Teacher unqualified in subject

seriouslysweet

This does not effect me personally but it is a big issue in our school at the moment. A teacher who teaches French would appear to have no qualification in it and we have a student fluent in it who says what she sayd is rubbish. She's not my teacher but surely after admitting to this class last year what course she did in college they should not have to sit back and be taught by her now that she suddenly finds herself landed with it? She did commerce, not commerce and french, just commerce and has been in the school since her Dip. Before anyone says maybe she did a degree in it, no she did not. So...where do us students stand?

tudlytops

How do you know what she did or not did? and are you basing this on the one fluent student?

No offence intended just curious.

But as i lived in a number of countries i have seen this happen before, with teachers that had spent some time in another country and were presumed to know the language and that is all the qualification they needed.

rainbowtrout

seriouslysweet wrote: »

This does not effect me personally but it is a big issue in our school at the moment. A teacher who teaches French would appear to have no qualification in it and we have a student fluent in it who says what she sayd is rubbish. She's not my teacher but surely after admitting to this class last year what course she did in college they should not have to sit back and be taught by her now that she suddenly finds herself landed with it? She did commerce, not commerce and french, just commerce and has been in the school since her Dip. Before anyone says maybe she did a degree in it, no she did not. So...where do us students stand?

Well you've said yourself she's not teaching you so it doesn't really have anything to do with you.

When you start teaching in a school, you can be asked to teach anything. Teachers don't go and ask for subjects they are not qualified in. If your friends are in this class and are not happy then they should take it up with the principal. If you are not in the class it has nothing to do with you.

Just as an aside, I've seen plenty of students go through school who are fluent in a foreign language as it is their native tongue. They often do not speak grammatically correct French/German etc and use slang that you are not taught in school. Don't be so quick to dismiss the teacher.

Cat Melodeon

I worked in resource in a school for a few years and was regularly asked to teach a German class. I have no German qualification and should not have been teaching it. If you are a junior member of staff it is very difficult to refuse to take a class. You have a certain number of hours you have to spend in the classroom, and it often works out that you have to take a subject that you are not qualified to teach. The school may have the choice of putting in a teacher who does not have the subject or simply not offering the subject, leaving some students short a subject. And as a junior teacher, it is made clear that refusal is not an option.

I agree that in an area like language teaching, it is essential that a teacher be equipped to teach the curriculum properly. the only exception I would make to that would be if it was a TY class in which case exposure to the culture, conversational aspects of the language etc can take precedence over grammar and so on. If it's an exam class, it's not acceptable. I would not go on the word of one student, but if I were your friend and I felt the teaching was shoddy, I would make a fuss. It may not be the teacher's fault - she may not have a choice.

implausible

seriouslysweet wrote: »

A teacher who teaches French would appear to have no qualification in it and we have a student fluent in it who says what she sayd is rubbish.

While I don't necessarily agree with this practise, for a student it should come down to one thing - is she teaching the curriculum effectively? The native speaker's opinion is irrelevant if the course is being taught.

dambarude

seriouslysweet wrote: »

we have a student fluent in it who says what she sayd is rubbish.

In that she's bad at teaching or that she has deficient French?

If it's the latter it's something that I wouldn't tolerate. Bad teaching is one thing, but if the teacher's level of competence in the language is so low that she can't correct your written or spoken French, or is teaching you language that is incorrect, I don't think that this should be let lie.

Some teachers know their stuff inside out, but just can't communicate it. But at least in that situation they're failing to inform you, rather than misinforming you.

cedan

Teachers not having the exact qualifications is not as uncommon as you might think. It is no indication as to how good they are.

seachto7

I speak Italian pretty well, picked it up when I lived over there, and I would definitely consider myself capable of teaching beginners Italian or pre intermediate Italian, but I never actually studied Italian, so I can see how someone could have a problem with that in a school.
However, I think if someone has the language level and skills to teach it effectively, then so be it.

seriouslysweet

I take on board what ye say but I just do not agree with this. She told us her qualifications before, they do not include French. It is her level, or lack thereof, that bothers us to be honest. Plus I think us being friends does make it my business, if one of your colleagues was dissatisfied ye would not be long helping them out. There is a French teacher unemployed somewhere who could be used here and let this teacher teach her own subjects.

rainbowtrout

seriouslysweet wrote: »

I take on board what ye say but I just do not agree with this. She told us her qualifications before, they do not include French. It is her level, or lack thereof, that bothers us to be honest. Plus I think us being friends does make it my business, if one of your colleagues was dissatisfied ye would not be long helping them out. There is a French teacher unemployed somewhere who could be used here and let this teacher teach her own subjects.

You're not in the class so you're only going on hearsay. What are you going to do, go to the principal and go 'I've heard from my friends that Ms. X is a crap teacher'??

As has been pointed out to you, teachers often end up with subjects they are not qualified in. Some teachers are permanent and some are not. Due to timetable constraints schools often cannot hire on a whim for one class.

freckly

Assuming the teacher is not qualified...
If they hired a French teacher for 4 hours a week there would be complaints that he or she is never in the school to answer questions, that the class has had too many changes, that Ms X did things differently etc. I am a language teacher and have taught a language which I wasn't qualified to teach. I worked hard and prepared to excess, for fear of somehow harming my students learning by not knowing everything. In the end I was fine and the students did very well. I have found native speakers in my class to be a bit of a thorny subject. They are often bored or cant write the language as they learned it orally. Dont forget that 12 to 18 year olds are sometimes known to be a bit dramatic, so Id be wary of hearsay

seriouslysweet

I understand some teenagers can be, 'thorny,' but I see this as being really unfair. She's not a language teacher at all, therefore teaches the course completely differently to how the other language teachers do. I take on board what you say about native speakers. I've spoken many languages as this is my first year in the country for manys a year and we travelled a lot but the student who speaks French fluently is really well able to write and speak it. This teacher teaches business and is useless at French, I'm helping my friends out here and most are starting to panic. She can't answer basic questions and give incorrect translations. We all make mistakes but this is honestly not on. I wonder would I get the same response if I were to ask non-teachers? Possibly not. I'm bringing it up at our student council meeting with the principal next week as I feel it totally unfair. Also, it's not a personal attack on her, she is possibly an amazing business and accountancy teacher but not French.

rainbowtrout

seriouslysweet wrote: »

I understand some teenagers can be, 'thorny,' but I see this as being really unfair. She's not a language teacher at all, therefore teaches the course completely differently to how the other language teachers do. I take on board what you say about native speakers. I've spoken many languages as this is my first year in the country for manys a year and we travelled a lot but the student who speaks French fluently is really well able to write and speak it. This teacher teaches business and is useless at French, I'm helping my friends out here and most are starting to panic. She can't answer basic questions and give incorrect translations. We all make mistakes but this is honestly not on. I wonder would I get the same response if I were to ask non-teachers? Possibly not. I'm bringing it up at our student council meeting with the principal next week as I feel it totally unfair. Also, it's not a personal attack on her, she is possibly an amazing business and accountancy teacher but not French.

If it's such a problem for your friends why aren't they doing anything about it?

Cavehill Red

It's a market economy these days.

I had a crap noobie English teacher. He would tell us to read Hamlet then hide behind his bag for two periods. After two months of this, I complained to the headmaster. When they did nothing about it - neither sacking him nor changing me to a different class - I voted with my feet and went to another school after Christmas.

Thankfully, in my kid's school there's no tolerance whatsoever for below-par teaching. They get bumped on within a year if they're not top-notch. After all, it's not like there's a shortage of teachers.

TL;DR: Don't like the standard of teaching? Complain or leave. It's your education (or that of your children) at risk, not theirs.