Teacher of NCEA

I teach NCEA….I am ashamed of what I do but it is the truth I am a NCEA teacher !!!

When I go to a party, which is not often enough !!!, and that I meet new people, they ask me the question that everybody asks when you meet someone “what’s your job?”. So far I have been lying to this question, too ashamed to admit what I actually do. I look straight and answer with my thick accent “ I teach French!”.

Do I ?? Do I really teach French???

I would say that 70% of the time I do. Unfortunately during the remaining 30% of my teaching time I teach NCEA.

Let’s start for the beginning: I teach geeks,I know I should not use that word but it is true, they are geeks and they only want to get Excellence at NCEA, a Merit being a failure. And knowing that NCEA French requires students to know and use weird grammar structures that French native speakers would never use I have to teach kids tips on how to introduce those structures onto their writing.

NCEA is not about communication, it is not about if you can share opinions or understand other people’s ideas. It is about creating sentences with some “pourtant, mais, cependant, où, qui, que, dont etc….” (however, but, where, who, which etc..).

I have a Belgian student in my class this year who is a French native speaker. I had to teach her how to pass the exams as she was not writing the required structures. She was failing although she speaks fluently French. Thank god I was here to tell her to produce strange sentences that nobody would say !!!!

In NZ we are SO lucky to have a very good curriculum, but at the same time we have NCEA which does not allow us to actually teach the curriculum. Because my students want an Excellence, I actually spend time in class teaching them how to pass the exam. If I don’t they will fail for sure. If a French native speaker cannot achieve, how can a kiwi pass???!!!!

So yes I teach NCEA