dilemma...
today one of my teachers wanted me to teach the student's the following dialogue:
"what's this?"
"it's apple."
when i corrected her and said "it should be "it's *an* apple" she said "oh, but that's too confusing. they'll wonder why it's "an" instead of "a" and they don't know the alphabet yet, so please just teach "it's apple""
i decided that it was pretty pointless to argue with her... we've had this discussion before when she was trying to teach "i like cat" instead of "i like cats" and she said something similar... but i didn't want to let it slide, so in class i taught "an apple" so the teacher had to translate my explanation for the kids (which was nice of her, since she could have just ignored me... but then, there were visitors from the board of education there so if she'd ignored me it would have looked bad)
later, i had another teacher make a mistake during class, but since i hadn't talked to her beforehand and there wasn't really a good way to correct her without interrupting the class so i did let it slide.
at that school they always have me write reviews of the lessons, so i wrote for the first teacher "the class did really well with (yadayada)... thanks for teaching the kids "an apple." it might be difficult for the students, but teaching them to say "it's apple" is like teaching "2 + 2 = 5" so i can't do it. next time, if you use fruits that are all singular and don't begin with "a, i, u, e, o" it will be easier for the students" and for the second teacher i wrote " (yadayada) was good, but i noticed some of the students were saying "it's library" instead of "it's the library" so next time we should review that before playing the game."
so what happened? the second teacher came to me and said "i didn't know that you had to say "the library" can you explain to me why that is?" so i explained the difference between "a" "the" and "some" and told her to let me know if she had any questions. the first teacher said nothing to me at all. i didn't want to bring it up again because it really has to be *her* decision to improve the quality of her classes, and, um, not teach the kids things that aren't right. there's nothing i can do to change the way she runs her classes, but i'm not going to teach the kids incorrect english just because she tells me to. (if she was teaching something in a simplified way and i *knew* that she planned to explain later i might have let it slide, but i don't think that was the case, especially since this was a repeat offense)
what do you think? did i treat teacher 1 badly by not going along with her lesson plan? was i being too direct in my note to her? do you think there's a good way to get through to her without making her self-conscious about her english? i thought it would be better to write my concerns to her in the note rather than arguing because it would give her a chance to think about my perspective rather than being confronted, but i don't know... i don't want to have a bad relationship with her because i really like her and the other teachers at that school, but i am *not* going to sacrifice the children's chance to learn english properly for that.
"what's this?"
"it's apple."
when i corrected her and said "it should be "it's *an* apple" she said "oh, but that's too confusing. they'll wonder why it's "an" instead of "a" and they don't know the alphabet yet, so please just teach "it's apple""
i decided that it was pretty pointless to argue with her... we've had this discussion before when she was trying to teach "i like cat" instead of "i like cats" and she said something similar... but i didn't want to let it slide, so in class i taught "an apple" so the teacher had to translate my explanation for the kids (which was nice of her, since she could have just ignored me... but then, there were visitors from the board of education there so if she'd ignored me it would have looked bad)
later, i had another teacher make a mistake during class, but since i hadn't talked to her beforehand and there wasn't really a good way to correct her without interrupting the class so i did let it slide.
at that school they always have me write reviews of the lessons, so i wrote for the first teacher "the class did really well with (yadayada)... thanks for teaching the kids "an apple." it might be difficult for the students, but teaching them to say "it's apple" is like teaching "2 + 2 = 5" so i can't do it. next time, if you use fruits that are all singular and don't begin with "a, i, u, e, o" it will be easier for the students" and for the second teacher i wrote " (yadayada) was good, but i noticed some of the students were saying "it's library" instead of "it's the library" so next time we should review that before playing the game."
so what happened? the second teacher came to me and said "i didn't know that you had to say "the library" can you explain to me why that is?" so i explained the difference between "a" "the" and "some" and told her to let me know if she had any questions. the first teacher said nothing to me at all. i didn't want to bring it up again because it really has to be *her* decision to improve the quality of her classes, and, um, not teach the kids things that aren't right. there's nothing i can do to change the way she runs her classes, but i'm not going to teach the kids incorrect english just because she tells me to. (if she was teaching something in a simplified way and i *knew* that she planned to explain later i might have let it slide, but i don't think that was the case, especially since this was a repeat offense)
what do you think? did i treat teacher 1 badly by not going along with her lesson plan? was i being too direct in my note to her? do you think there's a good way to get through to her without making her self-conscious about her english? i thought it would be better to write my concerns to her in the note rather than arguing because it would give her a chance to think about my perspective rather than being confronted, but i don't know... i don't want to have a bad relationship with her because i really like her and the other teachers at that school, but i am *not* going to sacrifice the children's chance to learn english properly for that.