{"id":1166,"date":"2017-11-27T23:08:05","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T23:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/english\/?page_id=1166"},"modified":"2017-11-27T23:08:05","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T23:08:05","slug":"correcting-the-teacher","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/english\/the-sentence\/phrases-and-clauses\/correcting-the-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"Correcting the Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"Last updated: November 27, 2017 at 23:08 pm\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Photo by geralt\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/patrickcarpen.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/124\/2017\/11\/eb3db60829f7053ecd0b470de7444e90fe76e7d418b9134290f8c3_640_teacher.jpg?w=678\" alt=\"teacher photo\" \/>Teachers are not gods, not by a far stretch of the imagination. For centuries, too much has been expected of teachers. They are supposed to be role models on one hand and omniscient on the other.<\/p>\n<p>In the classroom, the teacher is supposed to be a symbol of confidence and wisdom. And would a student dare to correct the teacher? At least the need shouldn&#8217;t arise if the teacher properly plans the lesson!<\/p>\n<p>But what if a random question pops up? Or a discussion emerges which goes out to sea, so to speak? And then what happens if the teacher becomes befuddled and the student needs to teach him or her something?<\/p>\n<p>The fact is, most teachers would feel embarrassed, perhaps as much or even more than the student would feel exalted, if he or she were to be corrected by a student. But this shouldn&#8217;t be the case. While teachers are supposed to the masters of their areas of expertise, they certainly don&#8217;t know everything, and they should make that clear to the students.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, I received an English lesson via email from one of America&#8217;s most popular book editors. I didn&#8217;t really learn much from the lesson, but I found a grammatical error in one of its sentences. So I wrote back to the sender as follows:<\/p>\n<div>Hi Karen,<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I didn&#8217;t grasp the gist of what you were saying. Nevertheless, I should point out that the following sentence contains a grammatical error:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em>Such bad habits can be the death knell for our craft, if we&#8217;re not careful.<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>You only separate a principal clause from subordinate clause with a comma if the subordinate clause comes first.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>For example:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em><strong>If we&#8217;re not careful,<\/strong> such bad habits can be the death knell for our craft.<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em>Such bad habits can be the death knell for our craft <strong>if we&#8217;re not careful<\/strong>.<\/em> (no comma needed)<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">So you see, even an amateur can teach us something.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">When I was in Brazil, some of my Brazilian students of English taught me the correct pronunciations of some English words.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">I guess we all get shot down on own forts sometimes. As one girl quoted, &#8220;never be afraid to challenge the pros in their own backyards.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">Later on, I&#8217;ll tell you the story of &#8220;Andressa,&#8221; the Brazilian woman who traveled 300 miles to whip my ass in my favorite game.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;\">Now it&#8217;s your turn to teach me something.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Teachers are not gods, not by a far stretch of the imagination. For centuries, too much has been expected of teachers. They are supposed to be role models on one <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/english\/the-sentence\/phrases-and-clauses\/correcting-the-teacher\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":447,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,25,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1166","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-cxc-english","category-english-grammar","category-intermediate-english"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Correcting the Teacher - English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/english\/the-sentence\/phrases-and-clauses\/correcting-the-teacher\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Correcting the Teacher - English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Teachers are not gods, not by a far stretch of the imagination. 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