Vindication

I recently mentioned that one of my students was having a huge problem with the idea of the CAE lecture tutorials.  I am revisiting this again since it does apply to that teaching philosophy.  In class today s/he was also uncooperative during the activity, and in fact I think s/he might have been ignoring me and making his/her partner ask me questions.  After class s/he said that s/he would come to office hours but doesn't see how in such a short period of time I could make up for not teaching them anything in class.  I pointed out that I do teach them things and then the activities reinforce what I teach.  S/he did not agree.  But during the same activity another student asked me if the test questions were going to be like the activities we do.  When I said yes, they would be, she said good because she sometimes gets lost in lecture but then she really understands the worksheets.  That's the whole point!  (And I told her so.)  I was pleased to have positive feedback to balance the other student.  Plus - and now I am probably going into territory that I shouldn't put online, but I can't help myself - after class the partner of unhappy student complained to me that his/her partner is hard to work with and seems frustrated and is taking it out on him/her.  I said that I also was sensing that and hoped that s/he would get out of that mentality soon.  S/he said s/he hoped so too, but only for his/her sake in having to work with him/her!  I did of course point out that they can switch partners and work with anyone they want.

[Goodness, all of this supposed anonymity makes for horrible sentences with all the s/hes and his/hers. I wish English had gender neutral pronouns.  I might have to just be grammatically incorrect and go with "they" and "their."]