Lorna at Vicenza

Alex told me that he found out quite by accident that his English teacher gave him a much more difficult test than the rest of the class. He only discovered this when he heard his friends saying that it wasn't so bad. He asked them what they were talking about because he thought it was hard, especially the big paragraph to translate on page two with words in it that he didn't know or couldn't remember in English. They looked at him like he was mad. When he bumped into said teacher later that day, he asked her if he'd been given a different test and she said yes because he is advantaged. Is she allowed to do this? Neither Alex or I would mind him trying out a test prepared for 3rd or 4th year students but I don't think it was fair to spring it on him like that without any kind of discussion or warning. I think she should have said something like, "Alex, do you want to challenge yourself to something more difficult seeing as you have been getting high grades recently and you got a 10 in your last test?" (His first 10 ever). Perhaps that 10/10 pissed her off? The grades for this test haven't come up on the register yet so Alex doesn't know if he has passed or failed or if he's got a low score which will bring down his overall average. Things like this make me want to slap people.

Geordieborn

Kids in the same group have to be tested on a level playing field regardless if their parents are renowned mathematicians, musicians or English speakers … Crazy and very wrong!!

ononno

Hi Lorna, you touched a nerve there. My recently bereaved grandson, in 3rd year of Liceo Scientifico, recently had an exactly similar experience
He was given a minus mark on an English translation because his English teacher said he was advantaged, and his punctuation and grammar should have been better than the rest of the class because his sister and father were English speakers. His mother quite rightly went mad and was almost in tears. Anyway she brought the matter up in an assemblea di classe, and was supported by other parents who agreed with her.
The lad himself thinks it's because his pronunciation is better than his professoressa's. She calls a bus a bes; nuff said!
Slap a few faces.
best regards,
o'nonno

Angeldimana

Weve probably got this to come.
Our 8 year is used in his English class as an assistant to the teacher but had a few run in with his previous teacher because he kept correcting her.

For example, he asked for an 'highlighter pen', you know the bright luminous type. Where i come, from we have always called them highlighters, but his teacher insisted there was no such thing in english and told him and everyone else in the class it was just a 'felt tip'.
All his classmates then ridiculed him for not knowing English.

Then again, i can remember his first English lesson when he was maybe 4. - Kind of trial when he was scoula materna they introduced a weekly English lesson. His normal teachers loved his reaction when the woman starting talking in English!!
But after he approached her and said '' do you know you dont speak English very well!! ''

Lorna at Vicenza

Thanks everyone.
Alex's big sister is in her final year at the scientifico and has never been given a different test to her classmates. She has been asked to read aloud a lot because of her "lovely pronunciation" and when the prof couldn't be bothered. She has only ever dared to correct the prof once when the class was told that English people call a cello a 'sello' and the prof didn't believe her. She hasn't bothered correcting the many times her teacher has said eeKipment instead of equipment.

Alex hasn't bothered correcting his prof because he knows she wouldn't like it and because he still remembers the old witch he had at middle school. His 'verifiche' often had lots of red pen marks on them, corrections that weren't wrong at all. I told Alex to just ignore her because he always had at least a 6 in English and wouldn't fail, even though had she marked his papers correctly his scores would have been higher. In one lesson they had to write a description of themselves. Alex said he was blond with green eyes and quite small. She insisted he use the word short. Petty. I did argue with her once about how to write the date. In a listening test, Alex had answered all the questions with -------- such and such happened on the 26th of August. So and so died on the 21st of March. Prof marked every answer as being incorrect. When I questioned her she told me we don't write the date that way. When she realised that I wasn't backing down she then said, "well if you want to write the date that way then Alex should have used prepositions." I had a copy of his test in my hands so I asked her just which prepositions she was looking for?

For what it's worth, I also say highlighter and always have. That's what the dictionary calls it too. I don't know what else I would call it? A fluorescent, illuminating soft-nibbed pen? What bullshit.

Sorry to hear about your family O'Nonno. It's just not fair how some teachers think they can treat students. If they want to treat our children as native English speakers, as advantaged mother-tongue speakers, then going by their logic our children are disadvantaged in Italian. Do they get easier Italian tests? Do they bollocks.

modicasa

I have a Italan mate who took his son on holiday to Cornwall a couple of years ago. When they came back he dared to correct the teacher - Its not a biskooit you say biskit. the teacher told him never to speak in her lessons again.

spouse of scouse

That woman should not be teaching!

jonwel

Lesson: don't correct the teacher unless he/she is intelligent. But if they're intelligent they probably won't need correcting anyway. The trouble is that they've got a degree in English without even having to spend a year abroad, so they're constantly aware of their shortcomings and can't bear being questioned.

I agree that kids from English-speaking families should have the same tests as anyone else and I'm sure the ministry would agree. If they get very high marks and start getting a swollen head, the teacher can say, "well done, but it was to be expected".

About writing the date: Italian quiz programmes are full of rubbish about the "Anglo-Saxons", how they write the date, measure the temperature, enter a building on the first floor, and nobody seems to know that there are a lot of differences between American Anglo-Saxons and British Anglo-Saxons. They probably do know that we have different currencies and drive on different sides of the road...

milazzo06

Last year, my son - a native English speaker - was getting 2s and 3s in English. In one of his compiti he was marked down as having translated "cestino" as "bin". Apparently it should have been "waste paper basket". I went to see the English teacher and initially feigned to not understand Italian and suggest that we speak in English. "Ma quando si tratta della scuola preferisco parlare in Italiano" was her reply. So we spoke in Italian. I asked to see all my son's recent compiti and I went through them one by one pointing out the errors in her marking. She became incensed...
"Ma, Signor ... . so che suo figlio parla inglese ma lei deve capire che qui noi siamo in Italia. E che qui a scuola bisogna imperare l'inglese all'italiano!"
He scraped through that year. This year, with a different teacher, he is getting straight 10s.

Lorna at Vicenza

Imparare l'inglese all'italiano? What absolute rubbish.

C.2s

Hi all

This is an interesting discussion. I can see things from the parents point of view, but I am going to comment with my teacher hat on...are you sure that some of this isn't just challenging students in the way that they should be challenged?

There are lots of, often competing, approaches to teaching, but generally it's fair to say that differentiation is perfectly acceptable in teaching (it definitely is in the UK), and teachers should give more difficult tasks to there more able students in order to stimulate and motivate them. I take the points people have made about how and when that's comnunicated to the student, but I don't think that all students need to know what level of task others are getting,so this makes it difficult to communicate sometimes.

In terms of tests there are two different ways to look at this. On the one hand if the test is something that must be passed in order to gain a qualification, or is a standard national assessment test, then all students should have the same questions. However, if the test is one that the school or teachers use to measure individual student progress then it seems appropriate to give students differentiated tasks. After all if a student always achieves a maximum mark it's impossible to measure if they are improving or not.

As for the difference between what is taught and what is real English...well I often have to say to my students "This is what you need to say in the exam.I know it is not how people use the language in real life. But for the exam do this. Just think of it as a game, and you have to follow the rules." And this is true both for specifically Italian teaching materials and exams, and for those produced in the UK that are used worldwide.

I do recognise this situation where some of the Italian teachers of English are nervous about their knowledge and speaking abilities, and can be very defensive if you correct them. I can understand that. I don't think it's helpful, but I can understand it.

Lorna at Vicenza

I understand what you're saying and normally wouldn't have a problem with it, but the point is that there was NO communication. The teacher just shoved a different test under Alex's nose and he only found out through talking with his friends that his test was totally different. There isn't a "top class" or "lower class" and nobody else gets given different tests. Alex was given a different test to do because his mummy is English. Italian is his first language. He can speak better English than his peers but he has to study the irregular verbs as well and certainly couldn't tell you what the rules are for forming the future perfect continuous.

dmu

Had to check that "will have been working" is an example of this!!
Thank goodness my two didn't have this problem of testing in their French Collège/Lycée. They were born in France, their first language is French and, although their teachers were wary of them in class, they weren't treated differently. DD2 and the whole of her class had poor marks in their English Bac due to the strangely written text set in the Deep South. Even I didn't understand the vocabulary, and the teacher and parents complained, but to no avail...
All the best for your son!

Lorna at Vicenza

Thanks Dmu.