Entre Les Murs Essay

Entre Les Murs was an interesting movie about a teacher and his experience for a year of school. Mr. Marin, the French literature teacher the movie follows, has to deal with a racially mixed group of misbehaving students whilst trying to teach them literature. Through out the movie Mr. Marin continually corrects his students on their grammar, as teachers often do. It is understandable why his does this, as his occupation describes and does something that other teachers either should do or are already doing.

Mr. Marin will correct his students on their grammar or help them with a contradiction they gave themselves, albeit not very effectively. Also at the beginning of the movie his students will use slang to try and get their point across and Mr. Marin will ask them to explain themselves to try to understand what they are saying. For the first lesson of class he was legitimately teaching his students grammar so they fact that they could not use it properly annoyed him a bit. Not only does he correct their grammar, on the assumption of, because he is a literature teacher but because that is what all teachers should be doing. Good grammar is highly important in the adult life and is needed for resumes, business letters, professional e-mails, or anything else where saying “Yo what up homie” would not be acceptable in any way, shape, or form.

All teachers should correct their students’ grammar as it helps them and eventually after hearing it often enough they will start to say it correctly or use the words in the correct tense, or even use actual words for the tenses.

Having teachers correct their students promotes good grammar and vocabulary. Also, unless someone wishes to spend the rest of their life in the “’Hood”, as so eloquently put in the movie, as a slum, dependent on their parents grammar is an important thing needed, that helps get a point across with little

confusion.

The movie and all around life in general, provide good examples for the need of proper grammar. As such, in Entre Les Murs, Mr. Marin would ask his students what they meant when they used slang, and an experience I am familiar with. Many times when speaking to someone I do not talk to on a daily basis I will have to ask them to either restate what they said or rephrase what they said so it’s easier to understand. My eighth grade social studies teacher and sixth grade science teacher were good examples of teachers trying to promote good grammar. Whenever a student would ask to go to the restroom they would have to ask “May I go to the restroom?” instead of “Can I go to the restroom?” and my science teacher would mess with the students when they asked if they “can” do something instead of if they “may” do something.