How to self teach [rant?]

[skyersie]

i didn't really know where else to put this, so i'm putting it here

Currently a year 10 and my teachers this year are shocking, particularly english. Not only does she neglect to actually teach us anything, she doesn't mark us either! At the start of each year each student is given a outline of the assessments that will be in that subject, and its the same for every class. When the outline+other classes have done one oral presentation and two essays, our class has only done one essay and THREE orals!! And most of the "assessments" we've done have nothing to do with the subject itself! The last oral we did was on "themes". What themes? Discussing a particular theme or themes in general? Themes relating to a text? Definition of themes? We will never know! She defended it as an 'informal structured oral' as the reason why we were given so little information/why she refused to answer any questions. We presented the oral in early March and are yet to get any results back (dated mid-May). 
Not to mention she marks entirely on opinion! I understand english may be subjective, but that's why we have the criteria sheet in place! (atleast at this level). Her markings tend to go like this:

Tick high, tick high, tick high, tick medium, tick high, overall: "60% because i just didn't like it"

Its absurd ! People's grades are dropping from an average of A to barely holding on to C- !! English is core right through VCE and this is the last year we have to learn the skills that we need for it, and we were given the worst possible teacher! Any ideas on how to 'self-teach' english, or how to deal with this sort of situation? thank you x

[TheAspiringDoc]

Something I've discovered about VCE is it really doesn't come down to being a genius. For biology you don't need to have a PHD and you don't need to know beyond the course scope. This can be something confusing to understand when you're in year ten and reading high scoring year 12 essays, because these essays are on different content and naturally you'll want to mimic that content in your own essays. But at this stage, DONT. The thing that's actually important is your expression.

I know. I hated the word expression so much as well when I was in year ten. It's actual meaning wasn't explained well.

But, the key thing to expression, is that you hit your assessor right in the face with what they want to hear. They don't want to hear irrelevant things. The key is that all of your points/arguments link directly to the prompt of the question or essay. TBH it doesn't matter if your writing is boring and not flowery, and you don't need big words like juxtaposition. What you need is a logical series of points that target the question at hand as directly as possible.

I've learnt this year in English language that it is really useful to plan your entire essay in a fair amount of detail prior to writing it, so that all your points are relevant. Then your essay will come very easily.

I'm not sure how well I've explained this, and I'm probably not the best person to be explaining it, but please reply with any questions you have or if this was unclear and I and others will be happy to try and help

P.s I know exactly what you mean with that vague marking scheme haha

[patriciarose]

i didn't really know where else to put this, so i'm putting it here

Currently a year 10 and my teachers this year are shocking, particularly english. Not only does she neglect to actually teach us anything, she doesn't mark us either! At the start of each year each student is given a outline of the assessments that will be in that subject, and its the same for every class. When the outline+other classes have done one oral presentation and two essays, our class has only done one essay and THREE orals!! And most of the "assessments" we've done have nothing to do with the subject itself! The last oral we did was on "themes". What themes? Discussing a particular theme or themes in general? Themes relating to a text? Definition of themes? We will never know! She defended it as an 'informal structured oral' as the reason why we were given so little information/why she refused to answer any questions. We presented the oral in early March and are yet to get any results back (dated mid-May). 
Not to mention she marks entirely on opinion! I understand english may be subjective, but that's why we have the criteria sheet in place! (atleast at this level). Her markings tend to go like this:

Tick high, tick high, tick high, tick medium, tick high, overall: "60% because i just didn't like it"

Its absurd ! People's grades are dropping from an average of A to barely holding on to C- !! English is core right through VCE and this is the last year we have to learn the skills that we need for it, and we were given the worst possible teacher! Any ideas on how to 'self-teach' english, or how to deal with this sort of situation? thank you x

your teacher sounds awful and i'm sorry you have to deal with that the year before vce (: i had an awful teacher my second semester of year eleven who basically did half of what you've described (and once marked me down because she didn't know what 'garnered' meant and thought i'd made it up. rip). on the plus side, basically the only thing that i learned in year ten that matters this year was the oral, and learning how to self-teach is actually a pretty valuable lesson! (this is probably not the board for this kind of thing haha but idk where it'd belong either tbh.) also, learning a new word a week is a thing i did all throughout year eleven and i wish i'd started earlier because it's an easy way to boost your vocab long term (:

this year, we do an oral, text response and argument analysis and comparative essays, and a creative task. you'll basically do all of them throughout unit 1/2 so tbh you could get away with not having an idea what they are til then, but if you're interested i'd check out 'english and eal' in the english section of the vce forum because people discuss the english exam heaps there, and there's also a language analysis board/forum in the english section which might help you out? it's aimed at year twelves i think, but there's nothing saying you can't try out analysing a piece if you're that way inclined. even just looking to get an idea of what the content's like might help (:

honestly, i know year eleven is part of vce and you need to take it seriously, but in year eleven english the content/structures we learned were not super difficult and you'll do just fine if you work hard during it. you have a pretty bad situation right now (do your teachers change next semester?) but it shouldn't hold you back next year because all the content is retaught, you'll be doing different books, and it's obvious you're the type to work hard because you've bothered to make this thread (: don't stress it too much!

(i'm only in year twelve this year though so please someone with more knowledge add some actual helpful advice!)

[Quantum44]

i didn't really know where else to put this, so i'm putting it here

Currently a year 10 and my teachers this year are shocking, particularly english. Not only does she neglect to actually teach us anything, she doesn't mark us either! At the start of each year each student is given a outline of the assessments that will be in that subject, and its the same for every class. When the outline+other classes have done one oral presentation and two essays, our class has only done one essay and THREE orals!! And most of the "assessments" we've done have nothing to do with the subject itself! The last oral we did was on "themes". What themes? Discussing a particular theme or themes in general? Themes relating to a text? Definition of themes? We will never know! She defended it as an 'informal structured oral' as the reason why we were given so little information/why she refused to answer any questions. We presented the oral in early March and are yet to get any results back (dated mid-May). 
Not to mention she marks entirely on opinion! I understand english may be subjective, but that's why we have the criteria sheet in place! (atleast at this level). Her markings tend to go like this:

Tick high, tick high, tick high, tick medium, tick high, overall: "60% because i just didn't like it"

Its absurd ! People's grades are dropping from an average of A to barely holding on to C- !! English is core right through VCE and this is the last year we have to learn the skills that we need for it, and we were given the worst possible teacher! Any ideas on how to 'self-teach' english, or how to deal with this sort of situation? thank you x

I think you could use this as an opportunity to self-teach and accelerate yourself to a greater level of understanding in terms of English. In year 12 there are 5 SACs:

Text response (also on exam)
Creative
Language analysis (also on exam)
Oral
Comparative (also on exam)

I'd suggest working towards these if you want to self-teach yourself since anything else you do is ultimately going to be useless for year 12. I'd probably stick to working on text response, language analysis and oral as these will be most applicable to your year 10 curriculum. At this point, since you have plenty of time, I'd also read a bunch of high quality fiction to improve your expression, you will certainly not regret it.

I'll start with text response. At this point you just want to be learning the general skills of writing a response and analysing a text. I think it will be beneficial to develop a deep understanding of themes, literary techniques, symbolism and imagery which you can apply to any work of literature. Then you need to learn how to weave this information into a text response, showing off as much depth as possible while remaining on topic and staying true to your contention. There are plenty of free online resources such as AN that can help you.

Now for language analysis. You'd be doing yourself a huge favour by memorising the common persuasive techniques that come up in articles along with thinking about how to weave together an analysis focusing on the audience. You could also read the newspaper daily, looking at articles that interest you and thinking about the language while reading them.

As for the oral, you just have to read up about writing persuasively and developing confidence and manner. If you do debating it will help immensely. To improve in this you could watch great speeches, seeing what devices are employed to convince the audience while taking note of the manner of the speaker. Obviously it is also useful to read up on current issues you may want to base your speech on.

You don't have to take my advice, but committing to doing even one of these things will help you in year 12 as from the perspective of someone doing VCE English right now, this is basically the condensed list of things I wish I did in year 10.

[jamonwindeyer]

I think the points covered above cover what I'd suggest in terms of self teaching, and from a HSC perspective that is only a little in terms of what you need for the VCE. What I'd encourage is for you to speak to a coordinator, a VP, someone "higher" about the issue, and encourage your classmates to do the same. A significant portion of the class raising an issue will be taken seriously - Schools like their cohorts to do well, it is in their best interests to address problems like this, so although it might seem like they won't care, they will! Don't be afraid to speak up, if you are calm and logical in communicating your issues there is no reason for them to ignore them.

Unfortunately, the reality is this. When we are younger we view teachers as these all knowing, all powerful beings. As we get older, we realise that they graduated just like you. They got an ATAR,  just like you will, and they went and studied teaching at university. There are no huge barriers preventing "less than competent" people from becoming teachers - It's not like teaching is a 99.95 course requiring an interview and character assessment. They are just people doing their job - And like all positions, some just phone it in, lose the passion, or just aren't good at it. And this can be a day to day thing - Good days and bad. They are human, basically.

I realised this early in Year 3 when I realised I could do sums faster than my teacher. Don't get me wrong, she was an incredible teacher and amazing at her job, but when I figured that out, it was the first time I was like "Oh, hold on." The "aura" that teachers carry disappeared a little. It went away completely in Year 12 when I saw a photo of one of my high school teachers pole dancing (appropriately clothed) - Nothing bad or untoward about it at all, she was just at a club having a dance like many of us do. But that was when it really sank in that like, some of our teachers are only 10 years older than us when we get to Year 11 and 12. They are just doing their job - And while many teachers are incredible (I have a huge respect for teachers), some won't be. Kind of like that person at Maccas who moves really slow and just seems lost all the time, they always forget your sauce, you know the one. It's nothing against them personally - Some people just aren't incredible at the jobs they choose

So, just like you would talk to the Manager about an issue with your Maccas order, you should talk to someone about your teacher! You are at school to learn, and if that isn't being done, they need to fix that!

See, I brought it full circle