Constructive Criticism

I've been asking all my students this past week to fill out teacher evaluation forms. Most students have done a really good job filling out the forms, but I must say that while I like reading that my students thought the year was great, it's not really all that helpful. Today, however, I got my first round of highly critical evaluations, and I am really glad to have them.

Most of the criticism was very helpful, but there was one universal comment from this class that really made me feel badly, and I'm only mentioning this in the hopes that if some student somewhere out in the world reads this, they will be inspired to SPEAK UP if they don't understand something.

The situation is as follows: this group of students I have been seeing every other week for the whole year said that they had not understood the lessons at all because I spoke too quickly. Every class I had with these kids I would ask at least 3 or 4 times if they understood, and they usually said yes; when they said no, I would explain slowly in different ways until they said they understood. Clearly, they didn't understand... I'm guessing they would just say they did out of frustration and apathy. I really wish they had understood more throughout the year, and that they had spoken up when they were lost or confused. Perhaps they did and I did not listen? I don't know.

My point is, teachers want students to understand and to do well. This seems like a fairly basic idea, but it's not something that I truly understood until I started teaching. So students, don't be afraid to ask questions or to ask your teacher to clarify. They really, truly don't mind going over it a million times if that's what it takes. Honestly. All parties involved will feel great when you understand in the end.

On another note, one girl wrote that my voice drops at the end of my sentences making it very difficult to understand. I found this comment to be highly interesting because people have told me a lot that my intonation in English has changed, and in particular my voice goes up at the end of my sentences. This is a major difference between French and English (in English your voice goes down, in French your voice stays level), and I just think it's quite interesting.