Job Discussion Forums

[Kurochan]

Every once in a while you get a class that's just horrible, and there's nothing you can do about it. The first year I taught in China I was teaching 2nd, 5th and 6th grades, and the 2nd were really bad. Teachers said it was because they were born in the year of the monkey! There was one class where either 5 or 6 Chinese teachers quit rather than teach them! I'm not exaggerating.

My dad, who was a college professor, also agrees with this (and also with my opinion that once in a while you get a whole year's worth of lousy kids). But, in his case, since he had tenure, he just had to wait it out, and know he'd never have to see those students again. Being foreign teachers in China, we don't have that luxury.

[cimarch]

Shout, shout and shout some more!
Seriously, sometimes you have to let them know you're angry, it tends to terrify them. But it gets very hard on the voice. I carry a metre stick around in class and when they are being too noisy (or sleeping) I just slam it down on the desk nearest me. If the kids sitting there are being good I'll mime putting my hands over my ears first and they smile and copy me, they all know exactly what's coming next.
A point on standing in the corner, sometimes it's not much of a punishment. If they still don't behave I make them hold out their arms at shoulder height and keep them straight, it gets REALLY painful after a little while. If that doesn't work it's either throwing them out of the classroom or the god old 'on the knees facing the wall, hands behind the head' from 'Malcom in the Middle'. His Mom was cool...

[Teacher Lindsay]

cimarch

How high is your 'stress level' when you're teaching?

Do you often get headaches?

How's your blood pressure?

Cheers

[cimarch]

Not bad actually. I'm not saying walk into class and start laying into them from the word go, I'm saying that you have to let them know, clearly, when their behaviour is unacceptable. I'm very light-hearted, easy-going and relaxed in class and I can be because they all know exactly what will happen if they cross the line. I'm generally very tolerant of behaviour as long as it doesn't disrupt the class. I don't mind if they help their neighbour to understand something (I prefer it) and I put up with a certain amount of horse-play. They enjoy the class much more than if it's overly regimented and they learn faster. But I have several warning signs to let them know when they're pushing things. If a class goes beserk I come down VERY hard. I've happily sat there while the whole class has copied out the same (very long) passage from the text book 5 times on more than one occasion. It doesn't seem fair to the good kids in the class I know, but it doesn't take them long to beat it into the heads of the others that they aren't happy with them. Just make sure they realise that it's not your fault, it was their actions that led to the punishment.

p.s. The 'Shout, shout and shout again' is a quote from Blackadder, not to be taken literally.

[naturegirl321]

Rhino, you picked a kid up and took him out of the class. Happens daily to me, Sometimes dragging them by their feet. I'm small, these kids are only a bit shorter than me. Others kick and scream. One kid went lipm while I was going to carry her down stairs, told her to stand up, or she would be dragged. she stood up. Going to try to water gun and let you know what happens.

[Roger]

I guess, as non-local teachers we don't enjoy enough respect. Misbehaving kids are widely viewed as venting their imperially sanctioned anti-foreign anger. Not always, but on occasion, yes. We are here, perhaps, as a kind of mollifier as those little monsters are forced by their own people to learn the lingo of the Barbarian. The Barbarian made us buckle under. Accept the WTO terms. We are the greatest nation on planet Earth, yet we have to speak with foreigners in their own lingo. How shameful this is!
So we hire some of them and they must know which station they occupy! If they don't know, our kids will teach them.
First thing: those kids assess foreign teachers. Those who "fail" get fired. Few of us get fired, to be sure, but it does happen. And, if the kids are dissatisfied with our performance our opinion is not taken into consideration.

This sometimes comes to my mind. Can I punish anyone here? I have tried, and very seldom got any assistance from local teachers. I stood miscreants in the corridor outside the classroom - a Chinese teacher reported this to the Head of the Foreign Language Department, who came down on me. "These students get too lively in my class!" - "So what? That's what they are supposed to do... They can learn under a Chinese teazcher. You are here to practise with them..."

[OzBurn]

A point system I have used to improve students� behaviour in a positive way is described below. If you find yourself getting into a negative relationship with the class, I would recommend it. It has helped me and other teachers.

This system requires that students be able to earn free time. This free time can come either at the end of class, cutting the class short, or during their regularly scheduled break -- which then becomes earned time rather than something that happens automatically.

POINT SYSTEM
At beginning of class, write students� names in roughly alphabetical order on whiteboard (this is important because it makes the names easier to find later). When a student does something right, give him a point. Students have to earn ten points to get all ten minutes of the break (it was ten minutes at my school, anyway).

If a student has not earned enough points, the lesson continues (you also keep giving points for the tasks they do after the end of class, when they are still working because they have not earned enough points to go on free time). I usually call those students who are short points up to the board and have them work in a small group, going over the more difficult content from the lesson. It is not necessary to keep the students more than a minute or two for them to learn the lesson that it is important to pay attention in class, work hard, and follow the rules.

Students� behaviour may not change the first time you use the point system, as they are waiting to see if you really will enforce the contingency. Once they learn that they will not go on break until they have earned ten points, they will be much more cooperative.

My students actually enjoy the point system (it works best with students under thirteen, however). But it is most important that you frequently deliver points. It is easy to arrive at the end of class with students� having earned an average of only five or six points.

Do not worry about students earning excess points. A student may get to fifteen or twenty points in a class, but believe me, in most cases he will keep working to have even more.

Students can also lose points for misbehaviour, but it is better not to emphasize this kind of thing, since it tends to create a negative atmosphere if it happens very often. Go with the positive points and you will see most of the negative behaviour melt away by itself (certainly not all, but most). Keep in mind that most negative behaviour can't occur if the positive behaviour is happening frequently -- e.g., it is hard for a kid to speak in his NL if he is working hard on the pronunciation of English words.

Here are some things students can earn points for (you decide what is important, sometimes telling them beforehand what you will be awarding points for if it is something you want them to work on that day or during the upcoming task):

a. raising hand and waiting for permission to speak
b. answering on the signal
c. finishing a sentence
d. checking their work
e. opening their books and finding the assigned page rapidly
f. having paper, book, pencil, etc.
g. giving an intelligent answer
h. giving a correct answer
i. being the first one finished with correct answers
j. getting all the answers in a set right
k. being kind or polite
l. helping another student
m. helping the teacher
n. having homework
o. working silently on a writing assignment or reading assignment
p. having good pronunciation
q. having good intonation
r. staying in seats
s. asking about words that they don�t know (something they may otherwise be reluctant to do)

Good luck with the point system. If you run into problems, let me know -- there are some things you can do with this system to make it work better for certain kinds of students and in certain situations.

[dannir]

Mmmm,discipline! I teach at a very large Middle school in Beijing.I do 8-9 classes a day,4 days a week.I have 50-60 students a class.I also get probs.I have had no help from teachers here so now I just make troublemakers stand outside the class until they are seen by the vice-principal,no other choices!

[psychedelic]

Regarding discipline problems, some South Korean kids are the worst. They are getting worse..very spoiled,rude and disrespectful.

[AsiaTraveller]

OzBurn, you are a master (mistress?) of pedagogy and psychology. And I bet you're an excellent teacher, too!

Where did you learn your pedagogical techniques? Was it in a CELTA or other TEFL programme? I think not. Have you done a specialised Young Learner course?

Too many EFL instructors (especially in the China forums) blame the government, the culture, the students, the students' parents, the school officials, other teachers ... or they might even blame God for not creating all students as angels.

They'll blame anything and everything, in fact, except their own lack of experience and expertise and creativity in teaching children.

One can only conclude that such instructors should not be teaching young children, and should probably not be allowed anywhere near children.

Why do they keep describing a job they hate, students they abhor, and a country and culture that they can't wait to leave?

Perhaps it's just the lack of training. So many foreign teachers take jobs teaching children when they simply have no training to do so. Yes, the market is huge, and anyone can get a teaching job (apparently) in China.

But why whinge/whine about it so much? Trust me: Your anger at China and its policies and "culture" (which is evident on this forum) has ways of making itself known to your students. You're probably not even conscious of that. And students respond to anger and frustration... very creatively!!

[Yes, I've taught young children. Yes, I rather enjoyed it. No, I didn't blame the local culture for problems in the classroom. I simply devised ways of dealing with them. And I'm a better teacher because of this.]

Go ahead, Roger. Flame away.

[OzBurn]

The point system is pretty much classic behavior-analytic classroom management stuff. I learned how to do this kind of thing from my mentors at my first school.

[Hondo 2.0]

Let me walk you through one of the methods used by police to gain voluntary compliance:
1. Explain the necessity of your request, and then reiterate your request. For example, "It's time for math class. Please take out your textbook."
2. Explain consequences of non-compliance, and benefits of compliance. For example, "I want to keep you in my class. If you take out your text book, you can stay here with your classmates. You won't need to go into the hall or talk to the principal/dean/headmaster. You'll be able to go out with for recess with your friends and have some fun. When you go home today, you can tell your parents that you had a good day at school."
4. Ask if there is any way you can obtain their voluntary compliance. For example, "I want to help you take out your textbook and get to work. What can I do to help you?"
5. Confirm refusal to comply. Or example, "I've tried my best to help you out here. Are you refusing to take out your textbook?"
6. Take action. For police officers, if the person says, "No," to the previous question, they won't say anything else. They'll just go into action.

The goal of this system is to create win/win situations where nobody loses face. It's not about "beating" the students. It's about selling them on cooperation, without undermining your authority or credibility. I read about in the book /Verbal Judo/.

I was watching the reality TV show /Casino/, and I heard two different security guards using that last question, "Are you refusing to voluntarily leave the premises?"

I think points for good behaviour are good. I worked at a school where they had a similar program. There were little slips that teachers could fill out for students when they were caught doing something good. The most important point is to be consistent, and don't let the system lapse.

[OzBurn]

I agree, rewards for positive behavior are important.

The compliance-securing procedure you mentioned is good -- straightforward and probably effective with most miscreants. However, it is quite time-consuming, so should probably be left to major discipline problems -- the kind of situation in which you must expel the student from class if he doesn't comply. The problem with using such a procedure for more minor problems is that it gives a heck of a lot of attention to the misbehaving student, and such attention is one of the unintended rewards that sustains misbehaving students.

I would also say that it is highly verbal and dependent on clear understanding of lengthy sentences, so might not work (in English) for students below intermediate level. Of course, it could be simplified or presented in the student's NL, if the teacher has the ability to do so.

[Hondo 2.0]

Hopefully you don't have to use all the steps all the time.

[Celeste]

I would recommend the following links for behaviour management info:

http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/eres/docs/eres/EDSPC715_MCINTYRE/715HomePage.html

http://teachers.net/wong/