<p>I have a small dilema. My marks in French class have slowly but surely been going down over the last 5 years. I know that this is because my teacher is, for lack of a better word, incompetant. She has achieved (by she I mean her students) no A's in the last 7 years. She frequently tells us about how she does not care if we fail... The problem is that no one really noticed how bad she was until our final year (this is partly due to the fact that the work she gave us then was easy and we could do it, whereas now - we have to do a national level exam with questions that are not set by her and therefore very hard (for us)) - How do I tell the universities to which I am applying that it is not my fault (I have never had any problems with any other subjects and, before this teacher, I showed an aptitude for languages). Is there any way that I can let the colleges know this???</p>
<p>please help!!!</p>
<p>I have empathy for your problem because my son had similar difficulties.
Unfortunately, you can't tell the colleges that the teacher was incompetent. The colleges would simply interpret that to mean that you were shifting the blame or were not working hard enough.</p>
<p>What you need to do is to get a tutor so that you can do well on the exam and in class despite having a bad teacher.</p>
<p>Most colleges have loads of professors that are crummy teachers, those whom can't teach well anymore, those who were never able to teach, and those are there for status, and what they've accomplished in research, and whom have no teaching skills whatsoever.</p>
<p>Being able to cope with an instructor with inferior teaching experience is part of the college experience. Blaming the high school teacher is an advertisement that you are ill-equpped to handle a college envirement.</p>
<p>Unless your college couns. is willing to back up that the high language dept. has retained Peggy Hill, stay away from that territory.</p>
<p>Bad-mouthing a teacher, even eloquently, will not get you far. It looks like you're just blaming her for your short-comings. Life is like this, it isn't always fair. I agree that unless you can get your guidance counselor to say something (and this should be done with great caution if they will do it) there is nothing much you can do. Florida is right on another account. This is how college is. Not every teacher you have will be great, and it's best go get used to that idea now</p>
<p>Particularly with non liberal arts colleges, most professors are chosen because of their research abilities, not because of their teaching abilities. Unlike secondary and elementary school teachers who get their jobs after being taught how to teach, most profs get their jobs after being taught how to do research. They get no instruction in teaching.</p>
<p>In fact, many professors hate to teach -- particularly disliking teaching undergrads. Therefore, students who complain that their grades are low because of bad high school teachers aren't going to sound like students with the ability to do well in college.</p>
<p>I realize that these situations exist in college but in my high school it was different. I have had bad teachers in other subjects and, as a result, have taught myself the syllabus (areas of maths and physics in particular). The problem with french was that no one was really made aware of the problem until it was too late. A language such as french (and especially on the level that I am doing it) cannot be learned in the 2.5 months I have between now and the exams, in order for a candidate to be successful in these exams, they need to have a good foundation for the language - which was never instilled in me or my peers. And, as you obviously state, it would be unlikely that my school would back up my opinions and criticize one of their departments.</p>
<p>Also, do you think that it would be worth it getting a tutor for the 12 holiday I have between now and the exams. IE: 12 days of heavy french lessons - Problem is that I am at a boarding school and this would be the only time that I could get some external help!</p>
<p>There are two things you can do:</p>
<p>1) Ask if you can see the school report and see if there is a grade distribution page (I know ours had one). If so, it will be clear that no one gets As. </p>
<p>2) Tell your counselor about the problem and he/she can write a note and explain that this particular teacher never gives As.</p>
<p>Yes, it would be worth it to get a tutor for those days that you are on holiday. Do anything you can to get a good grade on the exams. I have found that in h.s. the students are using tutors who get good grades despite having bad teachers.</p>