How to study for English? Is English based purely on talent?

[xXNovaxX]

No its not just you. I agree, most english teachers seems quite lousy. I guess its somewhat 'easy' to teach considering you just need to know the text and read english (as in a minimal requirement and effort). While in maths/science you gotta know your stuff back to front to answer students questions etc.

Lol, i never thought about it like that. But now you mention it, it definitely has credit to it.

But I know several English teachers who really know their stuff. Like, English teacehrs need to know the book back to front, and the theme's quotes, who said it/where/when etc.

[spontaneouscombustion]

don't even get started on lousy teachers >_>

[EvangelionZeta]

All of the English teachers I've encountered have been extremely competent, and have known the content of what they were teaching back-to-front.  The only consistent potential weakness I've seen is taking a long time to mark work, which is forgiveable in that marking English essays (provided it's good marking) takes a lot more effort than marking maths/science tests.

[Nic K]

Hey! I want to teach English people and it has nothing to do with how 'easy' it is to teach. I want to teach English because it's a fascinating subject. Studying a text and then studying the themes, messages, reasons for it being in the text etc. Being able to look at the messages from everyone's perspective and how it is portrayed in their mind.

Then there is the fact that you are teaching students skills that they will use their whole life! Grammar, speaking and writing skills, an understanding on how to interperate different forms of texts etc.

It might seem like it would be 'easier' to teach English because you don't have as much to remember in terms of knowledge but that doesn't mean that the teacher does less work to prepare classes. It doesn't mean they put in less work to mark assignments/SAC's. Not to mention, there are things to remember like quotes, themes (as mentioned above) and being able to have a strong and clear understanding of a text can be a very difficult thing. Science/maths teachers have quite a simple job in that they can remember the things to teach and then teach it but to be an English teacher you must be able to have a clear and strong understanding of a text. It is a lot more complex with an English teacher. 

As you can tell, I'm only a little bit excited about the concept of teaching English And by no means do I think it's an 'easier' subject to teach.

[brightsky]

Lol. Definitely Nic. I had quite a terrible personal experience with trying to teach a 7 year old girl vocab, grammar, syntax and how to write essays.

[*ryan777*]

Lol. Definitely Nic. I had quite a terrible personal experience with trying to teach a 7 year old girl vocab, grammar, syntax and how to write essays.

lol i guess i wouldnt have the slightest clue of how to teach english to anyone (despite being quite a lot better at english than math)
im not even sure how i learnt

[spontaneouscombustion]

EvangelionZeta, you must be extremely fortunate. I have to say I found the tsfx English lectures (I only went to the holiday ones) x100 more helpful than all my English teachers combined. At the start of last year I thought English was going to be great because my teacher is an examiner and she gives the general impression that she knows her content well. But as the year progressed that was all there was - the 'impression' that she could teach well instead of any substance. She never discussed important aspects of the text with us (eg themes, metalanguage etc) or she'd simply give us questions to answer on the text and then never go through them with the class. Of course students are supposed to come up with their own ideas, but with the lack of a springboard to do so it sometimes became quite frustrating. 

She never really taught us the different forms of essays required either; till June I was still writing context pieces as text responses due to the ambiguity of her explanations.

Looking back now I really wish I was explained what metalanguage and Imaginative Landscape were by someone who knew how to teach properly...it would've cost me less sleepless nights, crying fits, pain and panadol in the last month of year 12.

[*ryan777*]

EvangelionZeta, you must be extremely fortunate. I have to say I found the tsfx English lectures (I only went to the holiday ones) x100 more helpful than all my English teachers combined. At the start of last year I thought English was going to be great because my teacher is an examiner and she gives the general impression that she knows her content well. But as the year progressed that was all there was - the 'impression' that she could teach well instead of any substance. She never discussed important aspects of the text with us (eg themes, metalanguage etc) or she'd simply give us questions to answer on the text and then never go through them with the class. Of course students are supposed to come up with their own ideas, but with the lack of a springboard to do so it sometimes became quite frustrating.

She never really taught us the different forms of essays required either; till June I was still writing context pieces as text responses due to the ambiguity of her explanations.

Looking back now I really wish I was explained what metalanguage and Imaginative Landscape were by someone who knew how to teach properly...it would've cost me less sleepless nights, crying fits, pain and panadol in the last month of year 12.

this is why i quit english in year 11 and just stuck to EL lol
english language FTW

[kyzoo]

EvangelionZeta, you must be extremely fortunate. I have to say I found the tsfx English lectures (I only went to the holiday ones) x100 more helpful than all my English teachers combined. At the start of last year I thought English was going to be great because my teacher is an examiner and she gives the general impression that she knows her content well. But as the year progressed that was all there was - the 'impression' that she could teach well instead of any substance. She never discussed important aspects of the text with us (eg themes, metalanguage etc) or she'd simply give us questions to answer on the text and then never go through them with the class. Of course students are supposed to come up with their own ideas, but with the lack of a springboard to do so it sometimes became quite frustrating.

She never really taught us the different forms of essays required either; till June I was still writing context pieces as text responses due to the ambiguity of her explanations.

Looking back now I really wish I was explained what metalanguage and Imaginative Landscape were by someone who knew how to teach properly...it would've cost me less sleepless nights, crying fits, pain and panadol in the last month of year 12.

I have been writing text responses as context pieces xD

EZ: My teacher this year just wrote "Good" for feedback on my essays when handing them back, even though they were abound with flaws. It was annoying =(

[xXNovaxX]

grrr!!!

My teacher used to do that TO.

She NEVER wrote corrections on our essays, or marked with pen on them saying "if you have an issue with spelling/grammar/fluency come and see me" She said she didn't want to "make our essays messy by writing on them"

FFS, just SAY YOU'RE LAZY AND CBF.

I just used to get comments "good" as well, such an ambigious term, ARGH. Also, she would say "improve your fluency" when I talked to her, but she never offered suggestions on which paragraphs in particular.

[kenhung123]

LOL

[*ryan777*]

i think we can all relate to how ambigious english teachers can be in their marking :-/

[Nic K]

My English teacher last year wrote for the article analysis SAC "An excellent first attempt but there are a few mistakes" and there was nothing written in the whole SAC. Such a helpful teacher she was

[*ryan777*]

lol i hate it when teachers tell you to improve an essays "structure" but never tell you how to actually do it
then id go through it with my teacher and half way through hed say something like "actually the structure is quite good" (begining to think he never actually read it in the 1st place )

[kyzoo]

Well essays require more mental effort from the teacher to determine how to improve them, in comparison to maths and sciences exams.

Writing can be tricky to analyse - it only takes a few minutes to read all the words in the essay, but it may take 20-30 minutes to comprehensively determine the merits and fallings of an essay.