Oh là là!

My class changed French tutors last week. It was technically her second lesson with us but I'd missed one session, being in KL. The new tutor (je suis désolé; i haven't caught her name) is fierce! In my previous class I had Timothée, who used a "firm but steady" approach to manage the class. For a short time I had Audrey, who'd taught my present class since their first beginner lesson, who pronounced "idea" as "i-dee" and "castle" with the t. Audrey's bubbly and friendly. And then there's my new tutor. For a fair comparison, let's take the case of reviewing homework.

Audrey would start off by asking who in class had and hadn't completed the homework and proceed to review the answers from among the pool of diligent homework finishers. Timothée would ask generally, almost rhetorically, if everyone had done the homework and proceed to review answers one by one with the allowance that whoever had not done it could mumble an admission when their turn came and he would more likely than not just nod and skip to the next person (note passive aggressive display here). The current tutor begins the class by berating, albeit with a big smile on her face, those who hadn't done the homework and proceeds to include them in the answers review anyway. See, fierce!

Last lesson, after cowing the class into submission and a few rounds of reading, she informed us that our pronunciation was problematic and proceeded to chuck leçon quarante out the window deciding to school us in the 13 + 3 + 2 French voyelles and 17 consonant sounds instead. I found out perhaps the reason other tutors don't usually devote an entire lesson to phonetics - despite being very informative and helpful, my eyes began to glaze over for the first time in all my French classes. Phonetics is essential, for sure and many in my class myself included could've benefited loads from devoting more time to it, but at the end of class I felt bored and thirsty and the first part of the lesson had already left my brain. My main realization is that henceforth we won't have an excuse to pronounce wrongly because she has most kindly gone through all of it. Gasp!

All that being said, I do appreciate her teaching style; it kind of suits my student profile: revises (almost) every week before class, has above average pronunciation for my level, completes (most of the) homework, eager and able to absorb lessons in the classroom. I'm also glad she sort of puts the overenthusiastic (euphemism for show-off) students in their place; those eager beavers who try to answer for other students who may be slightly slower in answering questions posed directly to them ("excuse me, is your name [insert name of student she called]?") OH WIN! Hopefully the slackers (erm... why sign up for French class if you aren't gonna do the French homework?) succumb from fear and we can all enjoy a higher level of learning in class.