My German Teacher is going to fail me for no real reason!!!

[Lady Freedom]

I am going to lose my College funding because one teacher is trying to get me to quit my job and go to Germany for a class!!! I have work hard, but still not the best speaker, been to most classes, done the work. I deserve a "D" Not an "F"!! She is the on;y German teacher I have had that keeps failing me and keeps pushing for her students to go overseas for a semester!! NOT FAIR!! I will call her on this!!! I will not lose my founding to so brainless dolt!!!:mad: :grr: :nuke:

[DainBramaged]

1. Probably gets a comission

piece of shit. Record her and take it to the University President

[Lady Freedom]

3. I'll end up going to the state board with it.

The President loves to export students. he has signed with other colleges around the world just to get us out and foreign exchange students in!

[Maddy McCall]

19. And you'll never get a rec letter from a professor at your university.

That would be a fatal mistake, unless you have hard proof of what you've alleged in this thread.

[Lady Freedom]

26. Don't need the letter.

All I need to get salary at my job is the diploma! I knew I should Have went to NEO and got the stupid Associates instead!

[carlita]

2. crap

thats crap! you must report it to higher levels. she cnt fail you simply because you refuse to go abroad for a semester. anyways, who is paying for that one semester abroad?
maybe she receives commission for sending students across?

[plcdude]

4. A word of advice here

You must be sure, that is have solid evidence of your grades before you do anything. I think it is important that you get from this teacher the grades she is using to determine her final grade. Studying abroad is an excellent experience but not part of the requirements of this course. Make sure through her syllabus how she is going to determine her final grade. Often times there are ambiguous categories included in the determination of a final grade that may give your teacher an out.

[Lady Freedom]

7. Not when you will lose the job that you ar going to school for.

I am doing this just to get the paper work for my TV station to put me on salary.And going abroad for eight weeks is impossible to do and keep my job. And there are no formal test,and the paper we writ for the final. And there are only 3 students in the class!

[JVS]

5. Sometimes German teachers just have to fail people.

It's part of what makes them German teachers.

[otherlander]

10. At least her teacher isn't going to fail a German for no reason.

We all know where that can lead... :crazy:

[JVS]

6. The above was my joke answer, here is a serious answer

The situation you describe seems almost impossible. In my experience teachers like sending students overseas because they show promise. Failing a student is no way to get him or her to go overseas. In fact, most study abroad programs I know of have minimum GPA requirements for the target language.

But moving on to what you describe. When you say "been to most classes" I worry a bit. Most isn't enough for foreign language. Foreign language requires that you're there for nearly all the class sessions. Why do you deserve a D rather than an F? What have you done that marks you work as D quality work?

[Lady Freedom]

8. 3 days out od a 16 week course.

Where another class mate (Who has already taken the trip)has only be there for a total of 4 weeks out of the 16! And she is passing! She speaks German as bad as I do!!!

[Maddy McCall]

12. How many times a week does this class meet?

What does the syllabus say about attendance and absenses affecting grades?

If you can't speak German well, how do you know that your classmate isn't speaking well?

:shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. She speaks German as bad as you do?

I hope her English is gooder.

:P

(sorry, I don't usually like grammar jokes. But given the topic...)

[Lady Freedom]

23. Not really!

Lots of Southern slang!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. It's got nothing to do with how you do on the tests?

[Maddy McCall]

11. You cannot lose federal college funding for one F.

Unless you've already made other Fs and are already on academic probation, one F is not going to terminate your funding.

If you are on merit scholarship, even a D will cause you major problems as far as keeping your funding.

As for "pushing to go overseas"...most language profs DO push studying abroad. I really don't think that your F is tied to the study abroad program.

If you dare to make such accusations, you'd better have hard evidence of such.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. Yeah.

Usually, and I'm not saying this is the case here, but usually when students say "my teacher is giving me an F for no good reason" there are usually some pretty good reasons.

[Lady Freedom]

25. Thats just it!!! What is the reason????

With only 3 students in the class all (How that other is keeping up is beyond me)doing the work and only two of us coming on a regular basses. And only one has enough control of the language due to living in the country for 4 years.How can I be the "F"?

[Lady Freedom]

14. No my GPA is 2.83

No Test in the class. And it is only this teacher that keeps failing me I take others and they will grade me at low "C" ( As I said, I'm not the best but I work hard)! This is the last German I have to take so I can graduate with a BA in Mass Communication/TV Broadcast!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

15. No test in the class? Then how does she test you?

What's the syllabus say, as regard to how the class is graded?

[Lady Freedom]

20. she talks with us in german and we are suppose to keep up with her.

She speaks way to fast and don't ask her to slow down! :scared:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. No, you'd ask: langsammer, bitte.

This is a form of testing. How well do you do at it?

[Maddy McCall]

16. Did you get a syllabus at the beginning of this class?

Did it tell you how you'd be graded?

When does your semester end?

[Lady Freedom]

21. Tomorrow

Syllabus has be more or less thrown out due to their being only 3 students.

[naturalselection]

27. As an instructor at a university

I can tell you that there is no way she can discard the syllabus. That is the "contract" b/w the student and teacher.

Your teacher had a pretty good idea of how many students were going to be in the class at the beginning of the semester and should have formed a syllabus accordingly.

That is pretty subjective grading on the teacher's part if she is "grading" you on your vocabulary.

I think it would be pretty hard to justify a grade without paperwork.

As I have learned in education: "Document, document, document!" Good for both teachers and students.

[Lady Freedom]

32. We have done nothing as it was written on the syllabus.

This in not unusual here. That happens in about half the classes here.

[Maddy McCall]

29. The syllabus is never thrown out.

It is the contract between the prof and the students.

When you stay in the class, you agree to abide by the syllabus. If you press this, the prof will produce the syllabus.

I'm not trying to be hard on you...you just really need to consider all of the questions I've asked before you protest your grade.

Trust me...department chairs are very used to students coming in at the end of the semester protesting failing grades. Unless their is hard evidence of unfair grading, the student is usually dismissed and no action is taken.

[Lady Freedom]

31. We were suppose to have written tests according to the syllabus.

We have had none.

Edit> bad library keyboard.

[Maddy McCall]

35. How many times a week does your class meet?

On the syllabus, does the professor state that class assignments may be adjusted throughout the semester?

[JVS]

46. That contract is quite hard to enforce

[Lady Freedom]

17. They call it Financial aid Probation...

You can be an "A" student, but if you mess up on one class they can put you on it. Or if you are not at a certain amount of hours. I am 2 hours off their mark so if I fail the course the school it self will take my money away.

[Maddy McCall]

24. You are aware that I am employed at a university and am...

well acquainted with federal financial aid laws? If you are an A student and make one F, it won't affect your GPA tremendously; therefore, you won't lose finaid. What you have said thus far just doesn't make sense.

Are you saying that you are not a full-time student? Are you taking only 10 hours?

How many classes are you taking?

Are you on academic probation now? Have you already taken this class previously and failed?

[cwydro]

28. All good questions.

[Lady Freedom]

30. No, I am not on Academic Probation,

My GPA is fine! But the school has two types of probation, academic and financial aid. I ended up on th later because I didn't want my grade to drop so I dropped a class that was bring it down (Jogging)So now I am 2 hours under, I'm 96 instead of 98 hours total. So If I kept the Jogging class I would ended with a low grade and loss some money I would get for grade point.
This is the last of four German classes that I need. I took this teacher in my freshmen class and she gave me a "F". I didn't think mush about it, Germans hard. Went though it again, different teacher, he said that I was average,"C". level 2, New teacher, "C" Average. Level 3 "C" Average. Now back with this teacher, "F"! How can I have average in all other levels, do my work, and get an "F"???

[Maddy McCall]

34. Just doesn't make sense.

Requirements to avoid financial aid probation:

Grade point average (GPA)—you must attain a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.0.
Completion rate—you must complete 67% of all attempted credits.
Maximum time frame—you must complete your degree/certificate by the time you have attempted 150% of the credit hours required in your program.

With which of these are you having problems? You still aren't being clear. How will making an F in this one course affect your financial aid?

Another thing: If you go to college administration and complain now, at the end of the semester, about being treated unfairly in this class, for christ's sake, do not say, "If I make an F in this course, I'll lose my financial aid." Oh, how many times they hear that.

[Lady Freedom]

40. I'm going through it and it doesn't make sense!!!!

She just told me how bad my grade is this week (Wednesday)! I have asked her how I was doing several times this semester with the same answer. "Your fine!" With no written test, I had to go by what she told me.I even sent her a formal letter at mid-term time asking what my grade for her class was, as suggested by my adviser( Who told me to challenge, and keep going till it gets changed or or hit the top of the chain) it just today after I told him all this.

[Maddy McCall]

41. I'd be suspicious of an advisor who, with no evidence other than a student's word,

tells that student to challenge all the way to the "top of the chain."

I think you're getting bad advice.

Are other students also contesting their grades? Did they have problems with this prof not sticking to the syllabus? Any chance that they'll back you up? Because the Dean will certainly question them, after you make allegations against this professor.

[Lady Freedom]

42. When there is no work to show due to the fact that we have had no test...

and just a hand full of book questions that we graded in class ourselves that she didn't even want turned in. And she has told us to do a 5 page paper instead of the department main stream final that it is suppose to be. Oh, remember this is a "German Class, took us to lectures about France. How can one not challenge a grade? And according to school rules anyway a class that has less than 5 students is suppose to be canceled. There are only three of us. There is plenty in the rules that I went over last night to challenge.

[Omphaloskepsis]

44. Bullshit..

I lost my Financial Aid for failing one class. This was at http://pcc.edu/

12 credits is full time.. You need this to keep in good standing. Between nine and twelve puts you on probation. You can only do this once. I failed a four credit statistics class while in good standing. I was only taking 12 credits at the time. Failing this four credit class automatically killed my Financial Aid. I only passed eight out of the nine credits. One class killed my Aid.

[Lady Freedom]

45. Thank you!!!

Glad to know there is a person here that knows what I am facing!

[Midlodemocrat]

33. I've read this entire thread and as an ex-university prof. I have to say

none of it what you have posted makes any sense to me at all.

I don't mean to be harsh, but if your communication with your professor is as poor as it is here, I can see why you are getting an F.

Why continue with a language with which you have a proven record of failure? I don't get it. Why not take Spanish or French after that first F in German?

[Lady Freedom]

36. Spanish was full.

French is number 2 in popularity here, not always space in the class. And I need 4 semesters of the same foreign language for a B.A!

[Midlodemocrat]

38. I can certainly understand full classes, but why did you go all the

way to German 4? That's what I'm not getting. My son took Latin in middle school, didn't do well, didn't enjoy it, so now he's in Spanish.

I just don't see why you would pursue something that is obviously difficult for you. :shrug:

[Maddy McCall]

39. That's why, when advisement and registration open, you need to...

be first in line.

[Lady Freedom]

43. Can't be first in line unless I was a Seniorwhen I first started it.

Disable students and athletes first 1-2 days
Seniors for a week after that.
then Juniors
next sophomores
and last is freshmen

[Maddy McCall]

37. I agree.

You said it much more diplomatically than I was thinking it.

:D