05 February 2009

German lessons again

I am so tired.

I am back in a German course and it has been exhausting and tempestuous. Perhaps that's always going to be true when so many of my classmates are in their 20's?

It started with my sitting in 1 class, then being moved up to a second class. After being there for a few days the teacher (whom I adore), suggested that several of us move up to a new class that was being formed for that purpose. I wasn't certain that I wanted to do that as 1. I very much liked the teacher (she was the teacher for my previous two courses) and 2. it seemed that people that were being asked to remain behind were more advanced than I.

I thought about it over the weekend, sent off an e-mail to discuss it more thoroughly, and then decided to go ahead with the move mainly to avoid being in the same class as another woman who had impressed me, in just 1 class, just that much.

Unfortunately, after a lovely first hour in my new class, Subject A showed up. This was also a characteristic she had displayed in the other class: showing up 30-55 minultes late.

I don't have a significant problem with lateness. This is not a group project so if someone else cuts their own nose off it doesn't affect me. But this person would come in and angrily complain that she didn't know something we were doing, that she had not been taught this. In cases where we had just spent up to an hour going over what she didn't know, that grew old rapidly. That behavior was followed with extremely loud states as to the stupidity of the German language.

Really, the rest of us don't love the German language. But the language is what it is, one just has to learn it. I don't think it will change to suit us.

Last week, every single class member stayed after class to complain about this student and to request that the teacher either rein her in or ask her to leave.

On Monday, she was on time and restrained her (extremely aggressive) loudness when she was confused (I was willing to understand and ignore a hearing disability, but the volume only increased when she was angry, which was whenever she was confused). She left 20 minutes early, but hey, that was fine with me.

Maybe we will all be able to get along (I assume that our teacher, who can have a fist of iron as she desires, spoke to her).

2 comments:

J said...

It seems like there's always one. Don't let it get you down, though. I loved my German classes when I moved here. I met a lot of interesting people from all over the world.

Helen said...

I remember the frustration of having a difficult class dynamic to deal with. I've got no advice - just wanted to lend some support.