i’ve just found out that my current latin teacher won’t be teaching us next year (cause she’s pregnant), but instead we’ll be getting this zombie-teacher. i’ve had him before for three years, and he messed up everything for me. i was always failing the exams when i had him.
he didn’t care if we understood what he was on about, he just handed out a sheet of paper with the new forms on and told us to learn them like. with little or no explanation.
the lessons where terrible as he never really gave any one, who was bad at latin, a chance. either you could translate Ovid perfectly or he ignored you.
just as i was starting to get better at latin and they go and give us this zombie again >:(! now that my marks all count and are quite important.
so i’ll have to do some revision in the hols…
anyone else have/had idiot teachers? and how do/did you manage?
i used to just go to sleep every lessons, but that is not really an option now :-...
I am willing to help you so much as I can.
There are German Latin forums, too :
http://www.lateinservice.de/forum/forum.htm<br />http://www.latein.at/forum/<br />http://www.eduhi.at/foren/latein/<br />
With plenty of competent guys.
95% of teachers are terrible. Learning by myself is how I gain my marks.
[quote author=Episcopus link=board=6;threadid=256;start=0#1494 date=1058455089]95% of teachers are terrible. Learning by myself is how I gain my marks.[/quote]
Yes but self-learning requires a lot of self-discipline … quae onme non habimus . I mean to say, “which not all of us have” ???
relative pronoun = ouch
Agreed there must be discipline and more importantly enthusiasm!
With average teachers you do the best you can manage - with good teachers you do better than you could manage on your own - bad teachers pull you down…
The first thing is to figure out whether he is ‘bad’ in this sense - is he actually misinforming you? - or if he’s just not guiding you as much as he should.
If the former is the case - it’s up to you to obtain your syllabus, to keep an eye on it and ensure you manage to do as much as you can (if not everything) on it. The best way to do it is to form a study group with fellow concerned classmates.
From what you say, though, I get the impression that your teacher knows his stuff and knows what you need to get through, but just doesn’t guide you as much as you need. In that case, I’m afraid it may still be pretty much as above - but not quite so bad, because perhaps you can still approach your teacher, now and again, with a question.
Here in Mauritius, most students go for private tuition in addition to their school. I remember seeing a private tutor for Maths, myself - if you can find (and afford) that kind of help, go for it!
Failing that - don’t forget Textkit! The downloadable resources may help, you have the Latin forum to ask questions, and the Open Board if you need just plain moral support. 
I hope I don’t sound patronising here; I had my own crop of incompetent teachers at school, I understand just how irritating (and unfair) it is - but I found ways to work around them, and there’s nothing more satisfying than getting good grades in spite of a lack of guidance.
Good luck!!!
Emma, when I was at school my Latin teacher was SO bad my friend and I regularly used to skip the class and go to a local coffee shop, where we would work on our Latin by ourselves. At the end of the final year I got the top marks in the class and my friend came 2nd. We were about 20% ahead of the person who came 3rd! Looking back, I can see that what we should have done is go and see the head teacher and just have a quiet word with her about our problems. I think schools are a lot better these days because they will actually listen to the student’s problems - 40 years ago they just expected everyone to toe the line and that was it. You might just have to do a lot of work at home and use the talents of the Textkit members if you get stuck. I can really feel for you as it is a horrible problem!
Here, if I were to go to the headteacher and sincerely complain, he would give not a shit.
Teachers have the authority to do what they wish; they are only inspected every 5 years and it is just a façade staged for the inspector. If one were to do something wrong, one would be suspended or in worse cases expelled.
Pupils have little rights and I have told one of the rare good teachers of my problems with awful teachers and she merely laughs and says me to be cynical especially when teachers are concerned.
Study by yourself, it is better. Work at your own pace. Then when you achieve the best marks beat your teacher with a trout.
well, Herr Schulz is very good at latin (studied at Heidelberg Uni, which is the german equivalent of Oxbridge), but he’s a rubbish teacher.
we’re not learning any grammar (finished learning grammar 3 and half years ago), but that’s the problem really. i can’t remember much of it 
.
he’s a very unfair teacher. most teachers are thrilled, when someone, who normally never participates in class, puts up their hand and tries to translate a difficult sentence - even if the translation is very bad. they then tell you what you did wrong and so you learn.
but Herr Schulz ignors all students he knows are rubbish at latin, like the only people in the class are the two or three people who are best. so in the end you’re frustrated, and just sit there lesson after lesson, forgetting all the latin you ever learned.
they don’t have inspections here at the schools and i know that comlaining to the head teacher won’t actually do much good. teachers here are state employees and can’t be fired. there’s a teacher at our school for example, who’s always drunk (in class, too) , has been for the last 20 years he’s been teaching here, and so far no one has been able to do anything against him. so not much change of getting rid of a teacher, who just hates people who have problems understanding what the dative and ablative are for 
(well i know what they are for now luckily…).
lol, but you’re all right, i should just learn it on my own (well revise it all) and make sure i get a good mark in a test (that way he’d notice me and might let me translate something ).
i got my end of year report today, with a grade 11 in latin ;D(which is a really good mark, like a B or B+ . 15 is like A star and anything 3 and below is a fail), even though i failed the translation in the exam, where i got a grade 2, my translation was a 10. a grade not easy to reach, when you’ve messed up the translation so much, that the text doesn’t actually make much sense.
maybe he’ll see this mark and think: “Emma, hmm… but she always used to fail my exams… maybe she’s improved…”
ohh, yes … thanks Skylax, those german forums will certainly help me, as one of my biggest problem with latin is knowing the german forms. you really have to know all the strange grammatical german forms to translate latin properly. and sadly enough all i know is colloquial german. the latin conjunctive and future forms for example are much easier than learning the german conjuctive and future forms.
Drunk?!
I agree Emma, there is a huge difference between a good mind for the subject and a good teacher for the subject.
And what is the point, as a teacher, of ignoring students who are not perfect as no one will learn anything…
P.S If you are stuck on the grammar Check out Benjamin L. D’Ooge, Latin For Beginners.
Many pages you would skip but it is complicated further on!
I can understand that it is frustrating being stuck with a teacher who can’t teach, esp. if he/she can’t be held accountable.
I cannot accept that 95% of teachers are terrible. I think that that statement does an injustice to the teaching community. (No, I am not a teacher, though I did have an aspiration to being one at one time).
Having a poor teacher does have a huge impact because when you go to school to be taught, you count on at LEAST a mediocre teacher.
Just some thoughts.
PS. It would be uplifting to read some notes from you people who did not have terrible, poor or mediocre teachers but ones who excelled and who encouraged you to excell.
PS. > It would be uplifting to read some notes from you people who did not have terrible, poor or mediocre teachers but ones who excelled and who encouraged you to excell.
well there’s my greek teacher. one of the best teachers i’ve ever had at school. he actually takes an interest in us and he make us all think that his biggest aim in life is to teach us greek. he answers even the most stupid questions and explains things over and over again to pupils, who didn’t understand it (that’s only if they ask of course). but he’s also quite strict and makes us work really hard. where as that zombie teacher i’m getting in latin next year couldn’t care less if we worked or not, he’s always writing tests and stuff.
he knows that students have to be made to work, like .
but if you forget to do your homework, he’s not like the other teachers, who give you a bad mark or extra work straight away. instead you have to bake a cake for the whole class. no one ever forgets their homework now, after having to bake a few cakes 
. i miss the cakes…
I’m totally in love with my Latin teacher…
lol, ask your latin teacher to marry you then .
[quote author=benissimus link=board=6;threadid=256;start=0#1697 date=1058786041]
I’m totally in love with my Latin teacher…
[/quote]
estne pulchra an canis? habetne episcopõs magnõs?
Benissimus: Possumus nos amantes mariti esse?
Professor Ken: Noli dicere, sed prolim me basia!
[quote author=Bert de Haan link=board=6;threadid=256;start=0#1684 date=1058746890]
PS. It would be uplifting to read some notes from you people who did not have terrible, poor or mediocre teachers but ones who excelled and who encouraged you to excell.
[/quote]
I have had 3 latin teachers now - that’s 3 disembodied voices on tapes. But the last dis-embodied voice left great, useful feedback on returned assignments, encouraged me thoroughly, and I actually talked to her over a phone a couple months ago. She encouraged me to keep in touch with my Latin issues! I’m really looking forward to the next Latin course, which she is teaching again!
The first Latin teacher explained very clearly, spoke very clearly, and had a terrific sense of humour which came through on the tapes, too. The remaining Latin teacher was just a disembodied voice on tapes… Although he did do a really good Roman Society course…
All my experiences with my Latin (and Greek) teachers have been via tape, and all have been terrific. I suspect that that’s because there is a lot of detailed quality control done on these correspondence courses. (In fact, I even took a first year calculus course the same way, and discovered that that disembodied voice was the best math teacher I’d ever had…)
Kilmeny
Where do you find these correspondence courses?
[quote author=mariek link=board=6;threadid=256;start=15#1801 date=1058888298]
Where do you find these correspondence courses?
[/quote]
University of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada, in their Distance Education department…
http://www.dce.uwaterloo.ca/de/index.html<br />
The tally now is 4 x Latin, 2 x Koine Greek, 2 x Roman history/society, 2 x Greek history society, 1 x Economics, 2 x Sociology, 1 x Geography, 2 x English, 2 x Irish history, 1 x Math. The 5th Latin course is starting this fall… Unfortunately, budget cuts are preventing them from taking on any new BA students for Honours Classics, but the courses are still there…
Kilmeny