Less desired class and better teacher vs desired class and probably not so great teacher?

[saw]

It looks like DS will attend an online school for his last two years, and I'm in the process of discussing class placement etc. DS has exams from the UK system so his level is in theory easy to assess. It would be for an IB program. 

The class that's the issue is Chinese -- DS has done the GCSE for Chinese and done well so should be able to join a reasonable level class (SL). We met with the teacher yesterday and it was awful. She talked nonstop AT DS for 30 minutes, barely asking him anything about what he has done or what he knows. He tried to speak to her in Chinese but she kept speaking English. Now she wants him to do a placement test because they don't care about the GCSE (but that's a different issue and DS has literally 18 exams coming up in the next two months, so I'm not making him do any more testing).

DS was not at all happy with the teacher. I'm thinking now that he should just not do Chinese but take a different language instead. One language is required; his French is too good for their French class so he would need to add a third. But it seems a shame to give up Chinese since DS has spent a lot of time and effort into making progress in the language (and it's his heritage language as well). But I can't see him spending two years in a class with this teacher who seems pretty bad. Advice? Is it better to opt for a different language with a teacher who is probably good (other teachers there are good) or stick with the language DS wants but may be placed in a beginner class/not do well with the teacher? DS is not the kind of kid who works happily for teachers he does not like/respect (whole other issue that he admittedly needs to work on). 

[Arcadia]

Do they have HL for chinese? I would not be happy about the teacher speaking to my kids in English when they are not beginners level. Was it meant to be a parent teacher meeting and she assumed you don’t understand chinese?

ETA:

I would pick a different language with good teachers. My kids did german and chinese outside school, and use Japanese for their high school foreign language requirements. My DS17 did well with the two great Japanese teachers and did badly with the newer not good teacher.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Arcadia

[jplain]

My junior is a serious language learner.  She refuses to take classes from teachers that use too much English.  In your shoes I'd have him choose a new language with a good teacher for school, but keep Chinese (and perhaps French too) moving forward with an iTalki tutor once or twice a week.  

As an experienced language learner, he may find that any new language class will move a lot slower than he'd like.  Another Romance language would probably bore him to tears -- although Spanish subjunctive *is* a whole 'nother story, not like French.  But if available, maybe he could choose something that'll give him a serious challenge: Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, possibly German, etc.  Or perhaps a less demanding language will be appreciated if the rest of his plate is full.

He may need to try a lot of iTalki tutors before finding one that suits him.  That is normal.  On iTalki consider *not* using trial lessons if the price difference is small.  For example, if a trial is $7 but a regular lesson is $9, just book a regular lesson and save the trial for a time when it actually saves you money.  (Once trials are used up, you never get more, even if you switch languages.)

[Porridge]

Agree with the italki tutor method and picking up a second language with a good teacher.  One of mine is taking a third language with a great prof through DE, but also wanted to keep up with chinese. We've been using Mary (https://www.italki.com/en/teacher/1159839). My child really enjoys it and has made great progress. She does a half hour lesson twice a week, and probably 15 -20 min of homework / review each day, so it doesn't take too much time. 

[saw]

Thank you all! This is helpful -- good to see that I'm not crazy in feeling like a less good teacher is a good reason for not taking a class.

I deliberately did not attend the meeting because I don't speak Chinese, so wanted DS to speak Chinese with the teacher. I was in the room however so could hear everything but the teacher couldn't see me. DS introduced himself in Chinese with his Chinese name (which is quite important to him, since he was adopted from China and this is the name he was given there). Teacher just dismissed him and carried on in English. DS is perfectly capable of carrying on conversations in Chinese, not perfectly, but certainly at a decent level. 

He does have a good Chinese teacher now, based in China, who has been his tutor for three or four years now. My thinking was that the IB will be so much work that it will be tricky to keep up his Chinese if he's not doing this for one of the IB subjects, but I think that it would be even trickier to get DS to participate in a Chinese class where he does not want to be! His options now are to keep up with his usual Chinese tutor and take it easy, and then for school do Spanish or German, but two of his sibs and I speak German (to some degree) so will likely go with German. He wanted Dutch or Japanese for family reasons but these aren't offered sadly. 

 

[Arcadia]

49 minutes ago, saw said:

 His options now are to keep up with his usual Chinese tutor and take it easy, and then for school do Spanish or German, but two of his sibs and I speak German (to some degree) so will likely go with German. He wanted Dutch or Japanese for family reasons but these aren't offered sadly. 

My kids picked German because they find it useful for reading math and engineering articles written in German without having to resort to google translate. However Spanish is more useful for kids going into a medical related field. My friend’s daughter heritage language is Chinese but took Spanish for high school because she wanted to go into pre- med. She works as a dental assistant during college summer holidays and her Spanish comes in useful.

[saw]

33 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

My kids picked German because they find it useful for reading math and engineering articles written in German without having to resort to google translate.

Thanks. DS will likely go into engineering (99% of the time he is all about aerospace/aviation and then 1% of the time he's going to be a cardiothoracic surgeon so go figure!) and this will probably seal the deal for him. I knew that German is helpful for engineering but did not know that it was still the case that so much is still in German only. 

[Arcadia]

3 minutes ago, saw said:

Thanks. DS will likely go into engineering (99% of the time he is all about aerospace/aviation and then 1% of the time he's going to be a cardiothoracic surgeon so go figure!) and this will probably seal the deal for him. I knew that German is helpful for engineering but did not know that it was still the case that so much is still in German only. 

It comes in useful for research and beyond the classroom stuff for DS18. He likes to enrich and widen his knowledge.

[lewelma]

One of my boy's friends who went to Harvard told him that if he got in, to come talk to him about what math classes to take, not based on content but based on the professor. He said that a great teacher will make any topic interesting, and a bad teacher will destroy your love for any subject. You are really not crazy.