With another academic year starting, there was also a new Welsh course starting. I pretty much always register for one. It is a good way of keeping your grammar at an acceptable level, and also provides vocabulary and conversation training. And I don't progress anymore; this is just for staying at the level where I am. And last year I ended up in a proficiency course with a tutor that I didn't know beforehand: Catrin. She was great! I really enjoyed that course. But she wasn't going to do it again this year. So I registered for something similar, but taught by someone else.
On the Monday of the field work I logged into the zoom meeting. Many people from last year’s course were there! And the new tutor: Sian. She suggested that we all introduce ourselves. There were about 15 of us. And she started with herself, and she took her time.
The introductions took about an hour. Basically you're listening to people saying basic things such as where were they born, where do they live now, and why they are learning Welsh. I'm not learning anything from that!
When that was done she said she hadn't prepared anything, and she wanted to know what all of us wanted from this course. Then, again, you are with 15 people in a zoom session, with one at max talking. Again, no learning whatsoever! And it looked like she was keen on us presenting things to each other, centrally, which again would be one person talking and 14 people listening. But luckily, some of us requested things such as grammar exercises and breakout groups. With these, you learn something!
I was bored and frustrated. I was still quite knackered from the day before, and knew I may have two more days like that coming up. I didn’t want to spend my evening staring fruitlessly at a screen! I decided that if this lady would not clean up her act I would leave. But let’s see what she would come up with the next week. And I decided I had to send her requests on what sort of stuff I wanted to practice. I can’t walk away without giving her a chance to give me what I need! But if next week isn’t better I’m out…
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