Questions You Should and Shouldn’t Ask Your Language Teacher

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Many students hesitate to approach their teacher after class, which is understandable. While teachers typically reserve a few minutes at the end of each lesson for students to ask questions, this time often goes unused, particularly in larger classes. There are several reasons for this, one of the most common being a fear of their question being ridiculed.

Although some questions may seem trivial or vague to a teacher, they can often be reframed in a way that invites a productive response. Below are a few examples of questions you might want to avoid asking your language teacher, along with tips on how to rephrase them.

1. “Is It Hard to Pass This Exam?”

While students are justified in feeling anxious if they are doing enough to clear an exam, this vague question will only result in an equally vague response such as “Not if you work hard”. What else is a teacher supposed to say?

Instead a question like, “How many hours do you think I will need to put in on a daily basis” is a better question. It shows that you are actually willing to do what it takes to clear the exam.

2. “Why Are My Test Marks Low?”

The teacher would probably just say your marks are low because you did badly. A more invested teacher would probably say you made many grammar or spelling mistakes.

Instead ask, “What can I do to improve?” This way, the teacher will be forced to go over your paper with you. You have a better chance at having your teacher pinpointing your weak areas where you should be spending more time.

3. “Is This Important for the Exam?”

Language exams are conducted by organizations that are likely in no way linked to your language teacher. In other words, they have no way of knowing what is important and what is not. They would probably just repeat the exam curriculum to you if there is one. In the case of Japanese language proficiency tests, there is no set portions or curriculum. So this question becomes extra tricky to answer.

Instead, ask your teacher if they could give you model exams and tests so you can understand roughly how much you are expected to know.

4. “I Won’t Use This in My Line of Work. Why Should I Learn All This Vocab?”

It is true that you may not use the names of food items or vegetables at work. However, you may step out with your colleagues to eat when such vocabulary will come in handy. If there are 600 words that you are required to know for a basic level exam, you may never use 10% of them. You still need to learn them as they will often be part of basic conversations.

There is no way you can progress to complicated vocabulary such as “construct” or “engineering” without knowing how to say “book” or “house”.

5. “How Long Does It Take to Become Fluent?”

It’s hard for teachers to answer this question as different students take different amounts of time to get comfortable with the spoken form of a language. While some students start making broken sentences from day one and quickly progress to basic level proficiency within a month or two, there are others who will take a year or more for the same level of proficiency.

Instead, ask your teacher how you can work on the spoken language. You can ask them if they know any good online apps or tools that could potentially help you. A student once joined Toast Masters to improve her spoken Japanese. There was one being held by Japanese natives and a few other local Japanese enthusiasts in Chennai where I live. A teacher will be able to offer guidance on such events.

6. “Can We Have a Break?”

Finally, asking the teacher for a free hour is a bad idea. They will probably enjoy the break more than their students. However, they would have to rush through the lesson to make up for the free hour. It is the students who end up losing precious class time. Instead, if you feel the class is getting too monotonous, you could give your teacher suggestions for a language game. You could ask them to teach you a rhyme or song.

Final Words

It is indeed important that students get their doubts cleared from their teacher. There is truly no question that can be termed “silly”. However, asking the teacher for some information that is readily available online or in the textbook only showcases a student’s laziness. No teacher would want to waste time answering such questions.

Finally, even when a student has genuine grammar-related questions, a better framed question would elicit a more useful answer. If it’s something the teacher has already explained a few times, then you could try reading up on your own so you understand what exactly is your problem with that particular point. You could then ask a more specific question instead of asking the teacher to repeat everything again.