and b) prove to the teacher I could do it (I remember a particularly sexist science teacher).

But clearly OP you know better than all the other teachers and linguists on this thread. To them, I offer a big thank you for all the shite they put up with from pupils and their parents.

No we don't think of learning languages as easy, mainstream or necessary in this country

If only you'd said this right at the beginning of this thread, OP, people could have seen where this poor attitude of yours comes from, and why your daughter believes it's ok to disrespect her German teacher.

Imersive learning is certainly very fashionable, does that necessarily mean it's any good.

I don't know, I'm not a linguist, I gave up Welsh and French was absolute joy at 14 and disappeared in the science labs.

What I do know is that DD2 and two friends of DD1's who go to a respected private school (that's another world to my girls comp) disliked this way of learning intensely. One did get GCSE German having found she liked it once the initial teaching changed to something more structured, the other resorted to Latin as it taught very differently.

DD2 said it was bearable for French only because she'd done Frech Club (paid) at primary and she had some idea what going on. Some vocab and some idea of word order and grammar.

In German she was absolutely lost and the teacher has totally refused to acknowledge this or try to help in anyway.

"Just go on the internet"

Yes and do what? She hadn't a clue where to start, she was Y7 not Y12, she needed some pointers, some guidence, a textbook with some English.

The teacher didn't help at all, no guidence, no encouragement

Given German gets consistently very few pupils opting to take it and very poor results at GCSE and A level, something is seriously wrong, way beyond one pupil and one frustrated Mother.

No I've left it three years to late to complain, but someone must have in the past and in any case there is no way do school not know!

They have been in and out of Special Measures, they will have studied and had studied by external bodies every scrap of performance data.

School know this very small dept. and it's most senior and long standing teacher have very serious problems. Why they choose not to act I do not know!

School know this very small dept. and it's most senior and long standing teacher have very serious problems.

How do you know this, OP, unless you are on the school's SLT or are a governor?

I was chatting to a German colleague about my DC's GCSE options. He said "Don't learn German. Only Germans speak it and the Germans you want to talk to all speak English!"

Please note, this is lighthearted. I am no linguaphobe. I speak two other European languages (one OK, one falteringly) as well as English

Actually, most Germans from the former DDR have Russian as their second language rather than English, but obviously that is changing since re-unification.

Like a say Suburban - it was a joke. To illustrate that even those forriners think there's no point!

I don't know, I'm not a linguist

In that case stop pissing about like a stupid child and encouraging your daughter to do likewise.

I don't know how to say "lighten up" in German!

There's more to learning a language than speaking to people for business or on holiday though.
Some of the most important works of literature are in other languages.
And it's good for your brain to study languages according to a study reported on BBC Breakfast this morning

Doctor it undoubtedly is good for your brain. However in the case of the OP she evidently has a daughter who sees no immediate reward in making a bit of effort so she supports her in not bothering.
You only have to do a search on her other posts to see that she takes a pride in being a bit rebellious and "out there," and encourages her children to be likewise. So that is where this thread came from and the childishness which makes it impossible for her to reflect on her attitude.
I'd still like to know why she's found it necessary to name change.

Well I will remember this when my daughter gets home after parents evening. She leave homes at 7.30 am, gives up lunch times and stays late to help with extra class/activities. When she does parents evening she gets home about 9 pm and still has marking/preparation to do. So I will think of your stupid behaviour and your appalling example to your daughter.

By the way I think the French teacher is laughing at you.