Jamie Thomas

School: Ferris State University
Department: English
Location: Big Rapids, MI
Overall Rating
rated by 6 students
Helpfulness
Clarity
Easiness
Rating Comment
Overall
Helpfulness
Clarity
Easiness
Pros: easy going, fun to listen to in class. very energetic.
Cons: We writa bout 4 big papers
Overall
Helpfulness
Clarity
Easiness
I agree with the person below me - maybe it is because we both got 4.0s that we like her? I am not sure. I took a lot away from this class; she was unprepared a lot of times and it was obvious she was very busy, but I learned most from listening to her stories and experiences. Also, NOBODY ever did the reading or prepared well for class; it was obvious to me so it must have been obvious and very frustrating for Jamie. It is especially disappointing when a room full of future TEACHERS tried to blow off this class so much. Our class was rude and disrespectful and she didn't put up with it, so that is why people were so pissed about her.
Overall
Helpfulness
Clarity
Easiness
It's obvious by reading some of these comments that many people did not like this Jamie. I guess I'm crazy or something.
First of all, it's important to understand that Miss Thomas is a graduate student. We have all had classes with graduate students and they can go one way or the other, but I generally grade grad students on their effort and knowledge of the subject. They are very young teachers, some only a few years old than us. They have their own research and classes going on while they are responsible for teaching a class of their own. THAT'S TOUGH! Obviously that is no excuse for grad students to blow off their students.
That being said, Jamie did try her best here. I'm sure she committed as much time to the class as she could with all the other junk going on in her life. She brought in guest speakers because she thought they would enhance the class, and they DID. I was VERY interested to hear what PhD students were working on and listening to them explain their dissertations was insightful for a future graduate student. She TRIED to make the class fun, making us do various activities that required us to stand up or what not. I'm not the most outgoing person but you have to learn how to do those types of activities if you want to be a good ESL teacher, especially if you are working with kids.
So I felt she tried her best and many of the people in the class were taking everything out on her, and I don't think that's fair. If you feel like she was not prepared or didn't know enough or something was funky with the grading, you should be more upset with the College of Education for sticking grad students in these LLT classes. It's more the universities fault for not putting "qualified" instructors in the classrooms. I for one thought she was great and I've had far worse. She tried her best and some people just have a short fuse and don't see things from her perspective. I can guarantee that had these students met with her during her office hours, they would have had a much better experience.
Take my advice, if you are upset about something, GO SPEAK WITH THE INSTRUCTOR! This doesn't mean e-mailing him/her--physically go to their office hours or meet with them after class. They will remember your comments and your interest in the class. Best of all, you can actually get a better grade by doing this as well.
I received a 4.0 in this class. Grad students are generally very friendly and will listen to you--if you don't come at them with attitude. Be respectful and things will turn out how you want them to :)
Overall
Helpfulness
Clarity
Easiness
The person below me is completely correct. Many people in the class and I discussed Jamie and these are all the points that we talked about. I won't leave my own review of how awful Jamie was because everything has been said. Try, TRY not to take this class with Jamie. I can only hope she saw our reviews and will try to be better.
Overall
Helpfulness
Clarity
Easiness
So, not only is the person before me correct, but Jamie is WORSE than that. Not only can she not teach, but she will be sure to treat you like an elementary student from Malaysia and have you doing random activities like singing "Row your Boat" and she will claim it will help you understand a college level pedagogical grammar class. Basically, she is good at teaching her elementary school children in Malaysia how to speak English, but she SUCKS at teaching future ESL/EFL teachers how to teach such children. I felt like I was treated like a Non-native English speaker FOR THE WHOLE SEMESTER. Let's not mention the fact that I am an English major as well as a TESOL minor who has lived in the United States my whole life and AM, in fact, capable of speaking English. Also, I would like to add she is an extremely harsh grader. She takes a LOT of points off for stuff that's not even wrong, but isn't written exactly how Jamie herself would right it. For example, she would say "What is blah". So, you'll answer what blah is...and then get the whole thing wrong because she'll say she wanted 3 parts to the question...when her directions never mentioned that and she never so much as hinted she wanted that from you. Also, you know those professors who will pick out the most random insignificant stuff out of the chapters and throw them on your quizzes and tests even though there's other stuff that is more pertinent to the course and will make more of a difference in your future by knowing it? Yeah, she'll ask the tedious, insignificant questions instead of the stuff you might actually remember or need to know. Let me then add that she will NOT respond to any emails sent between class times. For example, if you email her a question after Monday's class about the quiz or test on Wednesday because she can't teach and no one in the class has the slightest clue what random stuff she's going to put on the quizzes, she won't answer because "it is not fair to her or our fellow classmates". So basically, you need to know a week ahead of time that she's still will fail to teach you anything and that you have a question about something she didn't bring up in the future. WTF. Another thing, her midterm is worth 25% of your grade and will literally be one side of a piece of paper. Therefore, you are out of luck because her quizzes and tests are RIDICULOUSLY hard cause she never tells you what is on them and they are only out of a few points, which, as i've mentioned, she grades extremely hard so therefore, you'll do poorly. Her final was 35% of your grade and was only two sides of a piece of paper. AVOID HER. YOU WILL NOT 4.0. NOT EVEN CLOSE. All of this is coming from a 4.0 student who barely 2.5'd the class when the actual class is NOT even that hard, only she is. She's unhelpful, demeaning, can't teach, & grades way too hard for someone who gives no direction on her assignments. I learned more from her frequent guest speakers she invited to teach us 3 or 4 times than I did from her.
Overall
Helpfulness
Clarity
Easiness
Jamie is a terrible teacher. i dont see how her teaching in malayasia for a year allows her to teach this class. she doesn't go over the stuff we read in class and even when she does she is confused by the material and doesn't even explain the material right!
if you can take this class with another professor do so!

Refine Your Search

Professor Ratings Search
Search by Department Search by Last Name
Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format