Job Discussion Forums

[NK2001]

I recently overreacted to some misbehaving in class, my students are usually well-behaved and respectful, I know that it wasn't necessary to threaten to kick them out of the classroom. Have you ever apologized to your students and how did that affect your relationship with them?

[Ben Round de Bloc]

In my book, the "trick" to it is to act before you lose your temper. It's much easier to deal with irritating situations/students while you're still calm and in control of your emotions. You're less likely to say or do something that you'll probably regret later.

I see nothing wrong with teachers apologizing if they've done something which merits an apology. My philosophy is the same for making mistakes. I see nothing wrong with admitting to errors when I make them.

[dmb]

A student once called me a d***-head in Arabic because i had marked him absent, he was 30 minutes late so I was just doing my job. He then prceded to beat up his friend. I politely asked him to sit down, he ignored me. I asked again a little more forcefully to which he told me to F*** off. I then told him to just sit the f*** down. He then stormed out of the room. The other students then apologised for their friend's behaviour. On his return I said sorry for swearing. He then said something in Arabic which I didn't understand. his classmates laughed at what I said. I decided to ignore it. Things seem to have settled down.
What is your policy about swearing?It is part of the English language, and many of my students know swear words. Should we teach them how to swear properly?

[richard ame]

Hi Forum
Yeah it's a tricky one to answer the act or (art) of swearing in a classroom when it may be directed at a student can have far reaching and serious effects on the little darlings especially when they are ata pre teen age ,having said that I have being on the receiving end of a very adult outburst from 10 - 12 year olds,sometimes the stuff they come outwith in Turkish makes me blush and thats hard. The things they are going to do with each others dog,cat,sister,mother,and grandmother not to mention the pet hamster ,well words fail me ,yes swearing is part of our colourful language and on more than one occassion I have being forced to use it ,with mixed results .
Losing it happened on a pretty regular basis at one private school I worked at and the kids were usually subdued for the remainder of the lesson but next time they stated using it on each other ,who said communication is dead? Seriously though it is something that the more professional of us would regard as a failure on our part I did ,I still do , so as much as possible I try to avoid it and I take time out to talk about this much copied way of speech,the kids watch a lot of American cinema and well they pick it up even B.B.C Prime is using it a lot more these days .Basically I told them that its only used by me when I'm really angry and I apoligse in advance for it ,they seem quite surprised that I do this so when at some point it does happen they know that they have gone too far and usually I get an apolgy back for their inapporiate behaviour ,so it can be a two way street .

[Roger]

You are the lonely person among a classful, the ambassador of the English world in an alien culture, the English speaker who has to convince your students that some of their ideas of Westerners are biases, and voila! You react, overreact to provocative behaviour. The first poster's questions sounds like he wants to know whether foreign teachers should aplogise to their local students because of perceived behavioral differences between your home country and your host country.
The best indication might be whether local teachers would "apologise" to their students.

Oftentimes, the odds are stacked sky-high against you. Do you have recourse to a sympathetic administration, do your local colleagues support you?

I find that many backstab you, enjoying the difficulties you have with their students. Not that this happens everywhere, but it does happen.
Personally, I think apologising to students is a last resort and should be considered only if you are satisfied that you have actually given offence to their feelings in the first place. An unwarranted aplogy can easily lead to students perceiving you as weak.

For instance, I had three girl students in a college class of 24, who took unapproved leave. Later, they lied to me about their absence; I demanded they do extra homework which they refused to accept. Finally, I took the problem up with the principal, the girls started crying (which in China is a most effective means for youngsters to manipulate adults), but the principal remained unmoved and finally ordered the three girls to apologise to me, upon which their tears dried up within seconds.

Once I had extremely sluggish participants in an adult PETS course. Their levels were so wildly different as to be positively mutually incompatible. They had a Chinese English "teacher" supposedly teaching them writing and grammar although he could not make two English sentences either. One of the more capable students suggested I only do pronunciation drills, which I refused, saying I want to do a bit more than just that. When I asked students to read whole sentences individually, the first three or four did as bidden, then the next one simply stared at her book, reading not a syllable, with the whole class waiting in vain.
We had thus lost maybe twenty minutes, when I exploded. I told them to come to the Manager's office if they still wanted their lesson to continue.
I sat down in the Manager's office; he looked slightly worried, but we exchanged not a word. I was angry with him as well. Ten minutes past, then the whole gaggle of students trooped into the office, with the most courageous of them blurting out "we want to apologise!" They all agreed they had been too stubborn, and the rest of the lesson was saved.

But I have not always had so much luck. I also taught in a very rowdy primary school. The students would stand up at the beginning of the lesson, and perform a rather ludicrous bow ibn my direction before I gave them permission to sit. They did that to all teachers. The parents were excessively wealthy Cantonese who would drive their cars from cities 300 kms away to pick up their kids for a weekend at home.
As soon as they sat, some would launch paper aircraft across the class, those hit would shout abuse at the perpetrator of such an act - and not infrequently, I saw a bleeding nose. At first, I stood the worst offenders in the corridor, but a Chinese teacher pushed them back into class. I was told I was not allowed to "punish" them this way. So I complained to the head of the English Department. She seemed to sympathise, but nothing rweally happened. Mayhem was the norm every single period in those classes. I complained a total of three times, every time feeling a little more that they were not keen on putting an end to my troubles.
Then, one day, one guy was hit over his head so bad he was bleeding and crying. That was just ten minutes into the period. I walked him from the fourth floor to the office of the Head of the English Department on the first floor - and nobody was there.
There was no lesson for the rest of that afternoon, but if you imagine any improvement came from this incident you are wrong! Let me add that I occasionally observed my CHinese co-teachers scolding these young brats (aged 12 to 14). These would be real shouting matches, with the kid eventually crying like a wounded pig. To top off any punitive action, the teacher would seize the mobile phone of the youngster and hide it in a drawer - which would inevitably bring out a flood of tears and implorations! When the kid was sufficiently worked up emotionally, the teacher would phone the parents and inform them and listen to their kid.
Of course, such a course of action is not available to us!

[naturegirl321]

yes, I get the students out of class and have a chinese person yell at them so that they lose face and then they come back and are angels.

[guty]

I once lost my temper with some Arab students, one of which was saying stuff in Arabic. So I swore at him, in Czech. He knew I wasnt saying anything nice, but didnt quite know what it was, and that it wasnt any of the English swearing he knew.
I felt a lot better for it anyway.

[Capergirl]

On one rare occasion where my Taiwanese students (adolescents) became rowdy and rambunctious, I gave in to my frustration and yelled at them to sit down and shut up...in Mandarin Chinese (these were two of the phrases which had been taught to me by my Taiwanese co-workers, unbeknownst to my students). Their little faces were like this:
It worked amazingly well...something about hearing it in their own "tongue" made them smarten up.

I haven't had too many occasions where I've been upset with my adult students, but last week I was rather miffed about the plagiarism (they had plagiarized their essays from the internet) and they knew it. I did not raise my voice, but I think just my tone and the "look" (we women are great at giving the "look" ) made them realize I meant business. Then I told them to redo the assignment and that if I see even one sentence plagiarized in their essays, they will be receiving a zero.

As for whether or not to apologize, I think it depends on whether or not you feel your anger was justified and whether or not your reaction was over the top. It's natural for teachers to get frustrated with students every now and then. IMO, the best way to handle it is to let them know that you are angry with them and why, and if there is something they can do to get back in your good graces, they should be given the opportunity to do it. If you go too far, it is probably a good idea to apologize for your overreaction, but I don't think it is necessary to go overboard with the apology either. Make sure that the focus is still on their actions that caused you to become upset in the first place.

[aaronschwartz]

I have never lost my temper in class although there have been many times i think it would have been completely justified.

I simply toss the little brat out of the class very unemotionally. They are required to go see the FA director who just hates to be bothered. They do their Chinese to Chinese thing and the student returns the next class day.

I never seem to have to kick a kid out twice.

They never seem to hold it against me.

I have apologised to my classes more than once but it is always for the school admins who have done something that has screwed up a planned field trip or activity. I use this to explain that if you want something done right you must do it yourself and not rely upon incompetent admins etc.

Works for me!!

[Hap Thorton]

Capergirl,

Do the grades you give have any power? Are you teaching in a private language school? In my experience, I've never been able to use a bad grade as a means for improving behavior. Students often seem to move up levels regardless of the grades they get from their (foreign) teachers. I just assumed you're teaching at a private school since you mentioned teaching both children and adults. Anyway, that's been my experience in Taiwan. It sounds like you're at a good place. They actually do homework??!!

[Capergirl]

[NK2001]

Thank you everyone for your responses. I'll have to remember the trick to answer the smart alecks in Spanish, here in Thailand no one speaks it. Unfortunately for the students I do understand some Thai so they can't get away with speaking among themselves about me. Actually, I've never lost my cool in the classroom before this and did not use any foul language. I do agree that it was very unprofessional of me. But the students don't seem to hold it against me and have been behaving very well lately. After reading your stories I consider myself very fortunate indeed.

[Wolf]

Not in class.

China has often tested my patience. Someone once tried to sell me a Chinese newspaper. For 5 minutes.

Point blank hello screams (this hasn't happened in a while for some reson).

A jacket 6 times overpriced by the clerk.

The internet woman who bawled me out for walking into her net cafe.

All of these people have recieved an earful of nasty Japanese. By about a year ago, I developed this Ricky Ricardo thing where I mostly swear in Japanese, if I do at all. I feel bad afterwards, but I've never gone off on anyone who didn't blatantly belittle me in some way. Or a student.

[schminken]

I have lost my temper in class and I also learned a valuable lesson from it!


I taught German to US university students and I had a girl one semester that I was afraid of. Why? She was the class know-it-all. She was the best student in the class. She always did her homework, came to class, and made near perfect scores on the exams. On the flip side, she had the attitude from hell and questioned every thing I did in order to make me look foolish to the rest of the class. If she asked a question and I said something like, "I don't know the answer to that but I'll find out for you.", she would make rude comments or roll her eyes. My biggest mistake was doing nothing instead of talking to her in private about her attitude. I let her dominate me and since she was such a good student (and she knew it), I felt like there was nothing I could do about it.

This went on for most of the semester. One day, I turned to write something on the board and heard her whispering some comment about me to another student. I just flipped out. Yes, I know I should have had better control but it was like something just exploded inside of me. I yelled for her to get the heck out of my classroom and not to return until she could contribute to a positive learning environment. She was so shocked. I was shocked. The rest of the class was shocked. I composed myself and continued my lesson. Afterwards, some of the class approached me to tell me that they approved of what I did and that it should have happened long ago!

The lesson I learned is this: It is better to nip situations like these in the bud before they reach the boiling point and you lose your temper like I did. I felt really unprofessional for handeling the situation like I did even though it had an effect. I realized that I am responsible for my classroom atmosphere and cannot let people dominate me.

[Capergirl]