I’ve ranted about my TESL class a little bit but my presentation last week just kinda pushed me over the edge.
The professor structured the class so that the first half of each class would be discussion and presentation led/given by the groups. The second half is her time, as she calls it, which basically means she tells us about her research from her graduate work. FYI, I don’t give a fuck about her research.
Anyway, last Thursday was my group’s turn. We had to lead the discussion on two chapters from the book and then find & present a research article from a TESL journal. Everything that could’ve gone wrong, did, it seemed.
- With three people in a group (2 grad students, 1 undergrad student & all three working full-time or close to it), it’s next to impossible to find a time that everyone can meet. Throw in a required meeting with the professor who thinks it’s okay to ask you to leave work early, and it’s just all kinds of fun.
- After outlining most of the first chapter myself, and sending a PowerPoint presentation to the other members of my group, the professor then decided that we only needed to discuss that material (in other words, I’d done most of my group’s work by myself). Also, one member of the group then decided it would be okay to basically take the credit for the PowerPoint when she met with the professor. Fantastic.
- When we got to class, we had issues with the connections and our PowerPoint didn’t get started until about 15 minutes into the class.
- Part way into our discussion with the class, the professor decided we weren’t fully understanding a particular concept. She decided to restate our argument, saying the same thing, and continuing to claim we didn’t understand. (She’s from China and was basically just misunderstanding a word that we used).
- One of the girls in my group basically chewed out the professor and said she was being inappropriate by interrupting our discussion. I was partly mortified, partly impressed.
- Even after we told the professor a number of times that we understood what she was saying and that we understood the concept, she still sent us an email after class that night to say that said:
The research paper is well chosen, related to the discussion topic closed, and presented clearly. The only thing that I would like to see improvement is to give an example of how double object in Spanish would have multiple meanings.
The chapter presentation ppt. and quiz questions are well organized. However, I did expect to see a clearer understanding of concepts in the chapter from the presentation…
Overall, well done and thank you for your hard work again!
She makes me crazy.
I sent an email to my advisor whining about how the professor changes assignment and project requirements on a weekly basis and is not teaching the class that I registered for (the class is called TEACHING ESL; she’s teaching Second Language Acquisition, with a heavy emphasis on theories and scientific research.) My advisor asked me to come in and meet with her saying, “the department would certainly want to know the details.”
I haven’t responded, yet, but I have a feeling that I’ll be pissed off all over again after tonight’s class, so I’m sure I will be inspired to schedule a meeting.
