English Adv suddenly isn't looking so bad.
Why? Because I have just had my first Chinese Background Speaker lesson at a Sat school.
It was DEAD BORING. :S
The course is filled with discussions, and discussions only :S That seems to be the only thing we're supposed to do for the next two years, looking at the notes the teacher gave us. Four themes with a number of social issues falling under them. We're gonna come to school every week to do some discussions based on them. Geez. I wonder who wrote the syllabus. Do they have bubblegum for a brain or what? Can't they perceive the simple fact that students might, by some chance, get BORED of doing just discussions lesson after lesson?? I loved my ancient poems and proses. They aren't even mentioned in the slightest bit in any of the texts. And my Chinese lessons with fun bits of history randomly thrown in too (yes once upon a time I actually loved history - still do, but only in a very confined sense: ancient > modern
). Oh how I dearly miss my Year 7 Chinese teacher.
But I guess she's the sort of teacher who you can only hope to get, not just pick up at random and take for granted (I wish!). I was very fortunate to have had her...and therefore very unfortunate to have to lose her in the end.
And look at this one at the Sat school: she even pronounced some characters wrong! Sure, admittedly some are the easiest mistakes to be made (like pronouncing the Chinese word for 'role' as 'jiao se' instead of 'jue se'), but hey, I remember my Year 3 teacher stressing to us not to make them x.x Gee, I don't know how I'm gonna endure this, no ancient poems or proses, no plain appreciation of just the sheer beauty of texts (I want my literature!), NOTHING apart from some dumb old DISCUSSIONS! :mad1: And honestly, if you were to look at an issue in a contemporary sense, surely you'd be bothered to get something more recent than that pulled out of a random magazine dated '1st Feb 1994'?? Can't they see that something written when I was at kindy would probably be a bit dated by now??? (Btw FYI kindy goes for three years and is separated from primary school in China, heh) I wasn't expecting the course to resemble that taught in China. But nor was I expecting such a monotonous way of wasting a Sat morning x.x
Anyways, sorry about that long random rant :S But honestly, Eng Adv really isn't that bad
I could just think of a bazillion great novels that we could've studied in Chinese... :/ At least I might have the slightest hope in becoming just a little more interested in the course...until I'm reminded of the assessment tasks that are due soon that is XP