# A Language Teacher Shouldn't Make Any Errors?



## roxcyn

I was discussing with some people and they told me that a language teacher shouldn't make errors such as these:

*Sacan una hoja de papel.
¿Cómo está tú?*

Even if the teacher self-corrects himself/herself.  

Should the teacher use 100% error free target language?  Or is it better to just teacher the other language through the native language? (example: teach Spanish using English).

I am just surprised that some people out there think that a teacher should have 100% error free production of the language


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## cuchuflete

Should a math teacher make equivalent mistakes in calculations?

Should a chemistry teacher be allowed to give incorrect information about an element in a pre-med organic chemistry class?

Mistakes such as ¿Cómo está tú? show a lack of basic competency.  A teacher with such little mastery of the subject should not be allowed in a classroom, other than as a student.


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## Scrooge

I think that would be impossible to enforce. I think every teacher I've ever had (including the teachers that I considered good teachers) has made at least one mistake on something during the year, but most of them correct themselves sooner or later. Perfection is impossible.


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## cubaMania

Of course everyone makes some mistakes, including teachers.  But there are mistakes, and then there are mistakes.
If an arithmetic teacher regularly made mistakes like this I'd say s/he should not be teaching arithmetic:
2 + 2 is 7.  Oh, wait, no it isn't.  Let me see... 2...3...4, I mean 2 + 2 is 4.

*¿Cómo está tú?* is pretty bad on the scale of fundamental mistakes.   It may not be quite as bad as 2 + 2 = 7, but it's bad.


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## boardslide315

Could it have just been a misunderstanding on your part? More often than not, when supposedly capable people make careless mistakes, they are the result of unconscious slip-ups rather than incompetence...Even bad timing can make an otherwise logical sentence seem ridiculous. Case in point, George Bush's famous line: "The question (deadly pause) is are children learning?"


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## KateNicole

roxcyn said:


> I was discussing with some people and they told me that a language teacher shouldn't make errors such as these:
> 
> *Sacan una hoja de papel.
> ¿Cómo está tú?*
> 
> Even if the teacher self-corrects himself/herself.
> 
> Should the teacher use 100% error free target language?



I think we can all agree that 100% error-free target language is impossible.  Even if the target language is your native tongue, you will at times make minor mistakes that may not be due to incompetency but to fatigue, carelessness or oblivion.  I'm sure that at least once in my career, in the midst of trying to take attendance, pass back papers, collect papers, redirect students and gather missing work for absent students almost simultaneously, I may have "flubbed" and said something like, "Did Carlos and him go the office?"  Dear God!  

However, I wholeheartely agree that a teacher should _not _make mistakes such as * ¿Cómo está tú? 
*When teaching a foreign language, being able to conjugate the verb "to be" is about as basic as it gets.  
On a tangent, what's even more annoying to me is when native Spanish speakers address an entire class or group of people as _tú_, instead of _ustedes _or _vosotros_.  The first time that happened to me (in college, mind you) I was so confused, because I thought the teacher was addressing only one person, yet staring at us all in the eye.   Now I notice this almost every other day.  


Going back to the idea of 100% error-free target language, I don't think that native or near-native fluency is _absolutely _necessary in all foreign language teachers.  I know many teachers that have a broad vocabulary and acceptable pronunciation and and converasation skills (aside from having wonderful teaching methods.)  However, these same teachers might accidentally turn "Si yo fuera rica, compraría un yate" into "Si yo fuera rica, comprara un yate."  Is the mistake fatal if the person is teaching a beginning Spanish class in which only the present (and possibly the preterite) tenses are introduced?  I don't really think so . . . 

This is a very sensitive issue in the school system where I work.  At the high school level, there are a lot of teachers that do not speak the target language with a great deal of fluency (although I'm sure they write quite well), and I don't think it is appropriate for them to teach an upper-level class.  However, a lot of these people do a _very _fine job teaching intro courses in which the grammar is more basic, and the students come out of their classes with a very solid foundation.  In cases such as these, I don't think the teacher should be frowned upon for not speaking the target language perfectly.

And let me also point out, although we already know this, that being close to perfect or having an extremely high I.Q. does _not _necessarily make one a more effective teacher than the humble man who makes ocassional mistakes.  I took two years of high school chemistry.  The first year was _wasted _by a man who reminded us day in and day out that he had graduated at the top of his Ivy League class and would soon abandon the teaching profession to work for a pharmaceutical research lab.  There was no doubt that his intelligence was uncanny, but I did not learn anything of a value until the following year, when I was met with a teacher fresh out of "community college" who helped me decipher formulas, baby step by baby step.


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## jinti

People who think _[insert any authority figure here]_ should never make mistakes are setting themselves up for a lifetime of disappointment. 

Teachers are human first, and professionals second. This may disillusion some, but hey, as children weren't we all aghast to realize that <gasp!> our parents sometimes made mistakes, too? (Then of course, we hit the next stage where we thought they ONLY made mistakes.... )

Of course, there are mistakes and there are mistakes.... But to say that any old mistake, even one immediately self-corrected, is unacceptable is a bit rigid and unreasonable, I think. Must piano teachers always play every piece to perfection? Personally, seeing a bit of humanity once in awhile in someone notably more skilled than I am is reassuring to me, and makes me feel a little better about my own mistakes. But then, I probably expect to relate to my teachers more as equals than whomever Roxcyn's been talking with lately.....


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## caballoschica

Yes, teachers will make mistakes.

And yes, it is best for the teacher to speak in the target language.

However, I do not think that it is good for language teachers to have obvious errors.  If they do, they should be corrected.  And they probably would be corrected by their students or themselves.  If it's a regular mistake they make, they shouldn't be teaching the class.  

What I mean by obvious errors are errors that the students can spot because of the level of the language they are teaching.  If a Spanish 101 professor makes a mistake in the subjunctive, it's not as bad as a Spanish professor of the 200-level making that mistake.  I believe Spanish 101 students don't learn the subjunctive yet.  At least I didn't. It took me until Spanish 3 in high school to get to the subjunctive tense.  

As cuchu pointed out, an organic chemistry professor shouldn't make mistakes about an element, even a chemistry 101 professor shouldn't make mistakes about an element as the elements are the core of chemistry.  If they do, again, they should correct themselves.


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## Etcetera

We're human, after all.
We all occasionally make mistakes even when speaking our native language, let alone our second, third etc language. 
I happened twice or thrice to make some minor mistakes when speaking English in class, but I corrected myself immediately. Well, know what? When I have to switch to Russian in the class (to explain the students something they can't understand in English), I seem to spend more time thinking about the correct wording and the use of grammar, because I still continue to think in English!
Minor mistakes will always happen, even to most experienced teachers. But errors like *¿Cómo está tú? *are unpardonable in a classroom!


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## Kajjo

roxcyn said:


> Should the teacher use 100% error free target language?


1) Teachers must have mastery of the language they teach.  
2) Everyone makes mistakes.
3) The level in which mistakes happen must be _significantly higher_ than the level on which he teaches the language.

Bad teachers lay bad foundations. That must not happen under any circumstances.

I concur with the comparison with math and chemistry teachers.

Kajjo


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## Tatzingo

roxcyn said:


> I was discussing with some people and they told me that a language teacher shouldn't make errors such as these:
> 
> *Sacan una hoja de papel.
> 
> ¿Cómo está tú?*



Apologies for reviving a discussion from the early hours. Given that nobody has explicitly dealt with the first example above (sacan) - I'm assuming that the mistake is really really obvious and elementary. Unfortunately, I can't see it... can someone be kind enough to point out to me what the problem is with the first example?

Tatz,


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## KateNicole

Hi Tatzingo,
Gramatically, there is nothing wrong with the first example.  Contextually, there could be a problem.  I'm assuming that it was meant to be a _command_ (Saquen una hoja de papel.)  If spoken as worded in the example, the teacher would have told the class "They take out a sheet of paper," instead of "Take out a sheet of paper."
Hope it helps.


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## Tatzingo

KateNicole said:


> Hi Tatzingo,
> Gramatically, there is nothing wrong with the first example.  Contextually, there could be a problem.  I'm assuming that it was meant to be a _command_ (Saquen una hoja de papel.)  If spoken as worded in the example, the teacher would have told the class "They take out a sheet of paper," instead of "Take out a sheet of paper."
> Hope it helps.



KateNicole, 

Phew! Thanks! I thought that my Spanish grammar had failed me!
When i first read the example, I thought that the teacher was explaining a task to pupils, eg. You say this, they get out a piece of paper and you write.... etc...

Thanks for pointing out that it was the imperative... it did make me wonder!! ;-)

Tatz.


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## Thomsen

roxcyn said:


> I was discussing with some people and they told me that a language teacher shouldn't make errors such as these:
> 
> *Sacan una hoja de papel.*
> *¿Cómo está tú?*
> 
> Even if the teacher self-corrects himself/herself.
> 
> Should the teacher use 100% error free target language? Or is it better to just teacher the other language through the native language? (example: teach Spanish using English).
> 
> I am just surprised that some people out there think that a teacher should have 100% error free production of the language


 
I would say the first mistake may be more important than that latter at least from the perspective of an English speaker.  Imperatives are something that take a little getting used to, and it's important for students not to be confused by being presented with different forms.  I think the second would depend on the accent of the speaker.  I have heard many native speakers that drop the final consonant sound in words and end up saying things like "como estas"  If it is delivered with a straight up anglo accent then yes, the students are definitely in trouble.


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## User1001

roxcyn said:


> I was discussing with some people and they told me that a language teacher shouldn't make errors such as these:
> 
> *Sacan una hoja de papel.
> ¿Cómo está tú?*
> 
> Even if the teacher self-corrects himself/herself.
> 
> Should the teacher use 100% error free target language?  Or is it better to just teacher the other language through the native language? (example: teach Spanish using English).
> 
> I am just surprised that some people out there think that a teacher should have 100% error free production of the language



"Error free" shows perfection, and can anyone really have the quality of _perfection_. Everyone makes errors - they are part of life. If the teacher leaves the errors incorrect, then they become mistakes, and mistakes should not be permitted; however, one can never do something with complete perfection. Thinking otherwise isn't sane.


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## Bridgita

I think mistakes in a Language class are different from those in say "math or biology" because language is always changing and there are so many different dialects and everything in language. In math, the square route of 144, will ALWAYS be 12 and in biology, the pituitary gland will always be the place where our HGH is, these things aren't going to change.
So although, Como esta tu? does sound bad (in exception, that the s is dropped a lot) we are all going to make mistakes now and then, as someone stated earlier, WE ARE ALL HUMAN.

My 6th science teacher told us that our blood was blue until it came in contact with oxygen.  Now, I know that that is a bunch of crap.  THAT is a HUGE mistake.


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## cuchuflete

Bridgita said:


> I think mistakes in a Language class are different from those in say "math or biology" because language is always changing and there are so many different dialects and everything in language. In math, the square route of 144, will ALWAYS be 12 and in biology, the pituitary gland will always be the place where our HGH is, these things aren't going to change.
> So although, Como esta tu? does sound bad (in exception, that the s is dropped a lot) we are all going to make mistakes now and then, as someone stated earlier, WE ARE ALL HUMAN.
> 
> My 6th science teacher told us that our blood was blue until it came in contact with oxygen.  Now, I know that that is a bunch of crap.  THAT is a HUGE mistake.



If you say so....  I guess I had one of those ALL HUMAN teachers who taught us that 12 is the square root of 144.


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## maxiogee

cuchuflete said:


> If you say so....  I guess I had one of those ALL HUMAN teachers who taught us that 12 is the square root of 144.



I, on the other hand, was taught that the square root of 144 is either 12 or -12. 
So it's not 'always' 12, and it won't 'always' be 12.


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## Bridgita

maxiogee said:


> I, on the other hand, was taught that the square root of 144 is either 12 or -12.
> So it's not 'always' 12, and it won't 'always' be 12.


 
I was making a point, and besides, I never specified whether the "12" was positive or negative, did I?


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## Bridgita

cuchuflete said:


> If you say so.... I guess I had one of those ALL HUMAN teachers who taught us that 12 is the square root of 144.


 
And I'm not even sure what the point of this post is, but it appears that you and Maxi seem to think you're funny.  (in actuality, I think you're both being smart alecks)


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## John-Paul

My son's 3d grade Spanish teacher right now is a dvd player. No mistakes here. He used to have a Spanish teacher in 1st grade. I never met her but according to him she was very nice - and he loved to practice all these wonderful new words. Not with the dvd-player though. I never hear anything about his Spanish lessons unless I ask and then he shrugs, who cares, it's just a recording.

As for this occurrence: you're taking a mistake totally out of context and then ask weather that particular teacher should be as perfect as you, or us. If we keep questioning our teachers it will not take long before they will be replaced by machines (maybe they can refurbish the voting machines).


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## Trina

roxcyn said:


> [...]
> *Sacan una hoja de papel.
> ¿Cómo está tú?*
> 
> Even if the teacher self-corrects himself/herself.  [...]


If a language teacher makes such basic errors, how can a student be confident with anything that teacher teaches him/her. If that student were me, I would be constantly running for a second opinion.


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## Etcetera

Let me tell you what I did in my own lesson only yesterday.
We were brainstorming what questions could be asked about a town you'd like to visit. One of the question was "How can I get there?" We hadn't this particular question in the textbook, so I wrote it on the whiteboard. 
Then I started to write all the possible answers, one below another, to this question: by train, by plane, by bus, etc. While writing this _plane_, I was looking at the word _train _above and thinking of how similar they sound - in spite of their being written slightly different... 
Having written all this, I turned away from the whiteboard and started to explain to my students why they don't need any article in word-combinations like _by train_. When I looked at the whiteboard again, I saw that I had written _plane_ as _plain_!
Well, I said "Oops!", took the marker and corrected it to _plane_. And I honestly explained my students why I had made this mistake. They laughed and made corrections in their notes.


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## Trina

Etcetera said:


> [...] While writing this _plane_, I was looking at the word _train _above and thinking of how similar they sound - in spite of their being written slightly different... [...]When I looked at the whiteboard again, I saw that I had written _plane_ as _plain_!
> Well, I said "Oops!", took the marker and corrected it to _plane_. [...]


This type of error happens to everyone including people teaching their mother tongue. 

The type of errors I think are unforgiveable in a classroom are ones like ...
You is  / We is / He are... (These is unforgiveable! )
If these type of errors are made by the teacher, then I believe all the lessons become questionable.


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## KateNicole

Etcetera said:


> Let me tell you what I did in my own lesson only yesterday.
> We were brainstorming what questions could be asked about a town you'd like to visit. One of the question was "How can I get there?" We hadn't this particular question in the textbook, so I wrote it on the whiteboard.
> Then I started to write all the possible answers, one below another, to this question: by train, by plane, by bus, etc. While writing this _plane_, I was looking at the word _train _above and thinking of how similar they sound - in spite of their being written slightly different...
> Having written all this, I turned away from the whiteboard and started to explain to my students why they don't need any article in word-combinations like _by train_. When I looked at the whiteboard again, I saw that I had written _plane_ as _plain_!
> Well, I said "Oops!", took the marker and corrected it to _plane_. And I honestly explained my students why I had made this mistake. They laughed and made corrections in their notes.


 
How dare you!  
My students usually correct me about 2-3 times a week when I'm writing on the whiteboard. A lot of times I'll forget a small word like "of" or "in" because I just get so excited that my hand moves faster than my brain! And when you're writing notes "live," it's not like you have time to proofread. Totally forgiveable. I always say very seriously, "Thank you for your observant correction." They really like being thanked, and sometimes I think the possibilty of knowing that I will make a mistake makes them pay even closer attention because everyone wants to be the first to catch it! Leave it to me to pretend like my faults are a teaching strategy.


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## gaer

cuchuflete said:


> Should a math teacher make equivalent mistakes in calculations?
> 
> Should a chemistry teacher be allowed to give incorrect information about an element in a pre-med organic chemistry class?
> 
> Mistakes such as ¿Cómo está tú? show a lack of basic competency. A teacher with such little mastery of the subject should not be allowed in a classroom, other than as a student.


That's a pretty extreme mistake!

Think about it. I only read very basic Spanish sentences, sometimes with great difficulty, yet "¿Cómo está tú?" looks about the same as "How is you?" to me.

I would be a bit conservative about comparing languages to chemistry and math. 

A language teacher who is correct 97% of the time and who loves to teach, communicates well (and so on) would be far more useful to me than one who is almost 100% correct but who has poor communication skills, unrealistic expectations and an unpleasant personality.

Of course finding a teacher whose knowledge AND teaching ability are both top-notch is what we all hope for, I think. ;(

Gaer


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## don maico

People make mistakes, its human.If the teacher acknowledges the error and corrects it then there is no problem.


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## maxiogee

don maico said:


> People make mistakes, its human.If the teacher acknowledges the error and corrects it then there is no problem.


 
Well said!
I've been following this thread and wondering if the real thougth behind it would not have been better expressd as "A language teacher shouldn't make simple errors." - this led me then to thinking is it alright for any other sort of teacher to make grievous errors? Why are we discussing only _Language_ teachers here (apart from the fact that this is a language forum) - are we to implying permission for Chemistry teachers to forget what does what to litmus paper, or may a Geography teacher tell of the European monsoons?


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## Mei

roxcyn said:


> I was discussing with some people and they told me that a language teacher shouldn't make errors such as these:
> 
> *Sacan una hoja de papel.
> ¿Cómo está tú?*
> 
> Even if the teacher self-corrects himself/herself.
> 
> Should the teacher use 100% error free target language?  Or is it better to just teacher the other language through the native language? (example: teach Spanish using English).
> 
> I am just surprised that some people out there think that a teacher should have 100% error free production of the language



Hi there,

Everybody can have a bad day, right? "Errare humanum est". 

I think that the teacher should speak in the language he/she is teaching.

Cheers

Mei


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## suzzzenn

I am getting a Masters degree in TESOL at a University in NY and many of my classmates are from other countries and English is their second language. Most of them plan on returning to their countries to teach EFL when they graduate. While many of them have good English skills, there are several whose English is somewhat weak, not terrible, but not anywhere near error free. 

Recently I watched one of my classmates with questionable English skills teach a beginning ESL class and to my surprise, the class was wonderful! She was warm, patient, and kind and taught a useful lesson. Her classplan was well organized and well executed. Before she taught she had someone look over materials and practiced what she was going to say, trying to minimize errors. Yes, there were some mistakes (like,"I am going to shopping"), but overall the lesson was great. On the other hand, I have seen native speakers deliver terrible lessons. I don't think being 100% error free is a requirement for being a good language teacher.

I think this is an interesting question because I recently read that the majority of English teachers in the world today are non-native speakers teaching EFL in their home countries.


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## Philippa

Hi! Interesting topic  

I think part of the role of a teacher is to model to students how to learn. This is difficult if you are pretending to be perfect. I try to be honest with my classes about the things I find tricky - teaching Maths last year I discovered that I, like many of the 8-year-olds, find mental subtraction harder than addition and I said this to them! In response to pupils' questions that I don't know the answer to, we will discuss how to find out or, if it's something too complicated to think out on the spot in front of the class, I will say 'What an interesting and difficult question - I'm going to have to think about that one!' I once made a worksheet with Mercury as the hottest planet  and I sometimes describe this mistake to classes now. If I've forgotten a fact (and forgotten to look it up before the lesson!) I will look it up in front of the class.

How this applies to language teaching I'm not 100% sure. I think if the Spanish teacher were a native speaker then they could use their learning of another language to show that they empathise with their students' struggles in grammar, pronunciation etc. If I taught Spanish I would be the same as the language teacher in post 1 who makes silly mistakes and then self-corrects. I would have to discuss with the class at some point that this wasn't ideal and my hopes and methods for improving.

KateNicole, I agree completely with you about having students correct you!  I have a question for you - in your school do the teachers of various levels of fluency talk in Spanish to each other/natives at school in Spanish to improve their fluency or so they try to 'hide' their level? I'm always impressed that my 2 French teacher colleagues (one native, one not) often chat in French!

Saludos
Philippa


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## Etcetera

Philippa said:


> I have a question for you - in your school do the teachers of various levels of fluency talk in Spanish to each other/natives at school in Spanish to improve their fluency or so they try to 'hide' their level? I'm always impressed that my 2 French teacher colleagues (one native, one not) often chat in French!


Let me tell you about how it's in our school.
Most of the teachers here are non-native teachers of English (some are professional teachers of English as foreign language, some are just talented people), but there's also a native, a young Englishman with a pretty good command of Russian. With him we usually talk in English, but among ourselves - mostly in Russian. 
Not so long ago, a new rule was introduced in our school - "No Russian Mondays and Fridays!" On these days we're expected to speak only in English. I really like this rule - unfortunately, I don't work on Mondays and Fridays!..


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## roxcyn

Thank you all for your replies.  I am not (yet) a language teacher.  Actually that is what I want to be.  Anyway, _*I*_ have said "sacan" before, but I corrected myself.  I know why I said it, I was thinking of something else when I said it and not paying attention to my speech. I have never said the other error, but I have heard another teacher say it.  I wanted to see what you all thought about the error.

I have to agree with the point made that someone wants a language teacher that can teach well such as what  suzzzeen was describing---planning a lesson through practicing and controlling her speech.


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## Bienvenidos

This is a tricky question; of course, everyone will make mistakes, regardless of whether or not its their native language. However...it's a problem when that mistake is then *taught* to students. I know someone who is a teacher and the department head of her high school's language department; she teaches two third-level Spanish classes. She asked her students to translate, "The boss fired ten employees," and she told a student that he was wrong for using the personal a. Mind you, this woman is in her fifties and has been teaching for a long time. That is just not right! Now the students will not know how to use the personal a in Spanish. And this same women refers to a verb book when conjugating simple verbs such as, "dar" in the present subjunctive. Does that sound bad at all to you? This women teaches these classes year after year. 
   One of my friends teaches Spanish at the same high school. Honestly, I don't get to see her too often, and she's really more of an acquaintance to me. The other day when I walked into her classroom, one of her students told me that she was on vacation and that another teacher, one who was fluent, was substituting for her. What? I didn't understand: this woman was not fluent in the language? Okay. I guess it's understandable, but...if she's teaching an honors-level class, dear god she should be fluent--or extremely close to it. The student then told me how the teacher admitted she was not fluent and said she was still taking intermediate Spanish classes at the local community college. Then there's another teacher who's Spanish is limited to, "Ay chico, ¿cómo estás?" and, "¡Pobrecito! ¡Dios mío!" But then there's a teacher (a first year teacher) who's Spanish is absolutely amazing and the entire staff hates her...jealousy?

I mean, it's not good when students catch your mistakes regularly. And, I hate to say it, although native teachers are great, there is another woman at the same high school who taught her students to conjugate a French verb in Spanish...and she didn't even know she had made the mistake until a week later. Okay. It's not her fault; she might know some Spanish, but as a native Parisian French speaker, that's not a good thing to do with first-year students!

There's a line here between a simple mistake made when lecturing and a mistake made when teaching material.


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## nelliot53

Bridgita said:


> I think mistakes in a Language class are different from those in say "math or biology" because language is always changing and there are so many different dialects and everything in language. In math, the square route of 144, will ALWAYS be 12 and in biology, the pituitary gland will always be the place where our HGH is, these things aren't going to change.
> So although, Como esta tu? does sound bad (in exception, that the s is dropped a lot) we are all going to make mistakes now and then, as someone stated earlier, WE ARE ALL HUMAN.
> 
> My 6th science teacher told us that our blood was blue until it came in contact with oxygen. Now, I know that that is a bunch of crap. THAT is a HUGE mistake.


 
I think Cuchuflete was only trying to point out the correct spelling of "root", Bridgita. 

I agree with you, we are all human and language mistakes are going to occur now and then, but we must make it a point to learn from our mistakes and strive for perfection, inasmuch as possible, because we are language models to our students and they deserve no less.


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## Henryk

I've been taking evening classes for about three weeks and had to notice that my English teacher frequently makes mistakes. No problems at all actually. But the sort of mistakes he makes bothers me. It's simple things like "I teach at this school for two years", or once he wanted to make me believe it has to be "in direction to [the station]" instead of "in direction of [the station]" (his dictionary proved him wrong, I don't know if "to" works as well in the preposition jungle called "English"), it's quite embarrassing for me to correct him (especially due to my English), also if I really did it only once because it was on the blackboard and my fellow students were about to write it down.

According to my opinion, a native speaker should at least be present in class to assist the (in my case) German teacher (or better vice versa). The (,..,) German teacher can help comprehending why and when to use this preposition and not the other because he learnt to build up a system in his memory to put them correctly. Non-natives cannot always assess whether or not a wording is correct/acceptable, and if such a doubtful case appears, regardless of it is marked wrong or correct, neither will know if it's really correct in the end. I've very often made this experience.

As for my school, foreign languages are only learnt from German teachers except for one from Ukraine who teaches Russian. Well, should actually not bother me as long as I'm going to learn Russian from the Ukrainian teacher.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Jules' post reminds me of the Spanish department at my university.  The department head-ship alternated between two Scots.  Both felt that anything that deviated from peninsular Spanish was an abomination.  One was an adequate teacher, and one was incapable.  The department hired native speakers to meet its staffing needs, but these two ensured that they never stayed past a year.  

The departed faculty, who were even then outstanding, are now adorning various other Canadian universities.  The Spanish department at my alma mater laboured along in obscurity as a private fiefdom.

As long as the non-native speakers feel threatened by fluent speakers, students will continue to be taught by the former.


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## Stigmatas

I've seen people who are experts at their field make basic mistakes under pressure.

On the other hand, when that person makes mistakes the one learning becomes nervous. They think to themselves what else will he/she get nervous and mess up on. That is why its always good to learn the information from the teacher and research it later for yourself. Thats a good way to expand your knowledge of the subject, impress the teacher, AND check for flaws in the lesson. SH*t happens.


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