Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-12-11 03:13 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-12-11 03:13 pm
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Finals week approacheth. :/
Presentations of the final Italian project start tomorrow, and I haven't even begun mine.
It's been a very, very long time since I put off an assignment because I felt like I couldn't do it instead of out of sheer laziness--in fact, I don't know that I've ever done that before. I've had some pretty whackjob incompetent teachers in my time, but I was always bright enough to fill in the gaps of their teaching on my own, or bullshit the assignment, or pull through somehow on the skin of my teeth. But my Italian teacher has this deadly combination of effectively not teaching us anything, then expecting us to know more than we would've been able to pick up even under a good teacher. She's not mean, or strict; it's not about high expectations; she's simply a native speaker trying and failing to explain her language to us, who doesn't understand that we don't pick it up immediately.
Our final project is a ten-minute oral presentation on some aspect of Italian culture--to be presented in Italian. How does she expect us to do this? We don't have the specialized vocabulary needed to deal with whatever cultural thing we pick. She's barely taught us anything. In fact, she's never had us speak any Italian aloud besides parroting back the phrases and fill-in-the-blank sentences in the book. Furthermore, this is the sixth or seventh different language I've studied, and in no other class were we expected to do compositions of more than a few sentences--let alone a ten-minute presentation without notes--until the intermediate level.
I do have it easier than most, though. My topic is opera, with specific focus on bel canto, and we're allowed to bring in audio/visual aids--which means that I can shave it down to a three-to-five-minute presentation and let Bellini do the rest of the work. But that's still a lot of time to fill up. I foresee a lot of time spent with it.wikipedia.org, Babelfish, and an online dictionary this evening.
How do I deal with this? A teacher requiring us to do something insane that she hasn't taught or equipped us to do?
(While I'm on a screed against my Italian teacher, I'd like to note that it's the end of the semester and there are fewer than a dozen people who still show up regularly. It's high time she remembered that my name isn't Elizabeth.)
It's been a very, very long time since I put off an assignment because I felt like I couldn't do it instead of out of sheer laziness--in fact, I don't know that I've ever done that before. I've had some pretty whackjob incompetent teachers in my time, but I was always bright enough to fill in the gaps of their teaching on my own, or bullshit the assignment, or pull through somehow on the skin of my teeth. But my Italian teacher has this deadly combination of effectively not teaching us anything, then expecting us to know more than we would've been able to pick up even under a good teacher. She's not mean, or strict; it's not about high expectations; she's simply a native speaker trying and failing to explain her language to us, who doesn't understand that we don't pick it up immediately.
Our final project is a ten-minute oral presentation on some aspect of Italian culture--to be presented in Italian. How does she expect us to do this? We don't have the specialized vocabulary needed to deal with whatever cultural thing we pick. She's barely taught us anything. In fact, she's never had us speak any Italian aloud besides parroting back the phrases and fill-in-the-blank sentences in the book. Furthermore, this is the sixth or seventh different language I've studied, and in no other class were we expected to do compositions of more than a few sentences--let alone a ten-minute presentation without notes--until the intermediate level.
I do have it easier than most, though. My topic is opera, with specific focus on bel canto, and we're allowed to bring in audio/visual aids--which means that I can shave it down to a three-to-five-minute presentation and let Bellini do the rest of the work. But that's still a lot of time to fill up. I foresee a lot of time spent with it.wikipedia.org, Babelfish, and an online dictionary this evening.
How do I deal with this? A teacher requiring us to do something insane that she hasn't taught or equipped us to do?
(While I'm on a screed against my Italian teacher, I'd like to note that it's the end of the semester and there are fewer than a dozen people who still show up regularly. It's high time she remembered that my name isn't Elizabeth.)