| Would you donate a part of yourself? | world class |
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 Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:59 pm Hubris |
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Once again this semester I've had the experience that many students who speak fluent English are failing the courses, or have failed a substantial number of their tests, while students with worse English are passing. What could cause this?
hubris |ˈ(h)jubrəs|
noun
excessive pride or self-confidence.
(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.
(Oxford American Dictionary)
At the beginning of the semester, these students think their English is "perfect", even though their scores on the placement test put them in an intermediate class. When words come up in the class -- words as common as burglar or stereotype -- these students tell me those words are "never used", because they don't know them.
When the time for the first grammar exam comes, these students are so confident that they don't study at all. They write their exam in street language, and they fail the whole thing. When the next exam comes, they don't study either, because they think the first time was just a fluke, or because they think they're failing just because of some kind of personality defect in me that doesn't allow me to see the brilliance of their English.
A few students smarten up and realize their deficiencies early, but most of the students who behave like this refuse to understand the problem until the middle of the semester, and by then it's too late.
I think the biggest cause of this is lax American high schools, where kids are over-praised and given perfect grades just for "trying" or "expressing themselves". Some of the teachers in those schools hold foreigners to lower standards, partly because they think of them as mentally incapable, and partly to save themselves work. Then when the people come to college and get the results of their ESL placement test, they feel like they've been kicked in the teeth and refuse to believe the real level of their English. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Wed Dec 05, 2007 14:11 pm Hubris |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | Once again this semester I've had the experience that many students who speak fluent English are failing the courses, or have failed a substantial number of their tests, while students with worse English are passing. What could cause this?
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Still a question in my mind, Jamie.
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Nicholas
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| Wed Dec 05, 2007 20:31 pm Hubris |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | Once again this semester I've had the experience that many students who speak fluent English are failing the courses, or have failed a substantial number of their tests, while students with worse English are passing. What could cause this?
hubris |ˈ(h)jubrəs|
noun
excessive pride or self-confidence.
(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.
(Oxford American Dictionary)Then when the people come to college and get the results of their ESL placement test, they feel like they've been kicked in the teeth and refuse to believe the real level of their English. |
Jamie, hubris hits the nail on the head. This year, I've had a business client who thought his 2 secretaries were in need of improving their English. Both an oral and a written assessment test formed an estimate of their language performance (in their case lower intermediate), but they thought they were so much better. Their hubristic attitude made them miss half their classes, and after 3 months I had to repeat the test with them. Their results were below the initial assessment. Of course they had to vindicate these unjustifiable results, and they decided to shift the blame on me. I was made out to be completely incapable of adjusting to their needs and requirements, and they went as far as lying about the actual content of the lessons.
In the end I had to submit a written statement to the school I was doing the course for. The 2 secretaries kept their jobs, and I get to teach less classes for this school.
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Ralf
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| Sun Dec 09, 2007 2:51 am Hubris |
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| Ralf wrote: | | In the end I had to submit a written statement to the school I was doing the course for. The 2 secretaries kept their jobs, and I get to teach less classes for this school. |
Do I happen to have met one or more of these secretaries here in the States? When you told them to say "clothes", did they perhaps get angry and insist that their real teacher had taught them to say "closes"?
The companies I do corporate work for have a good system, in which we have time sheets that list not only the date and time of the lessons, but also what was taught or discussed. The students have to sign them. A system like this would minimize the lying students do in situations like that.
I would think that just the fact that they seldom showed up would tip off the boss and your school.
This week I got a surprise from an agency I work for. I told them that a couple of women were seldom having their lessons, and that if the situation continued, I would open the time slot to someone else. My handler at the agency got angry, but at the women, not at me! She told me basically that the agency considers me a valuable capital asset, and that if I get jerked around by students, I might leave and then they'd have problems. She claimed they've got a waiting list for my lessons. I just about fell on the floor, because I'd always tippy-toed around those situations before, thinking that I was the one in the weak position. Well, in some agencies I would be, because they value cheapness over experience, and they'd just as soon hire some girl for whom double a McDonald's salary is an exciting step up than pay good money to a competent person. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
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Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:36 pm Hubris |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | Do I happen to have met one or more of these secretaries here in the States? When you told them to say "clothes", did they perhaps get angry and insist that their real teacher had taught them to say "closes"? |
Yes. I can't safely recall these particular secretaries claiming that you have to say closes when refering to the fabrics you sport, but it might as well have been them. These situations never cease to amuse me. But you're right, I also do find references to "real" teachers annoying. In Germany, some mispronunciation seem to be canonic at secondary schools.
| Jamie (K) wrote: | | Well, in some agencies I would be, because they value cheapness over experience, and they'd just as soon hire some girl for whom double a McDonald's salary is an exciting step up than pay good money to a competent person. |
There are schools here which pay one fifth of the price of a private lesson to the teacher, and they get away with it. If you had a workload of 40 hours per week with these schools alone, you'd be earning as much as a bus driver in his first year.
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Ralf
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| Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:45 pm Hubris |
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Hey Ralf what are your initial assement test consist of?
Where confindence is certainly needed too much can be a bad thing, a fine line between the two |
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Boke
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| Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:54 pm Hubris |
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| Boke wrote: | Hey Ralf what are your initial assement test consist of?
Where confindence is certainly needed too much can be a bad thing, a fine line between the two |
I'd agree. The test mainly consisted of basic language questions in multiple choice format, and a few culturally-rooted forms of expression.
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Ralf
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| Mon Dec 10, 2007 23:48 pm Hubris |
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| Ralf wrote: | | There are schools here which pay one fifth of the price of a private lesson to the teacher, and they get away with it. If you had a workload of 40 hours per week with these schools alone, you'd be earning as much as a bus driver in his first year. |
Ralf, as you know there are a number of reasons why some "schools" pay such low rates. Especially in East Germany education is still controlled, organized and funded by the government. The mind-set of many East Germans is this: Why should I pay for something that I have been used to get for free? Many of the courses you and I are teaching are provided by a "school" that is funded entirely by the government owned labor exchange office and/or the ESF. Now the government wants to create more competition amongst the publicly funded institutions. That's why they introduced some type of tender system that requires schools to submit a bid for a certain contract. Since the "clients" don't pay for the courses themselves the schools don't care much about the quality of their services.
In order to win the tender the schools submit their lowest bit possible while trying to fill their classes with as many students as possible. The schools get paid by the government for each "student" they put into their classes. As you result you might end up having to teach a group of 18 "students" of at least 3 different levels (absolute beginners, low-intermediate, advanced). The funny thing is that the schools are trying to pay the same rate regardless of the number of students you are teaching.
Since 99% of all English teachers working for government funded schools are free lancers a solution to the situation could be for them get organized. Agree on a standard that should be introduced in all of those courses. Demand more transparency, more control over the contents and conditions of those courses. The question, who will take the first step? Who is ready and willing to invest their time into changing the situation?
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Torsten
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| Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:19 am Hubris |
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| Torsten wrote: | | Ralf wrote: | | There are schools here which pay one fifth of the price of a private lesson to the teacher, and they get away with it. If you had a workload of 40 hours per week with these schools alone, you'd be earning as much as a bus driver in his first year. |
Ralf, as you know there are a number of reasons why some "schools" pay such low rates. Especially in East Germany education is still controlled, organized and funded by the government. |
Hi Torsten,
Sorry for our communication mishap, but I was indeed referring to private schools for private clients. The first school I worked for (as a student) did not even pay me double the wage of a McDonald's assistant.
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Ralf
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