Very informative explanation thank you!
Do you teach a language?
Thanks.
I have taught languages but only as a penniless overseas English teacher.
As a teacher,, I only ever did 3 weeks training and I am very uncomfortable with all the grammar rules and principles of different languages and prefer to just work out the teaching point of every lesson I come to in the syllabus and then plan a lesson.
I like a lesson in which the kids (my favourite kind of students) can go mad and run around the classroom playing games that teach them the language at the same time. Im a great believer that adrenaline and endorphins get kids learning at a deeper level than dry grammar rules etc do.
So it was quite interesting for me explaining the rules of a language I can unthinkingly speak a little bit of.
I speak a little bit of French as I learnt from the age of 10-16 but everyone learns it in the UK and hardly anyone can remember any of it. Nearly all the French I know I learnt in 10 months from the age of 13-14.
I had a teacher who was ex-paramilitary police in France, with a lantern jaw, terse voice, zero body fat and muscles that bulged out of his suits. He was very stern and had a reputation for being 'psycho'.
Before the "Childrens Act" of 1992 English schools were allowed to use corporal punishment and all manner or wild and wacky teaching aides. I got beaten alot and had teachers who made us do the most crazy things in order to learn our subjects - forced to race each other around the school if we started arguing in class (we were timed and there was the prize of less punishment for a fast time), forced to stand on a table and sing the periodic table to the class if we were not learning it fluently.
Some bad abuses happened and bullying but overall it was alot of fun and I was very lucky to have that education.
My French teacher had a gun in a desk drawer. he used to pull it out, drop the bullets out of the revolver barrel and while he held it in his hand and aimed it at a corner of the room he would distractedly call out our names in a soft voice and ask questions: "Barron.. answer question three."
We were terrified of the laconic words "Barron.. extra work." which meant punishment.
13 was the perfect age as we were old enough not to get too scared but young enough to still be sufficiently awed and not just to be rebellious teens trying to resist or fight back.
I still remember pretty much all the French I learnt in that ten months. The French advertise English language courses using the phrase "methode anglaise" but they also used to call any method that uses beatings, threats and corporal punishments in order to teach the young.. "La Methode Anglaise" after the reputation of English boarding schools.
Well, I got the "Methode Anglaise" treatment from a French teacher..
I feel so sorry for the young that never get a beating, never have to run around following orders at double time whilst at school, never have teachers who take them out of their comfort zones emotionally, physically, intellectually..
My problem with the modern world is often how intellectually and aesthetically dulled so many people seem to be.
Physical cowards too.
I think the nature of modern schooling plays a huge role.
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