ATAR Notes: Forum

VCE Stuff => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Languages Other Than English (LOTE) => Topic started by: ech_93 on February 19, 2011, 08:59:00 pm

Title: Language assistants
Post by: ech_93 on February 19, 2011, 08:59:00 pm
At my school this year we have a person from Germany who is helping in German classes two days a week. I find it so helpful to have a native speaker in the class.
So, I was just wondering if language assistants are common!? I think this is the first year we have had someone like this, so i was just curious. Does anyone else here have someone similar helping out at their school?
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: werdna on February 19, 2011, 09:03:50 pm
Wow, that's a really good idea! I'm studying Latin so I'm not sure how it'd work.

But what does the German assistant do? Surely your teacher is able to speak the language....?
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: ech_93 on February 19, 2011, 09:07:45 pm
Yeah, i reckon its awesome!

Haha, yeah, my teacher can speak the language. She just helps with pronunciation and stuff. She comes around and checks our work. Lately we have been doing a bit of preparation for our end-of-year oral, so she has been asking us questions in german.
The teacher is capable of doing the same i guess, but its great to have a native German helping. I think it will help a lot.

EDIT - by she, i mean the assistant
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: Ghost! on February 19, 2011, 09:16:26 pm
Yeah, i reckon its awesome!

Haha, yeah, my teacher can speak the language. She just helps with pronunciation and stuff. She comes around and checks our work. Lately we have been doing a bit of preparation for our end-of-year oral, so she has been asking us questions in german.
The teacher is capable of doing the same i guess, but its great to have a native German helping. I think it will help a lot.

EDIT - by she, i mean the assistant

Yo! Yep, we have a native speaker as well, for the whole year! It means I've give up one of my Friday spares, but an hour of free tutoring once a week for a year, it's worth it! I believe it's a government schemeeeee.
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: ech_93 on February 19, 2011, 09:19:27 pm
We have the assistant for the whole year too. Thats a good idea seeing them once a week. That would help heaps!

Oh really, i guess if its a government scheme, a lot of schools would have the same thing. Thats interesting.
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: werdna on February 19, 2011, 09:22:32 pm
Can you link me to something about the govt scheme?
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: Ghost! on February 19, 2011, 09:24:17 pm
Can you link me to something about the govt scheme?

Nah sorry bro, I just got told from my Indo teacher :/

We have the assistant for the whole year too. Thats a good idea seeing them once a week. That would help heaps!

Oh really, i guess if its a government scheme, a lot of schools would have the same thing. Thats interesting.

Yeah, I'm really glad to have it.
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: Menang on February 19, 2011, 09:32:17 pm
Yup, my school employs a lote assistant for each language - french, indo, jap and german - for the vce students.

It's bloody useful - LOTEs are all about practice and fluency and there's no better way to do this than speaking with a native speaker who's hired to help. I say hired because, unlike a native speaker who's just a friend or relative, they actually correct your grammar, make sure you don't use slang, and help you improve on your sentence structures (all this in addition to the main goal of achieving fluency).

I totally recommend this for everyone, if your school doesn't offer it, get a tutor who will do the same thing! :D (For LOTEs with an oral component only, though - so not Latin, sorry. :P)
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: vea on February 19, 2011, 09:34:54 pm
At our school, they are going to invite Chinese elders from the community to come in and talk with us (1 on 1 convos). Have yet to have a session yet but hopefully it will be beneficial.
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: IntoTheNewWorld on February 19, 2011, 09:40:42 pm
my school didn't have language assistants =[

I did get a tutor to compensate though.
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: Menang on February 19, 2011, 09:41:45 pm
Yeah, a tutor or a LOTE assistant - either one would work, I guess. :)

Did you think a tutor helped you much?
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: Greatness on February 19, 2011, 09:46:06 pm
Yeah, i reckon its awesome!

Haha, yeah, my teacher can speak the language. She just helps with pronunciation and stuff. She comes around and checks our work. Lately we have been doing a bit of preparation for our end-of-year oral, so she has been asking us questions in german.
The teacher is capable of doing the same i guess, but its great to have a native German helping. I think it will help a lot.

EDIT - by she, i mean the assistant

Yo! Yep, we have a native speaker as well, for the whole year! It means I've give up one of my Friday spares, but an hour of free tutoring once a week for a year, it's worth it! I believe it's a government schemeeeee.
Yep that's what we have as well for jap! It's good as!!
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: IntoTheNewWorld on February 19, 2011, 09:48:15 pm
Yeah, a tutor or a LOTE assistant - either one would work, I guess. :)

Did you think a tutor helped you much?

It's hard for me to say how much it helped me but I reckon it did. Although my teacher at school was native as well the classes were quite slow paced and revolved very much around preparing for exams, and didn't help much in terms of language proficiency.

Technically the teachers had lunch time sessions but it's nice to have one on one help
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: Furbob on February 19, 2011, 11:32:47 pm
our teacher assigns a time for each of us to having conversation practice with "madako sensei" once a week in buildup towards the Oral Exam for yr 12's if that counts

Im looking forward to meeting her next week :D
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: Menang on February 19, 2011, 11:39:26 pm
Yeah, a tutor or a LOTE assistant - either one would work, I guess. :)

Did you think a tutor helped you much?

It's hard for me to say how much it helped me but I reckon it did. Although my teacher at school was native as well the classes were quite slow paced and revolved very much around preparing for exams, and didn't help much in terms of language proficiency.

Technically the teachers had lunch time sessions but it's nice to have one on one help

Yeah, I agree, the one on one help is really useful. And generally just the extra time a week you spend speaking the language. :)
Title: Re: Language assistants
Post by: Christiano on March 14, 2011, 01:44:21 am
Our school (which is a qualified Victorian School of Language too) teaches 2 languages in the normal curriculum (Japanese & Italian), sadly we do not have these 'assistants' :(