French Teacher Issues

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hello epic CC members, I’m here to rant about my French teacher today and ask for help. Recently, the situation with my French teacher has worsened significantly. At the beginning of the year, she didn’t review a single bit, and we instantly started on French 3, which destroyed many of the worse-off French students’ grades and has basically kept them from doing good in anything since they don’t understand basic tenses and vocab.

This teacher gives us a vocab list but we never use it in class, and she wastes our class time with busywork, such as forcing us to listen to the song ‘Evangeline’ for 2 weeks and write a paper and answer questions about it even though it was completely irrelevant to the vocab and others parts of the unit. We spent about two days ‘learning’ the history of Quebec as well. The day before the test she told us we needed to memorize a new tense (Plus Que Parfait), memorize the history of Quebec, and also memorize a 50-word vocab and verb list which we had never used or seen before. I always got A+'s in French 1 and 2, and even got one last quarter, but this quarter was when it got bad. We had a test which I sadly got an 88 on, even though the average of the class was a D, and she wouldn’t offer retakes or remediation at all. I studied all night for that test but we just hadn’t learned it. Now as midterms approach and I await the test I just took to be put into the grade book, I have started to realize how biased my teacher is…

We had an assignment to right a fairy tale or fable and it took several days out of school to complete. I worked hard on mine and got a 96%… A girl then summarized the firing of her father from our school district and called that her project and she somehow got 100% even though she used Google Translate. Other students in my class who used GT were caught, but of course, her favorite student who totally disregarded the rubric and assignment, wasn’t caught, and received a 100%. Also, every other class I have perfect homework grades and always work hard on it but the French teacher doesn’t seem to know what she is doing when grading homework. Or maybe she is just nefariously trying to screw me over. She takes off points of my homework casually, like they mean nothing, and has even taken summative points away from me from talking during class (not during tests, on completely different days). It just seems disgusting to me that she is taking away points from me for ‘behavior.’ I mean, she obviously thinks screwing over my future and my college app is more important than disciplining me with a detention, which is beyond disgusting.

I think I have either the highest or one of the highest grades in the class with a 93, even though the class is ‘regular French 3.’ I am working at a much higher level but because she unfairly takes points off my HW that she wouldn’t for others, grades on a biased scale, and doesn’t teach us what is on the tests, I am suffering.

Also she started swearing at us, ripped up all of her papers and threw them in the air, stormed out of our classroom, and then wouldn’t answer any of our questions even though we were confused on an assignment.

What should I do?

t H a N k S .

2

The horror!! A teacher who actually expects students to do the work the first time around and not be spoon fed.

The plus-que-parfait literally requires 2 seconds to learn. It’s the imperfect form of avoir/être (which you’ve already learned) combined with the past participle of the verb. Since you’ve learned past participles and when to use avoir vs être from learning the passé composé, this is truly an easy task to master.

I’m thinking it’s not the teacher who is biased.

Calmly ask her what you can do to improve, and then follow through.

3

I am sorry to hear that you are suffering. Have you had a one on one meeting with her? Maybe ask her what specifically you can do to be successful in her class? I doubt her intent is to target you specifically. No reason to mock the student, he’s seeking guidance and support.

4

@skieurope I understood it. But we never did it in class and how can she expect the other 99% of the class to learn it? The class average is so low and the kid who is literally fluent has a 78% from biased grading.

5

Howard, yes, I have tried. She just starts yelling at me and says that ‘she teaches.’ Also, she definitely does target me and others who she dislikes for some reason. She obviously grades the better students much harsher as well. I am meeting with guidance on Monday to discuss it.

6

@skieurope How can giving someone 100% who used Google Translate and also fully disregarded the rubric/prompt 100% not bias? She also only answers some students questions during the test (if there is a word they don’t know), but tells others “This is a test I can’t help you.” That is the epitome of bias.

7

I did not read her assignment (nor did anyone here), so I cannot say. What I do know is that Google Translate is great for translating a word or two, but is ineffective at translating blocks of text. So I doubt that she wrote her essay exclusively using Google Translate. Anyway, as is often the case, we’re getting one side of the story.

8

One side of the story? Google Translate is not allowed in any and all forms and that was explicitly stated on the rubric. The rubric also explicitly stated that we were to write a fairy tale or fable. A story of your dad getting fired from the school district and also losing his coaching job to try and get an A from a teacher who also doesn’t like the district is not a fairy tale nor a fable.

If you are going to assess the situation please treat that as fact, since that is what I have presented and if you treat that as ‘my biased opinion’ then your suggestions are utterly useless to me. Thanks.

9

This is your third thread complaining about unfair teachers. Here are your other 2:

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/2060343-big-problem-with-teacher-grading-p1.html
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/2042007-honors-algebra-2-teacher-wont-round-grade-up-p1.html

So you’ve had issues with 3 different teachers. I’m thinking the teacher is not the issue here, but I’ll let others offer their opinion. Perhaps one of them will tell you what you want to hear. Good luck.

10

The Honors Algebra 2 thread was me being a stupid freshman in my first semester of high school and being mad that other kids got grade round-ups. I ended up getting a 99% on the year. That is pretty much irrelevant now. The ‘Big Problem With Teacher Grading’ was a valid complaint as the teacher lied to our class and switched her opinion after she realized it would look bad to fail too many students.

Since I am doing the best in my class with a 93 with all A+'s in other classes, and the fact that the teacher handed out a 100% for an incorrect project, I feel like this thread is valid as well. I really don’t think your opinion of me somehow being the problem is really helping anything but I guess your opinion is your opinion.

11

@skieurope You say that “Perhaps one of them will tell you what you want to hear” and act like I am the problem when the class average is a D+? How could I possibly be the problem?

12

I agree with @skieurope.

13

^ So you agree that nothing should happen. Helpful! Thanks so much!

14

You’re welcome.

15

Please get another ‘Super Moderator’ to comment in agreement with you as well! Now t h a t would be epic!

16

Not a mod and I agree with @skieurope.

17

@Get00F3D don’t get uptight. You have a plan of action. A plan of action that you came up with on your own I might add (meeting with guidance counselor). As with anything, take what is helpful and discard the rest. Good luck and I hope things get better.

18

Alright since I didn’t get any answer besides deal with it myself (I have a 93.8 in a class with a D+ average so how could this be my fault…) I will just meet with guidance and try and right these obvious wrongs.

19

@Get00F3D I will give you the same advice I would give my own kids if they were in the same situation. You will have teachers and even bosses that you don’t “vibe” with. Some of them may be terrible, but that doesn’t even matter. You will have to overcome the teacher, which you are doing in spite of your issues, but your complaints are just not a good “look”. Make lemonade out of the lemons, take your A in the class and move on is my advice. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you and stop worrying about others and their perceived advantages. Control what you can control (yourself) and dominate that class.

20

I will be honest, a teacher like this is preparing you for the rigors of college. There is no review, you need to learn new material quickly, and sometimes the means are super low. Embrace the challenge. IMO, these are the kinds of teacher who are setting you up for future success.