The Trouble-Maker Returns
I had to stop going to French class temporarily, as there weren’t enough people to continue doing the intensive class at my level. When I got back from Rome I got a message to call the French Institute’s course administrator. She told me that I still couldn’t do the intensive class, but there was another evening class running two nights a week about to start. I was a bit annoyed, as we had already had to postpone the class due to lack of numbers and now we couldn’t do it at all. However, I figured it was better than nothing and two of my friends from my old class would also be doing it.
So I went to the first class and it was awful. Firstly, there were about sixteen students there. It was so packed two people had to sit at the corners of the tables. Secondly, I didn’t like the teacher. My previous teacher had been lovely, but this guy was the stereotypical snooty French teacher. The only thing missing was the scarf around his neck! Also, he had the same first name as me (same spelling also). To top it all off the class was boring. We spent half of it going around saying the French authors we knew and what type of literature they wrote. The other half was naming five problems in society. When I think something is a waste of my time (for e.g. the infamous JET conferences) I just shut down and try and do something productive. I did that for most of the lesson. Also, when we were discussing problems in UK society the teacher encouraged the students to make generalisations about the UK (most of my classmates were not British). I had to bite my tongue when he started going on about how the Japanese were “systématique”.
So I decided to quit the class and I e-mailed the courses administrator to ask if anything else was available. I didn’t want to slag off the class or teacher and so I just said the class was “not what I expected”. In the end I ended up having to call her and she wanted to know why I wanted to change and I was forced to tell her. I tried not to slag off my namesake too much though. It all worked out okay in the end. I’m now doing a three-hour class on Saturdays. It’s a bit of a pain to have class on Saturdays, but the teacher is pretty good and best of all there’s only six of us in the class. I ran into my namesake on Saturday and he blanked me and strolled off with his nose in the air!
So I went to the first class and it was awful. Firstly, there were about sixteen students there. It was so packed two people had to sit at the corners of the tables. Secondly, I didn’t like the teacher. My previous teacher had been lovely, but this guy was the stereotypical snooty French teacher. The only thing missing was the scarf around his neck! Also, he had the same first name as me (same spelling also). To top it all off the class was boring. We spent half of it going around saying the French authors we knew and what type of literature they wrote. The other half was naming five problems in society. When I think something is a waste of my time (for e.g. the infamous JET conferences) I just shut down and try and do something productive. I did that for most of the lesson. Also, when we were discussing problems in UK society the teacher encouraged the students to make generalisations about the UK (most of my classmates were not British). I had to bite my tongue when he started going on about how the Japanese were “systématique”.
So I decided to quit the class and I e-mailed the courses administrator to ask if anything else was available. I didn’t want to slag off the class or teacher and so I just said the class was “not what I expected”. In the end I ended up having to call her and she wanted to know why I wanted to change and I was forced to tell her. I tried not to slag off my namesake too much though. It all worked out okay in the end. I’m now doing a three-hour class on Saturdays. It’s a bit of a pain to have class on Saturdays, but the teacher is pretty good and best of all there’s only six of us in the class. I ran into my namesake on Saturday and he blanked me and strolled off with his nose in the air!