Job Discussion Forums

[PeterGriffin]

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?

[beck's]

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]

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]

Deleted

[NorbertRadd]

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]

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]

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]