Pamoja French Ab Initio Issues

[callumnicus]

Hey Guys!

I'm new to this whole forum thing so please bear with me.

So a few of my classmates and I are enrolled in the Pamoja French ab initio course although, we seem to be having a few problems with our teacher.

Firstly, no matter what we do none of my classmates, nor I, can please our teacher when it comes to assignments. We have tried everything including sticking as close to the rubric as possible and even going so far as to create our own study group with native speakers to try and learn as much grammar as we can to add to our written assignments but even if we use advanced grammar we still get 70s and 80s. Here's the real kicker, we were quite suspect about our teacher's grading habits and so, to test this, we had a native speaker write a short assignment for one of my classmates to have graded. We made sure they kept to the rubric and did everything that was asked. When that person got the assignment back the score, as usual, was 80%. The feedback as well was ridiculous, the teacher was saying that the grammar wasn't good enough and pointed out mistakes that were correct. Keep in mind this is work from an A1 French student.

Secondly, orals are another source of stress for us. Firstly, for one oral that we had to take time out of school for, the teacher canceled after we were waiting for ten minutes then rescheduled with a ludicrous time none of us could make and when we tried to explain we couldn't do it then since we had prior commitments he simply said, "Well too bad, you shouldn't have missed the practice." We still don't know how we are going to be scored for it since orals are a graded assignment. Also, we took all both problems with our Pamoja advisory teacher who said he couldn't really do anything.

If anyone else is doing or has done the Pamoja course and has any advice or tips that would be fantastic. Also, feel free to comment as my classmates and I could use all the help and information we can get. 

Thanks all!

[astonky]

Hi,

I'm not doing French ab initio, but I'm doing Business Management SL, also with Pamoja.

Many students in my school (me included) are struggling with our teachers, because they are not responding within a reasonable timeframe to our questions and problems. For instance, I finished my first draft of my IA two weeks ago, and have been asking my teacher the same question 3 times (starting from when I planned the IA) and still haven't got an answer till today.

I suspect that for many teachers at Pamoja they are too involved with their day-to-day teaching at their schools and thus not very flexible with their schedule.

Also, getting 70s and 80s in any language is a good achievement! If you feel like your teacher is grading you too harshly (and incorrectly) bear in mind that they might well have been doing this late at night - or have learnt certain grammar rules for French, but not their exceptions.

Therefore, I would not worry too much. Instead try to focus on perfecting/learning french outside of Pamoja, as this is what will ultimately let you speak/read/write and do well in the final exams.

Hope this helps and best of luck,

astonky

[Roger Markis]

I have had the exact same problems in the French ab initio program. I find the Pamoja program a terrible program and have learned almost nothing so far. The teachers take forever to grade the work since they have real classes in real life. Reflecting on what I have witnessed from the orals, no one in the program seems to know anything in the French language. I have probably heard over half the students in my class (fifty people) and all of them are just plain terrible and seemed to have learned nothing just like me. That brings me to another point, there are simply too many people in the classes. Fifty people are too many for the teachers to handle as well as having regular classes in real life. This makes it take ages for them to grade anything and the timing of the orals is horrific, I once had to attend one at 10:00 pm. I'm glad to find that other people are having the same issues and hope that this will deter any other people from using the awful Pamoja program.