I had a friend during college who wanted to learn German. I thought it would be an interesting experience, and so we started searching for a language school. We choose one after talking with the teacher. He was an engineer who went to Germany for a year during his PhD and decided to give German lessons while he was looking for a job.
For six months the class was awesome! He didn’t follow the textbook all that much and focused on conversation and sharing his cultural experience in Germany. And when he did follow the textbook it was a breeze for us, because we could understand why we were doing the exercises and also connect reading and writing to hearing and speaking.
But… He eventually found another job, and the school replaced him with a new teacher. This new teacher had a major in Linguistics and specialized in German. He knew a lot of theory, but he didn’t know how to speak it properly and never went to Germany. He didn’t have much experience teaching and followed the textbook religiously, focusing on grammar. After three months we quit, because the class was very boring and, if the teacher didn’t have anything else to add, we could grind the book by ourselves,.
It was a hard problem for the new teacher, since we set our standard by the first teacher’s performance. How could this be solved?
- Having a diploma doesn’t mean you a good teacher. Maybe he focused too much on theoretical studies, but the new teacher should recognize his weak points and improve them if he wants to teach.
- Grammar is an important part, but not the only one needed to learn a language. And preparing an interesting class is harder than just following a textbook.