Job Discussion Forums

[Japanology]

OPer deleted original post

[Glenski]

Can you not be so cryptic? What country are you in? Is it an international school?

Also, what do mean by "wild and hard to control"?

Are you in any position to effect change?

[SeasonedVet]

Japanology,
I find your assessment of the situation rather interesting.
Interesting quote from Hashimoto et al.
I want to hear replies from others too.
I'll wait with you.

[OneJoelFifty]

I almost posted a thread talking about the exact same thing yesterday, but I wouldn't have been as in-depth as you. Good job.

I work in a private J/SHS in Japan. I teach classes solo. There are two textbooks the students have that I'm obliged to teach from, one of them recommended by the Japanese government. Each of the 1st grade senior high classes I teach has 40 or 41 students.

I've found that certain classes lack the basic respect that they have in their Japanese-taught lessons. I've been giving it a fair amount of thought in the last week or so after a particularly bad class, and I strongly agree with your points other than numbers 3 and 4. I think the biggest thing is the discipline issue, it easily explains why they can sit still in silence for 50 minutes copying from the board and listening to their Japanese teacher lecture, but can't shut up for a few minutes at a time while they receive instructions from me about the next activity.

Of course there are other issues with how they view the value of English conversation (it has none in relation to university exams), and the previous foreign teachers must have an influence as well. The difference between the 1st grade JH classes I teach and the 1st grade SH classes is staggering. And in truth, the level of the material I'm teaching in both classes is nowhere near 3 years apart.

The thing is, they are good kids. It's a nice school. There is no underlying element of hostility towards me. In the worst class, the seventh of eight (they are sorted by academic ability), there are a range of students. The ones at the front generally pay attention. The ones towards the back generally talk, or are unable to pay attention because of those talking around them. Then there are a group in the middle, who look like they're paying attention. Then when it comes to practicing English conversation, I approach their desks and find they haven't even taken out their textbooks. It's quite frustrating having to explain something several times at the front of the class, and then go around and explain it again to every group of students. And this is also using one of the textbooks that has explanations in Japanese! Of course, where they are sitting in the classroom may or may not be relevant.

I'm up to my 5th class with these students, and for the last one I basically dumbed it down a bit. I started off thinking that the textbooks were way too easy (and in relation to their grammar books, they are) and wanting to add extra to what they were practicing each class. They initially had longer periods of time to have extended conversations. This resulted in some of them speaking a lot of Japanese and not any English unless I stood by the desk and urged them to get on with it.

Now, I've started to focus almost entirely on the simple grammar points in the textbooks. Short bursts of conversation that don't give them time to go off on long tangents in Japanese. They have less freedom to customise the conversations by writing their own information, as they take an age to write anything. It's been a bit better, but I don't like making it so simple. Perhaps their level just isn't high enough; students in the top level class had to write a few sentences about themselves by way of introduction for the first lesson with me. The number that used sentence structure like "What do you play sports?" was scary. I expected more from 15 year olds in senior high.

Rant over! Any advice gratefully received.

[aynnej]

Thanks for posting this, japanology. As others have said, it's very interesting. I had a similar problem this last academic year at a private Jr/Sr High School. I don't know that I can offer any advice on creating a more culturally aware classroom, but I can relay a few class management tricks that helped me improve my situation (albeit ever so slowly) over the course of the year.

I taught grades 9, 10 & 12 (Jr High 3, HS 1 & 3). In the 9th grade class, there was a JTE present with me at all times. In the 10th grade classes, the JTE had to split her time between two native-taught classes. I was alone with the 12th grade class, but they were motivated students studying TOEIC prep, so I never had any problems with them whatsoever. I taught Oral Communication to the 9th and 10th graders. As in your case, the students considered it a "fun" class and tended not to take it seriously. Another challenge was I only taught at this school once a week, so it took longer to get to know the students and establish some consistent routines (this was a part time job on one of my days off from my eikaiwa job). But I understand from FT ALT's that teaching at a particular school only once a week (or less!) is pretty common.

In my 10th grade classes, there was a clear improvement in classroom discipline when the JTE was present. I definitely understand the situation you describe, with the students being better behaved in the classes taught by Japanese personnel.

So, here are the "tricks" I used:

1. I used a timer to control warm-ups and guided/free practice. I rarely let any exercise go beyond two minutes.

2. I put the students in pairs/small groups myself, and forced them to switch partners at least once. It takes a few minutes to do this, but after a couple of classes they'll understand the English you use ("You're A, You're B," or with hand motions "Pair, Pair, Pair, Group of three," etc.), and you can do this quickly. I found that if I let them choose their own partners, they'd just mill about and speak in Japanese. Plus, by changing where they sit, I could break apart the trouble makers.

3. I used rewards and punishments. This was tough, as I didn't have much input as far as grades were concerned, but it wasn't impossible. The grades for the O.C. classes were based on attendance and the results of five interview tests given over the course of the year (which they couldn't fail -- the lowest grade was a "D-"). In cases of really bad behavior, I could have the JTE take away the student's attendance point, which I did do a handful of times. But on a daily basis, I used rewards and punishments that relied on their more immediate desires/fears (desire to be accepted by their peers, fear of looking foolish, etc.).

3.a. I bought a fuzzy die at the 100-yen store. If I heard a student speaking in Japanese during warm-up/free practice time, the student would have to stand, roll the die, and answer that number of questions in English.

3.b. If a student consistently spoke in Japanese, I had a "special seat" in front of the whiteboard where they'd have to sit. Then, they would be my partner.

Three A and Three B became a kind of joke, with the other students laughing and saying things like, "Oh, Yoshi, you sit in the special seat!" I think that's important, because there is a danger of ostracizing/dehumanizing the student, if a teacher via his/her demeanor is too strict. In that case, I imagine these things might backfire. The class might clam up entirely and turn against the teacher. Maybe they'd be well-behaved, but they probably wouldn't learn much English.

3.c. We clapped. It's a small thing, but it worked. At the end of each exercise, I'd have a pair stand in front of the class and demonstrate whatever we were doing. Then, we'd clap. By the end of the year, the students were jokingly clapping all the time and telling each other "Good job!" in nearly perfect North American accents.

3.d. I gave stickers. Yes, I know we shouldn't have to basically bribe students to do what they should do anyway. But it was a negligible amount of cost/effort that saved me a huge amount of heartache. A lot of my fellow teachers have said that their Jr./Sr. HS students would scoff at stickers as being for children, but I found that, even if they outwardly shunned the stickers, they secretly wanted them. Especially when you and the class clap every time one is handed out.

4. I made them accountable for classroom English. At the beginning of the year, I made a handout of classroom English with Japanese translations. When a student looked at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look or gave me the "Eh??" or "Wakanai!" I'd pull out the Classroom English sheet and point to the sentence I was using.

5. I utilized the JTE's as much as possible and asked for their help. Sometimes, if their English wasn't that good, I wouldn't really want them doing the pair work with the students directly, but they could still monitor them, give hints, etc.

In the case of my 10th graders, I asked the JTE to switch the times she came to my class (sometimes at the beginning, sometimes at the end), and pointed out the students who were misbehaving so she could monitor them.

In one of my 9th grade classes, I had a problem with a group of baseball players. They refused to do the pair work, knocked books off from desks, "play" fought. Part of the problem was that the JTE was fresh out of college and not very assertive. Plus, he was physically smaller than some of the baseball players. I told him in the U.S., those students would be sent to the principal's office. And that someone could get hurt. He spoke with his supervisor, then the next week told me "I didn't need to worry about those students." Basically, he said it was okay if they didn't participate. They were extremely disruptive, though, so I persevered, told him we had a duty to provide a safe classroom, we are the adults and are responsible for the students, etc. He gradually became more assertive, we took away attendance points, I had them sit in different sections of the classroom. The situation still wasn't ideal, but it did improve.

Sorry to go on and on. Not sure if this is exactly what you were looking for, but hopefully you'll find it helpful.

I don't have any advice about not being a "clown" in the classroom. Personally, I've made my peace with this role -- I have no qualms about using fuzzy dice and stickers in the classroom. When I remember my school years, the best teachers were the ones who had engaging lessons, so I don't really see my tactics as being being juvenile, just hopefully engaging. In my opinion, professionalism comes from dedication, regardless of the teaching methods one uses.

[Japanology]

Thank you for the responses so far.