Job Discussion Forums

[Louras]

Hey
Have read the cookbook and there are no, and I mean no ideas that would be helpful in China. I teach a class of about 30 grade ones. They have no understanding of English whatsoever. They also get away with doing what they want with my Chinese assistant. I cannot shout and threaten them because that is not my job (and they would not understand that either). I am not a strict teacher but if the term "quiet" has been explained to them 100X and they still prefer to ignore it, I get frustrated. I am not a novice teacher but this situation has caused me similar problems in the past and is now getting out of hand. My conclusion has been that the CA must improve her discipline.
Suggestions like "let them stand in a corner" or any other is useless if it cannot be enforced.
Thanx

[Old Dog]

Louras, this is a very difficult problem and there must be many who frequent these forums who sympathize with you - and wish they knew the answer. I believe that discipline exists somehow in and through the personal aura but I don't know how to transmit it to others. But there is hope and I would suggest the following to you. There is a poster here who cuts a fine dash in the classroom, has been publicly acclaimed for his many successes even with the most difficult of classes, etc. His suggestions are much more down-to-earth and I believe that you could benefit enormously by doing a search. You could try "Roger" combined, for example, with "dictation", "listening skills", "attendance checks", "back to back", "stand till the lesson is over", "cross-checking", "demand attention", "flogging", .... See what comes up. There's sure to be an answer there somewhere since the poster has been astoundingly successful in just about every type of school in China. You have been given the key. Unlock 5000 doors!

[beck's]

You will find a great deal of personal animosity on this board between some of the posters. I don't know if my suggestion will work for you but I used it in Korea while I was there teaching kindergarten and grade one. I had some success with it but nothing is perfect.

At the beginning of the class I performed a one man skit about a baby who shouldn't be in school. I sucked my thumb and generally tried to act like a baby. Then I would be the teacher and send myself to the baby chair located in the corner facing the wall. The kids would laugh at my silly skit. After two times in the baby chair I would be the principal calling mommy and telling her to come get her baby. Then I would be mommy getting into her car (in China I would use a bicycle) and driving to the school to pick up her baby. At the school mommy would spank her baby and bow to the teacher before taking her baby home.

Believe it or not, this one man skit worked for me. When I sent a kid to the baby chair for naughtiness the other kids laughed at him and he lost face. I rarely had to send a kid to the principal.

It wasn't perfect and I don't want to claim that it was. As it is, I will most likely be flamed by educational theorists for my practical approach.

[Jolly]

[hankpeters]

I have tried several things that work. The Dunce cap is my favorite. If that fails, then I make them stand on their heads in a corner of the room. Of course, in worse case scenarios, a paddle, whips, and chains always seem to work wonders.

[kev7161]

My biggest discipline problem with my Senior students is the near-constant chattering. If they are doing a project, then the talking is fine - - I'm hoping they are talking about said project. But some chatter when I'm talking, chatter when a fellow students is trying to answer a question or read a passage, chatter during DVD time, they TRY to chatter during an exam, but I try to really put my foot down then - - my Senior Two's know better . . . Senior One? *sigh!*

My best used trick is to just stop talking (or have a student stop talking) or pause the DVD and let them work it out on their own. It takes about a minute or so. Sadly, that really cuts into the flow of a lesson and I find myself doing this at least 4 or 5 times during a 45-minute lesson. There has been the rare occasion when I've asked a student to leave because he (almost always a he) just won't SHUT UP!

But the previous poster is correct: The more interesting your lessons are, the more "hands-on" your lessons are, the more visual aids you can use, the more student-centered your lessons are, the more your students are apt to become better manageable.

Here's a sad story from yesterday: My Senior One, Class Five students (whom I see once a week) only watch DVDs. I have struggled with them for months and finally gave up. Yesterday we were to start a new DVD. The first five minutes of class were so chatty and I hadn't even started the movie yet! Finally, they got the hint and calmed down. "You have two choices," said I, "You can visit and talk and we won't watch the DVD or you can stay quite for the next 35 minutes and we can watch the movie." (more or less, I use a little simpler english than that!) Of course the students opted for the latter. Sure enough, a few scant minutes into the movie, here comes the talking. I was showing The Sixth Sense and I know what an interesting and creepy movie it becomes, but it does have a slow build. I guess the kids need WHAM! POW! right off the bat and it has to last throughout the film.

So, I pause the movie, give them a final warning. We had gotten past the part where the guy shoots Bruce Willis and then shoots himself (sorry if that ruins if for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but it's been out on DVD for a long time now - - what are you waiting for?). Turn the movie back on, and two minutes later they (well, not all, the same handful of boys as usual) start up again. So, I turn off the DVD and sit with them for the next half hour - - they're more quiet at that time than they were during the movie! Frustrating.

[tofuman]

Hankpeters,

Did you really use a dunce cap? I ran the idea past another teacher with more experience and he said it was a bad idea, so I never tried it.

I'm not interested in humiliating or shaming my students. I actually do like them, even though many have limited interest in English.

I thought it might be kind of fun to do the dunce cap.

Can you elaborate?

[foreignDevil]

Some things I have learned from other teachers, and then confirmed through my own experience:

1) If you have a "chatty" or "problem" student, clever discipline tricks like putting them in the corner, making them stand up for 5 minutes, etc, just give them more attention. And attention is usually what they were -knowingly or unknowingly -after in the first place. A previous poster mentioned that he stops talking if other people are talking. I do this RELIGIOUSLY. When two or more other students start chatting, I immediately stop and look at them. And, if another student or group of students is speaking to the class, giving a report, acting out a dialogue, etc, and some other students are chatting, I stop the activity. This might seem like a cumbersome class management tool, but if it is used RIGHT OFF THE BAT during the first class, and you enforce it without fail, the students get the hint pretty quickly. They usually will begin to do your job for you... you will fall silent and the offenders will not realize what is going on, and nearby students will nudge them and tell them to shut up.

2) Tolerance. I have observed other teachers who have a very low tolerance for classroom noise, and when I first started teaching I thought I had to be very strict and not tolerate any sound outside of whatever activity I was orchestrating. Obviously there is an extremely vast spectrum of what some will find tolerable and what some will not. But over the years, I have become more and more relaxed in my management of a classroom. If we are transitioning from one activity to the next, playing a game, getting out our books, etc etc etc, I am not going to insist on silence. THIS IS INTERESTING: as I have become more relaxed in my management of classroom noise, my students have become more respectful of the times when I do expect them to be quiet and attentive towards the activity at hand.

[beck's]

I just thought of something else that worked in Korea. I divided my classes into two teams. Usually the Snowboarders and the Skiers or something like that--cool names. Everytime a student answered a question or got a point in a game I gave their team one point. I recorded the points on the board so all could see. If a student misbehaved, I took a point off of the team. At the end of the class the team with the most points got candy or a Canadian lapel pin, which I got for free from the local member of parliament in my riding. It worked pretty well.

[hankpeters]

Tofuman:

No, I was just kidding about the dunce cap, whips, and chains. Actually, the only teaching experience that I have is in the U.S.

But, I have a system that works very well for me. Perhaps it can apply to Chinese students too.

Instead of raising my voice and constantly reminding students to be quiet, I have an easier method. If a student is being disruptive, I simply give him a form on which he must write an explanation of his poor behavior and why he is acting up in my class. Then he must take the paper home and get it signed by his parents. If he gets the paper signed, then his parents know about his behavior. And if it happens enough, his parents will be on his ass. If he refuses to get the paper signed, then I call home and give the student an after-school detention.

This seems to work well. Because I have a paper trail that documents the bad behavior. The parents are aware. The student gets disciplined. And I can never be accused of being "cruel" to any student.

[randerso]

Classroom Discipline is a tough thing to give advice on, mostly because as other posters have mentioned, it is based a lot in personality and on the make up of the class. If you have a sensitive or really low level class any discipline that relies on individual loss of face will be a reinforcing tool for the clam-like status quo (in regards to Q & A, not noise) - but at the same time, a passive stance will signal to a creative or expressive class that the English classroom is so far removed from the Chinese classroom that all expectations are thrown out the window. I think that if you want to maintain order you have to set out classroom rules at the outset, then stick to them like glue.

For example, my two biggest pets peeves in an older classroom are cell phones and others' talking when a student is giving an answer or speech. In the first class I simply list these and then some funny others (like 'you shouldn't kill other students' and 'please wear clothes') on the board as Class Rules. I then invite the students to make some rules (under my descretion - of course). This makes it clear that there are things that are unacceptable, to both you and them.

A younger classroom (8 or below) obviously cannot understand those kinds of rules - but you can show them gradually through your CONSISTENT reaction to trouble. If one child takes a crayon from someone, then class should be stopped and that child should have to give it back and say "I'm sorry" (or something of that level). I taught Korean Kindergarten for a year without T.A.s and the first month was rough for everyone, but the kids soak it up so fast that they soon policed each other. Cries of "Teacher, Kate push" or "Tecaher, Alan me pencil" soon became common place - then as my disapproval (demonstraed through the very useful shut-up-and-stare-into-space method) became something to be avoided, the class sorted itself out. The key to any discipline program with little ones is to be vigilent and consistent. You must always punish talking or sleeping or pushing in the same way with every student. Children are extremely pre-occupied with fairness (from authority) and cannot understand reasoning. This is why the approach that the student has hurt the teacher's feelings works so well.

I would stay far far away from personally humilating a student and have never seen the positive aspects of either corner time or physical punishment. The most extreme that I ever had to go was 'hallway' time, where I give the other kids a page to colour and take the problem child into the hallway where I would hold them on my lap (covering any flailing arms and legs) then slowly rock them and talk about what happened. I had a couple of kids in Korea who were borderline ADD and this personal, private attention worked well. It wasn't scary punishment, more like a facilitated time out.

You may also want to put in place a reward system - as positive reinforcement works just as well (and sometimes better) than punishment. Stickers, stamps, candy, DVD's, singing, etc. work well. Doesn't have to be fancy, just consistent. I would also say that it may be better for you to take control of classroom discipline and not leave it to your TA. I think it is much better for the teacher-student relationship. Also, I don't know if it's the case with you, but for me personally - I have found that most bad behaviour from the students can be tracked back to an unclear rule or an inconsistent punishment system on my part. I always kick myslef later.

[ESLteacher]

pp

[hesterprynne]

If you have a horse that bucks, you start off by exhausting it so that it will take your instructions as a welcome rest. You could try some really active games that wear the kids out- if you and your TA are up to it and if your classroom is set up in a way to make this physically possible. For example, a changing chairs game that works well if your chairs are in a circle. You begin by marking the backs of students' hands alternately with red or blue or black markers. Then write, in the corresponding color, on the whiteboard, these words: red, blue, black. Then have one student stand in the center of the room and call out one of the colors. All students with that color must stand up and change chairs. There is one too few chairs, so one student won't be able to sit and must be the new "It" in the center of the circle. Next, you erase the color words and write new words in the target colors of marker. Write words which are difficult for them to distinguish between. Such as head, hand, help or neck, leg, knee or who, how, and house, or bag, big, and back. Later you can build up to sentences such are "Who are you?" "How are you?" and "Where are you?" This improves their listening and pronunciation and gives them a chance to burn off their excess energy. You really do need to control a TA to control a classroom. A bad TA is worse than no TA at all. Sometimes you have to show anger- hopefully you can do this without feeling it. And sometimes you have to just do the best you can with a particular class and engineer a better setup next time, where you can feel more useful.

[Mydnight]

I think part of this also comes to the "realness" of your job and what kind of school you work in. See my topic called "Is your job real?".


The High School in which I work is a waste of time for me during the week, basically. Discipline is a pointless task; no TA was provided, no disciplinary rules, and all of my inquiries to the office about it have been ignored. During one of last weeks classes, I told the students blatently to shut up while I'm talking. "If you aren't smart enough to at least answer my simple questions, at least shut up with the Chinese for 5 minutes and try to improve your horrendous listening skills...and damnit, at least speak Putonghua."

Glazed eyes with the glint of not understanding a single word I just said.

"Next person that speaks, we will go together to the headmaster's." The savant translated and then there was silence.

The next class was so unruly, I finished my lesson and left simply walked out during the time we were going to do a game; 15 minutes early. I didn't say a single word and just left them.

Don't let it bother you, 99 percent of the time it's not just you that they are *beep* to. If the school is that bad, don't sign on with them again next term.

[latefordinner]

I have to agree with much of what has been posted.
hesterprynne: