Dear students
1. If I say I don't have time to see you, it means I don't have time to see you. It does not mean that you should bail me up when I am hurrying towards the ferry which is about to leave. Especially when you are asking the same questions which you have asked in repeated emails and which I have explained to you at least ten times. I realize that you do not have sufficient English skills to understand me, but that is not my fault. I blame our august institution for accepting you in the first place when speaking and writing logical English is clearly beyond you. I also blame IELTS since their standards are clearly not high enough. Let me also remind you that *you* are the person who plagiarised your entire essay. Similarly, your intellectual laziness is not my fault. Neither is your dishonesty. You must take responsibility for yourself. You won't find the English-speaking workforce will be all that keen on hiring someone like you.
2. Dear student, I understand that you are distressed at getting a lower mark than you wanted. Again, you are the one who chose to cheat on your essay. Not as much as student #1, admittedly, but you still copied paragraph after paragraph direct from wikipedia! You are perfectly intelligent enough to have done better at this course. Hopefully your distress over a lower than expected grade will make you realize that cheating doesn't pay.
3. Dear student, if you want to complain about your grade, and ask for a higher one (an exceptionally rude thing to do in the first place - sometimes you just have to suck it up) - it's a good idea to proofread your email so that almost every word isn't spelt incorrectly and sentences filled with incorrect grammar and punctuation. Reading lousy English like that makes me wonder why you got the high grade that you did.
4. Dear student, I am a very busy person. No, I cannot read essays that you will write in the future. There are many ads around campus for people who will proofread your essays, so stop being cheap and contact them. Alternatively student services - as I've explained in class *many* times - can read essays and give advice on grammar etc for free.
And now for something completely different:
5. Dear student, thank you for your kind comments about my teaching. I would love to teach you again - if only I wasn't teaching two subjects next semester that you've already done! In many ways I hope *not* to be here in the following semester, when you want to do that advanced course. I'm therefore unlikely to teach you again, especially as I've been told there will be no teaching available next semester particularly if I have my PhD. All the best.
2. Dear student, I understand that you are distressed at getting a lower mark than you wanted. Again, you are the one who chose to cheat on your essay. Not as much as student #1, admittedly, but you still copied paragraph after paragraph direct from wikipedia! You are perfectly intelligent enough to have done better at this course. Hopefully your distress over a lower than expected grade will make you realize that cheating doesn't pay.
3. Dear student, if you want to complain about your grade, and ask for a higher one (an exceptionally rude thing to do in the first place - sometimes you just have to suck it up) - it's a good idea to proofread your email so that almost every word isn't spelt incorrectly and sentences filled with incorrect grammar and punctuation. Reading lousy English like that makes me wonder why you got the high grade that you did.
4. Dear student, I am a very busy person. No, I cannot read essays that you will write in the future. There are many ads around campus for people who will proofread your essays, so stop being cheap and contact them. Alternatively student services - as I've explained in class *many* times - can read essays and give advice on grammar etc for free.
And now for something completely different:
5. Dear student, thank you for your kind comments about my teaching. I would love to teach you again - if only I wasn't teaching two subjects next semester that you've already done! In many ways I hope *not* to be here in the following semester, when you want to do that advanced course. I'm therefore unlikely to teach you again, especially as I've been told there will be no teaching available next semester particularly if I have my PhD. All the best.