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PeterGriffin · Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Qingdao

I have never been known as a person to hate, but know that I'm TRYING to teach Oral English I have found that many students dislike me. This is making me rather upset, and it's killing me all day long to think that soon I must go to a class with students who hate me. I'm teaching at a small college where the majority of the students are older than me. A Curiculum was not provided by the college, and my TESL training was a bunch of bull@%$t that has not helped me in any way whatsoever. So I truly don't know how to change the mood of some of my students. Also I am one of the two foreign teachers here the other is much older and he can speak Chinese, would you think this would have something to do with my problem? Crying or Very sad

beck's · Joined: 06 Apr 2003 Posts: 426

Peter, you have no education to speak of and no teaching experience. You can expect to have serious problems in the classroom. It is just the normal course of events unfolding.

Your students probably hate you because your lessons are not adequetly planned or carried out. You can learn though. There are hundreds of esl sites on the internet where you can find good lesson plans, discussion topics and other teaching ideas. You need to work a bit to find them.

I'm glad that you are concerned enough to ask for advice here. You are maturing in China. You have gone from telling us all to "lick you bag" and informing us that you are now "getting laid" to showing some concern about the job you have been hired to do. That is progress. Keep it up!

shuize · Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 1270

Then again sometimes students will just hate you. Some will claim it's because you don't have the proper accent. It may be because you have the wrong color skin. Some will be mad that the work is too easy. Some mad that it's too hard. Some will hate you because you call on them too much. Some because you don't call on them enough. I've heard students in the same class say they wanted more homework/less homework, more serious/less serious lessons, more speaking/less speaking, more drilling/less drilling, etc ....

If you teach a decent class, don't let their b!tching get to you.

tofuman · Joined: 02 Jul 2004 Posts: 937

Deleted

NorbertRadd · Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 5:40 am Post subject: vocab and sentence patterns

Smile a lot.
Organize your classes.
Tell the students: This is what you'll learn today.
Try to get them to lead the classes.
Get them busy so they have no time to hate you.

cujobytes · Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 6:14 am Post subject: >

When I train people I always follow this simple rule.
Tell them what you're going to tell them.
Tell them.
Tell them what you told them.

I'm sure it can be applied to teaching english as well.

anthyp · Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 1320 Location: Chicago, IL USA

I agree that your students probably "hate" you because they think you are an inadequate teacher, and it's unfair they got stuck with you.

I teach at a vocational school, and I, too, am young (although at 23 I am older than most of my students). But I am as qualified as any of the Chinese teachers here and there is certainly no question that I am more knowledgeable about the matters I teach here than my students. I have always strived to reinforce this by conducting myself in a professional manner ... and in the end I think I have come to earn their respect.

I laughed at that first thread of yours when it first came out, sure, but I seriously believe some of the posters were being irresponsible in encouraging you to come here. Tell me, if you had been a college student (I know you have never been), what would you have thought about being put in a classroom with a teacher younger than you? Of course you're going to think the guy's a clown. So what do you expect from these charges of yours -- respect? The Chinese respect education and authority -- you don't have any.

You might have been OK in a Middle School or kindergarten. But, as I see it, you only have one course of action here: give up on this grotesque pretense of being a teacher and become the "dancing monkey" you were hired to be. Play games, sing songs, quit masquerading as an educator and embrace your role as an entertainer, your students will just resist any attempts from you to teach them anything anyway. Your students may not respect you any more for it in the end -- but at least you'll keep your sanity.

Because let's face it, folks: smiling, being more organized ... it's already too late for all that.

NorbertRadd · Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 9:22 am Post subject: everyday's a new day?

PeterGriffin · Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Qingdao

Anthy i could not agree more with your reply. I truly want to give up on some of my classes. If I do give up then the students will go to my boss and complain to him, and this will only make more trouble for me.

I can't beleive I came to China.

yaco · Joined: 03 Mar 2003 Posts: 473

I can sympathise with having a bunch of ratbag students.

The best course of action is have a meeting with your leader and find out exactly, how you should teach.

Of course the opinion of the leader may be different to that of the students.

beck's · Joined: 06 Apr 2003 Posts: 426

Peter, I don't think that you should give up on the class. Stick with it. Find some good lesson plans on the internet and use them. Be friendly and professional to your students even though you sense that they hate you. Don't show them that you dislike them as they will pick up on this and it will make matters worse.

You can learn to cope with this. You are in China and that in itself is a great experience. You will have a million stories to tell when you get back home.

PeterGriffin · Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Qingdao

Yaco, I have met with my so called leader and his exact words were "Don't worry about it". So truly this school has been no help to my problem. I have also met with many of my students and asked them what they want to learn from me, and they all say I want to learn your accent. I come from Seattle, Washington where the accent is very plain, and I doubt I could teach this and see that my students will make progress, considering accent is based on where you come from.
I now do not want to give up with teaching because the college every two months has a meeting with the students to discuss problems with teachers, and only 2 out of 6 said they disliked my classes, which comes to no surprise that the classes that dislike my teaching are known as the worst in the college. I had just found this out today so I am a bit releived, and I'm finally pumped to go to class tomorrow morning.

I know I'm certainly not a good teacher, but I'm very young and this is my first time trying to teach and so far it has been a bit difficult but that is what makes it so much fun.

expatben · Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2005 8:05 pm Post subject:

I know what you mean. I too am young and admitadly my classes were disasters-even more so than yours I bet. But the truth is, thats how we learn. I know now what I never knew before and now I think when I return to the classroom I will do better and so will you. I also know how bad it can feel and how you feel you are cheating your students and all your boss says is no worries. If you wanna quit-do it (I did). I quit, gained prospective and now I wanna give it another try in Argentina this time not China where there is no disiplin. The fact that it bothers you enough to seek advice shows that you are a good teacher.
Expat

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

Some students may certainly hate you, but some just don't know how to express their feelings so stay rather "cool" with you. A couple of days ago I went with some of my Senior 2s to a singing competition one of them was involved in. I was talking to one of my more verbal students and telling him I was leaving this school at the end of the school year. He said something like: "Kevin, all the students really love you. Many of them hate English, but they love you so much. We will miss you."

!!!!

Now, I'm sure not ALL the students love me, but I feel the vibe from many of them. I didn't say this to him, but I love most of my students as well. I strongly dislike the school, but will miss them a lot when I leave.

Jamchuan · Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:35 am Post subject:

Some of your students hate you, but all of mine really despise me. I have been teaching in China for almost 2 years and this school year I got stuck with the nastiest of the nasty. I loved teaching Senior 1 last year but these city brats are out of control. They think because their parents pay a xit load of money they can disrecspect me. For a long time I thought it was me and I would run all my lesson plans by the Chinese teachers and they said they were great. No matter what I teach, they refuse to pay attention. I know its no use whining but I have to let it out.

You need to patient with them and try to spark their interest. If I have 1/2 of my students paying attention I am so happy. They think its your responsibility to get them interested and in a way, it is.I know you are young( I am too) so you need to spend more energy in trying to convince people that you can truly be an awesome teacher.