Job Discussion Forums

[gtidey]

What blundering baffooneries did you commit when you first started teaching?

[latefordinner]

Too many to count. No doubt I'm making a few still.

[Sonnet]

Thinking I could teach while half-cut (only ever tried this one once)

Giving the kids in one class nicknames (apparently 'cabbage' is quite offensive in Chinese)

Admitting to 12-year old Asian girls that I didn't have a girlfriend at the time

Using permanent markers on the whiteboard

All of the above deserve a pretty big , I know. I swear I'm a lot less amateurish these days - equally, I'm sure that my mistakes are still probably fairly amateurish. That's the point of getting experience, no?

[ntropy]

My mistakes are never "rookie," which suggests they're minor and correctable. Mine are monumental, earth-shattering and I hope I make more. People who never try anything new never grow

[Joachim]

I guess trying to be friends with the students before establishing authority.

And I wrote on the whiteboard with a permanent marker once too!

[inmexico]

I wonder how many of us HAVE written on a white board with permanent marker. My biggest blunder - falling in love. My biggest accomplishment - falling in love.

[denise]

Assuming that my students, while not proficient in English (that was MY job), were at least well-trained students familiar with academic activities.

I remember being astounded after assigning a writing assignment and getting from some of the students strings of individual sentences instead of nice, flowing paragraphs. What?!?!? Hadn't they ever written an essay before?!?!? (Uh, no... apparently not. One of my colleagues pointed out that perhaps they were math/science students and had never had to write in any language before.) I thought that teaching them how to write should not be my responsibility and that all I needed to teach was the language. Oooops.

d

[gtidey]

if i had a quid for every time i saw a teacher use permanent marker on a whiteboard... i could buy a whiteboard.

and maybe some pens too.

red ones...?

[biffinbridge]

Working for Language Link in the Czech Republic in a coal mining zone and getting the local police chief's daughter up the spout.

[dmb]

I find that when I write on the whiteboard with a red or green pen students complain that they can't read it beacase of light reflection. Stick to black and blue.

[zaneth]

writing on the local police chiefs daughter with permanent marker.