Mark's Travels

10 years of travel blogging from 35+ countries around the world

Estonian Language Course at UCL SSEES 10th April 2008 in London, United Kingdom


I recently finished my Estonian classes. They asked for my feedback, I gave it:

LANGUAGE UNIT EVENING COURSES 2007-2008
QUESTIONNAIRE


Language & level: Beginner's Estonian
Term: 2


1. Please state your level of satisfaction with (1 very satisfied, 5 not satisfied at all)
- the level of the course 1
- the pace of the course 2

Please give details:
We were all starting from scratch and the teacher did a good job of getting us up and going in certain areas of the language but failed when it came to the critical genitive and partitive cases.

The course covered materials at a rate that could be digested but the 3 term format was a bit short. The teacher said there is no way we could finish the material we should cover in time for June. It would be nice to see courses which last for the proper amount of time they should, not just fit in nice and evenly with other courses time periods.


2. Please rate the standard of teaching from 1 (very high) to 5 (very low)
5

Please give details:
Kristiina told us herself she didn't want to teach the course and was being forced to do so in order to keep her job with UCL. She had no patients at all. She lacks any sort of professionalism.

If she had ever gave us an explanation or translation of a word or used a grammatical setup and we weren't able to recall it weeks later, she would say over and over that we had covered it weeks before and she shouldn't have to repeat herself instead of just reminding us.

Throughout the second term, she was constantly 15 minutes late for class and almost never made up for lost time.

She spoke in English constantly instead of speaking more and more Estonian.

She would speak Estonian quickly and freak out when we couldn't understand what she said. She said it would train us for real life in Estonia. With that thinking we should have started on the most advanced topics as I'm sure we'll need them in Estonia as well. We eventually got her to agree to speak a bit slower but she soon went back to her flying fast ways.

She routinely insulted students. I was referred to as a cheating sex pest during one lesson. We were discussing the concept of inviting friends out. Having been in Estonia the week before, I remember being invited out to club hollywood for ladies night. I said in class in Estonian "Let's go to club hollywood, it's ladies night". From there she started voicing her assumptions at me. Regardless of what anyone thinks, going to a night club in Eastern Europe does not make you a sex tourist.

When we covered common traits of nationalities, she did her best to insult everyone's background. She is probably the 3 person I've ever met who has verbally insulted Canadians in front of me. She referred to us as thick and provincial. I'm not going to repeat what she said about the Russians but it was no surprise to see the girl who was born in Moscow not attend anymore classes after that.

She wasted so much class time on analyzing people's personal problems or voicing her own. Christopher Mosley, who teaches at UCL, apparently sexually harassed her. She spent a good 15-20 minutes telling us about it during one class.

She wasted a good hour just before we broke up for christmas break watching a film with no dialogue and Russian text. The man who made the movie was Estonian but despised his own country (much like Kristiina herself).

3. How satisfied are you with the course materials? (1 very satisfied, 5 not satisfied at all)

3

Please give details:

Kristiina has no clue which books to use. She might have qualifications and experience but all that means is that there is a school out there with really low standards and heaps of students being ripped off by her.

She had us buy books we almost never used or were of little help without her explaining them. E Nagu Eesti was a horrible waste of money. It's full of rubbish drawings with few words next to each item. It's almost impossible to figure out what part of the grammar or language they are trying to teach. Even Kristiina finally admitted, the company who made the book was trying to make a quick buck.

In the end, she started pirating a book she is working on and using that for her course materials.

Her grammatical explanations were lacking at best. She did the worst job of explaining partitive and genitive which are incredibly fundamental to the language.

She admitted to not planning lessons out until just the week before. If she had no over all plan, where was this going to lead? You can't wonder aimlessly, you have to have a set list of topics to discuss and a point that will be reached when you've completed it.

When I learnt German, they knew what every week was going to entail in advance and at the end of it, you would sit a state exam and earn the linguistic qualification to attend university in Germany.

Kristiina probably picked chapters at random on the tube ride to each class.

She wasted so much time having us talk to one another. We couldn't tell if we were making mistakes or not because we were in groups and she wasn't listening to each of us.

She kept changing things around each week because she saw a lack of progress. You can tell she isn't qualified to be doing what she does.

4. Please rate from 1 to 5 the attention paid to:
A lot 1 2 3 4 5 None at all
Grammar 1
Reading 1
Speaking 1
Writing 1
Listening 1

We balanced our time between the three of these (meaning we did them).

Grammar: We got barked at every time we didn't remember a rule we were to learn at home on our own

Reading / Speaking: We read tons of things out loud, had our pronunciation criticized with very little explanation as to how to improve it. When I was young, I couldn't speak English properly. I went to a school that explained how to control the tongue and where it should be touching in order to pronounce words properly.

Writing: We wrote tons of homework. Do you think Kristiina will return it now that we're done class?

Listening: She might have had spoken in Arabic or African clicking noises at the rate that she spoke. This was a beginners course, not advanced. It's refreshing to hear my Estonians friends because they actually speak in Estonian sometimes, unlike Kristiina.

5. Which language skills would you be interested in developing?
Very Interested 1 2 3 4 5 Not interested at all

Reading 1
Listening 1
Speaking 1
Writing 1

No one task sticks out, I really need all of the above in my work and private life in Estonia.

6. Please rate your level of satisfaction with the amount of homework
4

We had homework sometimes and when we did have it, it was a good exercise. She almost never corrected it or waited weeks to do so. She would send it to random email addresses I don't use and claim she gave it back to me. When she corrected the work, instead of using track changes or writing below, she either removed characters that were wrong or replaced them with capitals. This was just about impossible to read.

Also, she made us read up on complex grammatical topics on our own and she would test us in class constantly. It's her job to teach this to us, not just test us. We failed the tests she gave all the time. She should have taught more or found different ways of explaining things.

She should really learn to turn her computer on and use it like normal people. My grandparents are more well suited to handle the task of downloading attachments, correct work and attach those new documents and send them back.

If no homework has been given in the course, would you want any?

Yes. Homework is vital to just about any subject being taught 2 hours a week.

7. Are you satisfied with the course schedule (6.30-8.30)? (1very much, 5 not at all)

1

8. What is your overall rating of the course? (1-very good, 5 very poor)

4

There are no other scheduled evening Estonian classes in London. I wish I had a choice but I don't. Why improve when you're the only one?

9. Would optional accreditation by means of examinations make the course more attractive?
Yes

Comments
Please replace Kristiina with someone who:
* wants to teach the class
* is patient
* can explain things in multiple ways
* will maintain the pace of the course
* correct homework each week regardless of how many people have handed it in
* likes Estonia
* doesn't waste 1/4th of the course glorifying the occupation of Estonia by the Russians and bad mouth what the country has turned into since independence

11. Are there any other aspects of the evening course provision on which you would like to comment?

That's about it. I'm including my fellow classmates in this survey because if she accuses me of slander, I have them as my witnesses.

12. Apart from our evening courses, are there other types of courses that you would be interested in? (summer courses for example)

I work full time. My company has offices in London and Tallinn and there are about 60 of us in total. If you had a qualified teacher that would visit or some sort of proven training program that would be interesting.

13. If you would like us to include your details in our mailing list to receive updates on our future courses please add your name and email address below and specify your language of interest



Thank you for taking the trouble to complete this questionnaire. If you have any questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to contact us on .....@ssees.ucl.ac.uk


Manager, Language Unit


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