The "Interactive" Teaching Method

I've never really enjoyed French class, mostly because French teachers tend to employ the "interactive" method of classroom teaching, also known as the "blind terror" approach. How this strategy works, is the professor says something very elaborate in French, and raises their voice at the end of it, thus prompting the student to sweat worse than people in gatorade commercials.

When the on-the spot questioning appears too much for the student to wrap their spinning, panicked brain around, the teacher then decides to help the student by explaining just how easy it actually is, so that everyone in the room can become as aware of their raging stupidity as is possible. This allows the student to escape their prior panic and enter a realm of instinctive terror common to gazelles on the Discovery Channel.

"So I'm saying, 'SNU SNAX BEE TRAPS BELOPPO DOPPO DINGO SAUCE'." The professor guides, unaware that they now sound to the student no more coherant than that song where the singer rhymes people's names with totally made up sounds.

The student stares back at them, now, with a special expression that is at once primal and totally human, an expression that says "DEAR GOD, PLEASE JUST SAY THE ANSWER AND MOVE ON AND I WILL BY YOU A PORSCHE. IF YOU HAVE ANY KINDNESS IN YOUR HEART, JUST SPARE ME SOME SEMBLANCE OF INTELLECTUAL DIGNITY. I AM BEGGING YOU FROM THE VERY DEPTHS OF MY SOUL. PLEASE."

This expression will appear to the professor as follows: "I ALMOST HAVE IT."

"SNU SAX..." They slowly repeat. "So you need to conjugate Snu snax, and we're dealing with the subjunctive, so Snuuu....Snuuu...."

At which point fellow students, shielded from the blinding lights of performance demand, will begin whispering un-intelligable sounds in your direction, making it perfectly clear that everyone knows the answer expect for you.

"Snuuuu..."

"SPaghetti!" Someone hisses.
"Carrot Top!" The girl behind you tries.

"Snuuuu SnaxEEE." The professor finally divulges, at which point the student collapses into a frightened blubber on their desk, having by then learned so much French that their right eye has begun to twitch. The professor will never, ever fathom that the interactive approach is a lot like teaching someone to sing in front of a room full of people while in their underwear. Also, on the screen behind them is footage of the impressions they tried out that one saturday night and meant to erase. 


By Dave Beauchene