Was English a waste of time? (2 Viewers)

[blackiejim]

Why would english be compulsory if it were known to be a waste of time? It helps with alot of skills required in alot of jobs.

And OH EMM GEE you people right really REALLY long responses.

Haha clearly english WAS a COMPLETE waste of time for you as you still havent learnt how to spell WRITE.
Why don't we learn relevant stuff like spelling and grammar as in my experience there are many people who can't WRITE for shit.

 

[sandersen]

Or put their apostrophes in the WRITE p) spot!

 

[emmaoconnor]

Ah ha damn. I'm not really an idiot, I swear!

 

[dbmoodb]

Or put their apostrophes in the WRITE p) spot!

LOL OR use the correct word- points at write things about it and concludes that it is not 'right'.

 

[libertine]

i love english....and i think its a skill necessary in life..but for fucks sake why MUST we study shakespeare. ok so his a seminal playwright from elizabethan england who discussed "universal themes", so fucking what. we should have a choice in what we wish to study. i had no time for hamlet..i havent read it but i wont be surprised if i do well in english. and this leads me to whats wrong with english advanced hsc. how can a perosn who hasn't read the text or shown any interest be able to beat most of the candidature?

btw i loved cloudstreet..it really is a fantastic novel..its made me appreciate australian literature, which i used to view as shitty and lowbrow, written by people who wished they were british. Also, because of my enjoyment of the text i have gone out and borrowed novels by winton, carey and patrick white. NOW THAT IS WHAT ENGLISH IS ABOUT.

not fuckn memorising essays the night before and reading boredofstudies essays, liberally taking madsounding quotes and using the thesaurus to insert overly florid adjectives.

 

[Danm999]

Module C, especially if your doing Frontline, is great. Teaches you to never trust those bastards in the media.

Now watching Today Tonight, you can really see the awful, over sensationalised and deceitful stories and reporters much more clearly, as well as the techniques they use to push what their saying.

 

[Cabrello]

Of course not, I learnt so much in my English lessons.

With 2 of my friends I spent the entire year playing games on my laptop, lame I know, but I managed to come up with a reasonable excuse for why we're passing a laptop between three of us all year. Of course my teacher knew what we were doing, I think... I mean like it wasn't subtle and our marks reflected the effort we put in.

That and English always seemed to be at the start of my day, an extra hours sleep comes in handy leading up to assessments

 

[Just James]

Ah, to be in year 12. Where one side said English was a subject critical to your very survival, and the other side said they needed it just as much as they needed a pencil through their eye. I'm happy to say that come next year, the vast majority of you will come to see what a waste of time it truly was. I'm not denying that communication is a vital skill in life, but considering the board developed syllabus, the other HSC subjects developed your communication skills just as much as English did. The difference is, you chose to study those subjects because they seemed interesting to you.

 

[360flip]

Well even though most text were boring as shitfuck i did physical journeys (standard) and on the topic of journeys it kinda made me look at life differently and thats aint a bad thing after all eh?

 

[rafio]

english 100% waste of time, deres a topic "should it be compulsory" go there n u'l know y..all u english lovers can go fuk shakespeare for all i care. fukn gay emo useless piece of crappe.

 

[atreus]

i think english was a waste of my time. the amount of time i put into that subject, knowing everything i could about each text, and then for it to come undone as soon as i opened the paper. in that respect it was a waste of time. i would have gotten the same result without all the prep i had for english (paper 2 that is) cos paper 1 wasnt that bad.

in terms of english as a subject, i can see that its all about making us learn to structure ideas and communicate understanding, but really, how effective is that when u have to write 3 essays, responding to three twisted questions in 2 hours- all structure and attempts to communicate go out the window.

 

[Bobness]

i'd like to think it wasn't a complete waste of time seeing that we do need to improve expression and learn our national language.

but then again hsc english does push the limits of stupidity in allowing people to just memorise 4 essays a year to do well in.

no its still good. come to think of it the creative and critical abilities i've learnt should be invaluable when i enter tertiary studies.

then again i'm in the minority

f*ck i feel like hamlet can't make up my mind

 

[pseudonym]

So lets examine the two main HSC english courses, Standard and Advanced. Do either offer you anything, from my experience of year 11 advanced and year 12 standard they don't offer anything. I find it disgusting that we are forced to use terms such as composer and responder, instead of poet, playwright, author and audience respectively. Secondly composers (OMG I’m still using their TERMS YUCK) if they do intentionally use techniques it is to assist us, they are not meant to show x about journeys or y about Z.

I agree. Additionally, one pet peeve of mine about English is that we have to write "objectively" in our critical essays. But how can your personal interpretation of the text be anything but subjective? Who are you to define how others view the text? Certainly English 2 unit clashed with pomo theory in ext 1.

Most people in my class did not pay attention until a week before each assessment task, memorising essays the night before. And why should they? English classes have not changed throughout the course of their high school career, for the content was the same every year: comparative study, Shakespeare, etc. English 2 unit is sadly unengaging.

 

[spankysooty]

English was no waste of time.

That is, for those who really opened their mind to the subject and the texts. People who memorised, were spoon fed and didnt care to learn from these texts didnt learn a thing. And thus, it was a waste of time for them. But, for those who really analysed these texts and the ideas they evoked, not only learnt more vocab and ways fo thinking, but also grew as a person and are now better able to understand and comprehend the world around them.

EXAMPLE: When we did the module on the comparative texts, (for those that did advanced) we were able to see the impact that context has on an individual and how they percieve the world around them through their text. I think most of us never paid attention to the immense impact that a context has on how texts are written, and what ideas they portray to viewers/readers.

See? It opens your mind, if you were one that opened your mind a little to it and allowed it to do so completely.

 

[Cheese88]

Hmmm.... I'd say advanced english is a waste of time, but i'm finding Ext1 English heaps of fun! i'm studying crimefiction, which i've always enjoyed. But i hate journeys with a passion. especially skrzynecki's poems (did i even spell that right?) and the bos booklet. sigh. ext2 english is ok too, but i wish i din't have to report everything i do to the teachers, i wish it was just an independant work.