yes, avoid him

He is condescending and impatient. Hands out a lot of F's and is not available for extra help. Not usually around for office hours.

horrible. lets his political views get in the way of teaching and grading.

not fair with marking. lectures suck..do not help with material.

He was one of the meanest teachers I had. Odd marking system and vague assignments. It was really frustrating to be in his class. Not recommended.

self absorbed "teacher" who assumes too much and doesn't give his students the benefit of the doubt. your students DO READ!!!!

A petty, hypocritical jerk. Censors people for sarcasm, but is totally smarmy himself. Overwhelms you with reading, guaranteeing jack of all books, master of none. Do NOT get in his bad book, you will pay.

He appears to be a very intelligent man. However, He's also ignorant to what other poeple have to say. He thinks he is always right and he doesn't take into consideration what students' opinions are. Worst english Prof.ever. I learnt nothing!

Haag is one of the worst teachers I have ever had. He doesn’t even know the material he is trying (and failing miserably at it I might add) to teach. He made English literature incredibly boring to the point where half the class was asleep. Avoid him.

This guy will not help you at all. he is very stubborn and cannot argue with him. He will not look to help as well.

now that i have had a good english teacher, dr haag looks even worse than when i was in his class. he is very intelligent although he cannot articulate it clearly or keep your interest. if you argue with him, he dislikes you and will not even consider your arguement. intolerable and should be fired.

dun take this guy at all if u want to fail, doesn't teach, doesn't help u much and kind of have discrimination to students. i hate him

hard hard hard

Among the worst teachers I've had in 3 years of education. I wish him nothing but misery. His class is miserable. A lot of his students trash talk him; take him and you'll see why

really boring class and really bad teacher. learn nothing through the course and keep changing his grading rules for assignment. really bad, never take him!!!:-(

i have never learned so little in any class ever before a nice man who obviously knows and loves his subject but who should never have been allowed to teach. going to lectures is near pointless..essay topics a complete joke...and "surprise" midterms are really surprising....the english department is by far the weakest department at langara...

awful teacher dont understand a word he is saying he shouldnt be teaching english he should go back to germany such a hard marker too

If you don't want to sleep in class, do not take his class. he is boring and is not helpful at all.

His tests are hard and horribly designed. It is obvious that he hates his job. He doesn't explain things well and is unwilling to answer student's questions. Don't take him if you still want to like English. Good luck.

He was by far the worst english prof I have ever had... He was really boring and his choices of novels were mostly about his german heritage... not fun at all and he packs terms with 6 LONG novels... not good as a teacher.

I said: I don't understand XXX. Haag said: If you don't understand XXX, please ask. Then I went to his office the next day. I asked: I don't undestand XXX. He said: Why do I have to explain it to you. I have explained it in class already. What do you think?

This guy has no credibility. Big lier do not trust his words

He is the worst teacher I have ever had, I feel let down and disappointed that he is allowed to teach at the university level. I feel ripped off. I would STRONGLY recommend NOT taking him!

I always heard bad reviews about his teaching skills, so luckily I avoided his classes. As the Head of the English Department, he is completely lacking in basic social skills. Seems like this should be a requirement for the job as one must deal with people constantly. He should learn humility and step down.

He's so confused when explaining textbook, and students cannot disagree with his point! give quiz like no one passes. Just avoid him !!

Terrible, just terrible. Avoid at all costs - you'd be much better off with John Webb. However, his collection of green, yellow and purple pastel pants is mildly impressive.

Will destroy your GPA and teach you nothing in just ONE semester! All this for three easy payments of your time, dignity, and your faith in the teaching profession. You'd be better off learning from someone with a BA in communications. At least they might care.

AWFUL prof. Relies on class participation therefore there was a lot of awkward silences. Can be hard to understand though, terrible terrible marker, made us read a horrid, gory book called Ice Cold, was dull in his lectures, really unfair marker, spare yourself.

AVOID! he was awful, lots of really awkward silences throughout the class, tough marker, the reading material was horrid, Ice Cold was a very descriptive, gory book. Hard to understand his expectations, lowered my GPA a fair bit, luckily I made it to UBC anyways, definately do not advise taking a class with him

Save yourself your dignity, money and GPA by avoiding Haag at all costs. I took 3 first year English classes last semester and received two A's & a C with Haag. He is disrespectful does not know how to teach; he asked the class to write an essay summarizing the sentence "God is dead," which isn't possible. Never taking another course with him.

Avoid this teacher. Very Condescending and acts like he is too good or over qualified to be teaching 1st year English. If you don't like to talk in class, he is definitely not the teacher for you. Not a good teacher at all.

Avoid this class, he think he is way over qualified, many people fail assignments, he is not clear, does not really teach. Do not take his class.

Awful teacher, please save yourself the time and money and do not take his class! Doesn't care about students, gives poor feedback and his lectures are long and boring. Avoid at all cost.

He gives too much to read compared to the other classes . I don't care of people agree on this or not but I feel that there shouldn't be any way for a student to get an F on an essay unless they didn't talk about the topic whatsoever. What makes it worse is that he already gave the essay to someone else to mark but then he changed the mark for wors

It's a little hard to swallow his claim that he marks 'based on participation' when he frequently accuses highly-involved students of being absent. All he keeps is an attendance sheet, and not well.

The class is literally draining and boring unless you participate in the lecture. He just sits and reads the book and his essays are hard unless you read the material. Avoid all cost because you're just going to be wasting your time and money. Also, might bring your GPA down good luck.

Unable to understand what he is teaching and also dont tell or explain anything before exam or an assignment

Hagg is one of the worst professors of Langara!! He is a tough- grader and unclear with his words. He de-motivated you by saying English is your 2nd Language, its difficult for you to even pass this course. You need to put tons of your efforts to pass!! Really wasted my time with him!! He needs to learn how to teach and how to respect others!!

Worst professor i have ever had Very tough grading criteria and very very unclear instructions

His class semetimes is dry because he just read text book to teach us. I take his 1107 class and he talk about novel once a week. However, I cannot understand what he says about novels.

Just an awful guy. I was diagnosed with mono and had to miss a ton of class and even with a doctors note clearly stating I was extremely ill and extremely contagious, he still gave me 0 for participation and acted like I was a huge inconvenience and a lazy student every time I tried to talk to him.

Very tough marker. Started with a full classroom and had literally 70% of the class drop out a month before the semester ended because a majority received mostly C-D's. Participation is KEY. So unclear with assignments. Very dry lectures. Definitely very knowledgable and has great insight, but this is not the class to take if you want a high GPA.

Stefan is an extremely rude teacher and person. He doesn't provide clarification or help when needed. Is super unclear about what he expects (hw, etc), makes you read at least 150 pages of a novel in 4 days, and doesn't teach well as he relies on the books. He is always late to class. Most of my class has dropped & he is setting us up to fail.

TERRIBLE teacher. 2/3 of the class dropped out. Doesn't actually teach, just reads the textbook to you, doesn't generate good discussions despite emphasis on participation. Uncommunicative, makes LOTS of mistakes, unclear instructions. Doesn't seem to care if his students succeed. Will ruin an otherwise solid GPA, and worse, you will learn NOTHING.

Haag is a particular marker but is completely unclear about what he expects. He is a nice guy and is very knowledgeable but better English teachers are easy to come by. The most difficult part of his class is trying to understand what he wants from vague instructions. Do not take Haags class, he makes it far more complicated than it needs to be.

Don't even consider taking a class with him, trust me you'll regret it.

A tough grader and doesn't clarify what he wants from your essays

The absolute worst prof I have ever taken!!!! I took an Intro To Academic Writing in hopes of learning how to write proper academic essays. He spent the entire semester having us write irrelevant 200-word paragraphs with no instructions. Egoistic and disgusting. Gives work and then marks it completely different from what he asked. Would give him 0.

This professor was the worst experience I had had in my entire academic career. There is no teaching at all! His idea is just to read and practice. The number of papers and reading were unreal with way harder than average level. Please don't take this if you want to learn something and have a good experience learning english.

Suppose there was zero, I give it that. Worst teacher ever. There are no instructions what so ever no videosjust readings. The grading is nothing compared to what he asks. Just read other people's ideas about this professor from past years; you understand what a horrible experience this can be!!

Worst prof ever that you can find. No lecture. It does specify what he wants from you .you can get F if he doesnt like your essay, like if you didnt write anything at all. Your idea and explanation dont mean anything to him. I dont understand how we can have an English class with no lectures. if you should wait a semester to change prof do it.

This is a difficult course.

Felt like work just trying to get to the actual course work.

Literature is a really broad medium, and yet this prof somehow managed to find the most agonizingly boring material to study. While the course work itself isn't too difficult, his "critical feedback" is better described as nitpicking as he'll subtract for the most random or arbitrary things that most other professors might even praise.

Its been mentioned by countless others that the bar is set high. 5 stars if you only care about being the best writer. 0 if this is to get to the point and keep your GPA where you need it. Take it and drop it if you want good value, but understand that you are going to be taking a risk to meet the standards for this first level course. Great prof.

Dont be foolish when reading the comments by thinking that you are the anomaly that will ace this class. Top of the distribution goes to skills that relatively worthl Therapy sessions incoming. I mean, what else can you do to cope with someone who makes you feel like you got their point then fails you on something they have yet to talk about.

Take this if youre looking to advance your skills to their peak. Expect to devote a 3/4 full-time course load to get to the bottom of the course, where you must get to get any credit.

Overly complicated. I felt I didn’t have much time to learn amidst the running around that’s required to get to the bottom of what he’s teaching. The pompousness of the lectures is hard to deal with when you realize how focused he is on the finer details. He expects you to get to his level of understanding of everything, so study every word..

I did a great mistake choosing him. But I had to choose him because of my prerequisites. Would not suggest anyone to take him. Please don't take him. He doesn't teach anything and gives worst grades. I am just hoping to pass in his course.

He is the worst professor I had ever had in my entire academic professor. I tried to opt for the course even after reading the comments, thinking I can pass. But he is the the worstest professor. One cannot study with him. His quizes literally with no meaning. I am regretting so much as it costs me around $2000. Will not advice anyone to take it.

Haag told me that my writing was fine, but that he dropped marks because I submitted multiple assignments in one day. Like what? I'm sorry I have other classes to attend, I still submitted the assignments. The audacity of this guy to look at the times I was submitting and deduct marks based on that is mind blowing. Don't waste your time.

It was a terrible idea to have an old professor teach online courses. It is clear that he is too old to structure his online class properly. Expect to lose marks because he does not know how to properly use the calendar function on Brightspace and set clear deadlines. I do not recommend taking Stefan for ENGL1123 at all.

Probably the worst choice I have ever made. I honestly should have dropped this course when I had the chance. You write essays on the spot without even knowing what they are about. How do you expect your students to do well in class when you don't teach it, simply reading a book out loud and asking questions is NOT a lesson. Do better HAAG.

Very hard marker & is never very clear on what he expects from you. No matter how much of his criticism I took into account my grade never changed, I unfortunately do not recommend!

Uses things like "a number" and "several" yet want exactly 200 words on a discussion post. Lots and lots of reading and all the topics are ancient. Very dry lectures, slow and too wordy (it's an English class yes). Terrible experience

I should have listened to the others on here but I thought that I could be that anomaly. Was I wrong. He is NOT clear . His "lectures" are not lectures. This class is supposed to be an asynchronous class, yet he schedules class time to go over materials. Save the money, don't register for this class. Haag's motto should be "teach yourself!."

In this fully online course, all the instructions are unclear I'm sure 99% of people struggle with the same problems. The content is very boring for an English class, it is irrelevant and outdated. Very unreasonable marker.. as an A+ student I have been getting 0.3/1 (yes, graded by .) on assignments and the feedback is critical and opinionated.

so terrible

Please save your time and your money. The entire semester was terrible. He has no structure or even the brains to understand how to make a proper class. All he does is leave irrelevant comments and your work and does not even tell you what he wants from you. He has more ego than anyone I have ever seen and does not teach a single thing properly.

Bad enough to seem purposeful. "Hard" means you are forced to swim up current with this professor. If your goal is doing the professors job to get ahead, take him. Try asking what you did wrong and how to fix it or asking for a rubric. Either incompetent or different beliefs from all my other professors on what intelligence is. Save your resources

waste of time and money he does not teach or mark. can't believe he is still allowed to teach college! do not take this class

If I could sum it up in a few words: do not take this course. I ALSO thought I could be one of the students that could potentially do well, however I ended up withdrawing because the feedback I got for one assignment was actually so demotivating that I couldn't do it. Trust the reviews unless you want to feel horrible about yourself.

He's a bit delusional, and has no compassion whatsoever for different writing styles, opinions, and lacks humility. I'm on my first week, and I can already feel the absurdity. Next time I'll read the reviews.

Disclaimer: he expects you to know academic English already. PLEASE SAVE YOUR TUITON MONEY. class lectures: -Pop quizzes (from the last lecture) -200-word discussion of what we have learned throughout the lecture in 15 MINUTES -unorganized articles, making you think why is he teaching us this -2 in-class essays (you have 1 hour to write them)

Don't waste your time or your money. None of his expectations are clear, and he is a TERRIBLY pretentious instructor. I asked why I received zero marks for a completed assignment, and he could not explain why. I dropped his class after 3 weeks. Another embarrassment to Langara's faculty...

tough grader!! don't take this class if you want a better grade. He does not specify the criteria on how he grades the discussion posts. If he does not like what you post, he scores you 0 after 4 posts then assume that you did not read the articles.

What da helllllll

Listen to the other reviews. This class made me single handedly despise English as someone who was considering majoring in it.

I recommend that you never take it. The classes are boring, just reading novels, and I don't feel that I am growing in spite of all the work I have to do. I have never had such an uninteresting class in my life. I wonder how much I would have grown if I had gone to the gym during the time I was taking this class.

DO NOT EVER TAKE HIM. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!

I am convinced this prof should have been let go by the school years ago but they cannot for some reason or another. This man teaches like your 80 year old grandfather would. Absolutely detached from reality in every sense. Class went from 28 to 13 within 3 weeks.

Do not take! Just don't! All classes were full so I had to take his. Worst mistake. My friend was also in his class and had to drop it. If I could I would have waited another semester. Horrible feedback and rude professor.

DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS.

Way too many assignments/readings/etc for a 1st year intro course.

If fact, he is not teaching, he thinks the students are all experts and they have to give a perfect and professional essay otherwise you get a F!!! Just deducts the GPA. don't take any course with him!!

This is, quite possibly, the worst professor i've ever had. He has yet to teach us anything, but has no issue giving us brutally hard grades and deducting marks based on expectations that he had never previously laid out.

About one month in and not a SINGLE thing to be taught. Just gives you a list saying "do this". Please do not waste your tuition and just pick any other course.

dont take him. he makes no sense. hard grader

I took the course to gain a credit and learn more about academic English. I used to love English until this course. He's vague, assumes that you should know all criteria that he doesn't teach, and the course work is…odd. I spent so much time worrying and stressing about my grade that I developed stress acne. Wish I knew beforehand.

Do not take this guy's course. Criteria was vague and he does not accept any ideas that is different from his opinion. If you write something that he does not agree, he will take marks off.

Very confusing to navigate course on Brightspace. Gives way to much work super early in the class when I'm still trying to decipher what the projects I've been assigned even are. Get marks taken off due to criteria that was not given before hand like word minimums.

Real experience, he didn't let us use pencil on exams or homeworks but he didn't mention it, he can be upset if you have too many questions. Phones are not allowed (you can't gg translate). He won't give you a chance to redo anything (even if you get a 0 by using pencil in your homework). He's not actually teaching, just read everything in the book

I swear....he hates your assignments from the start.

This is the worst professor I've ever had and all of my professors have been absolutely amazing BUT this one was awful. The very first day he gave us a random assignment that was worth a huge percentage of our grade AND a quiz.. He also never tells u when there will be quizzes. He randomly assigns them. His writing is scribbles, unreadable big NO!!

Do not take this class. He takes marks off after not stating beforehand the criteria he wants. The material is also very weird and doesn't make any sense it's a waste of time because you don't actually learn anything at all. He doesn't teach he just talks about articles and expects you to know everything. Also plays strange history music it cringe

Don't waste your time registering with Stefan Haag. I should have read the reviews before enrolling. I don't even understand how Langara affords to retain such a terrible, vague teacher. No matter how hard you try, he will continue to give you terrible marks. Save yourself the hassle and select a different prof. I would rate him 0/5 if I could

If you want a teacher that will help you lose your money and time, choose Stefan. He's infamous for giving low marks on assignments no matter how much effort you put in them. I honestly hope langara sees these reviews and discharges him immediately. It hurts his ego to give good marks maybe because he never got any in school

I take this class in person and he plays history music from the 1500s for like 5 minutes at a time some days. It's honestly hard not to laugh. Class went from like 27 to 6. That says a lot right there. Not a good class teacher is absolutely horrible.

Tenure Baby. Seriously there's not one good thing I have heard about him from students or the department. He refused to mark 4 assignments because I missed 1 discussion post related to that topic. Says he doesn't believe I actually studied for this thing. When emailed to discuss his email started 'First,"Hi" is not a proper salutation for an email.

Why am I studying and going in depth on a paleoclimatology topic in an English class? Other than it's essay which is related to English I fail to see how studying paleoclimatology leads to better academic English. If you don't have a printer get ready to keep spending money at the library to print things. Often goes over time.

DO NOT TAKE. YOU WOULD RATHER MUCH SPEND YOUR MONEY ELSEWHERE! Im afraid you'll have to spend more money on therapy if you take this calss. If you do take this class, make sure you stay on top of everything and try to do those extra credits as much as you can.

Does not give you clear guidelines. I suggest that if you take this course, you reread every critics he has given you and apply that to every assignment. Write closely to his given format and go over the module very closely because his assignment guidelines are in different places for some.

Grading guidelines were different between the prof and grader, who was hired and did not follow the textbook; marks on discussion posts were too scattered; pompous comments on assignments despite his "adversity" to "pompousness"; assignment guidelines were unclear then blamed students on formatting issues