Job Discussion Forums

[yeovil50]

For the last 3 months I have had very productive conversational classes with a group of upper intermediate students. Even though a small class (6) the classes always took on a very relaxed and free flowing conversation and I loved it.

However, low and behold the language school in its wisdom (and love of money) have suddenly thrown in 11 students of elemantary level to go with the other more advanced students. As much as I have told the school that it is not fair on either group of students, they will not change their mind.

Last week was such a disaster that I actually for the first time of my life ended a class 10 minutes early.

So has anyone been in this same situation? Has anyone have any amazing ideas of how to keep both upper and elemantary students happy.?

Yours in hope!

[ls650]

You have no power with the school because you are the lowly teacher.

The customers - er, I mean the students - have all the power. Ask them if they are happy with the class, and tell them that if they are not, they need to voice their unhappiness with the school.

The school may not listen to you, but it will listen to them.

[Glenski]

The school's decision is insane. Perhaps they combined such classes because of downsizing? Stupid, anyway.

I like the idea of having the students protest instead of the teacher. Money talks.

Meanwhile, do your best to teach until a decision has been made. Depending on how large the difference is between students' abilities, you might have to get the more advanced ones to help the lesser. I don't envy your position. It's one of the worst situations for an ESL/EFL teacher to be in.

[Calories]

No, I've got it worse. Oral English class with 50 students, some of them don't know anything unless they can read it.

[gaijinalways]

[Calories]

Yea or Oral English in a Chinese high school

[Stephen Jones]

You've simply got to realize you are teaching two separate classes. Set one group some work for fifteen minutes whilst you teach the other and vice-versa.

[tedkarma]

Almost everyone ends up teaching classes such as this at one time or another. Know that encouraging students to complain is usually a losing proposition. Most employers interprete the complaints as meaning that YOU are not doing a good job.

Good example of the above: A former employer required its teachers to use some VERY poor written materials - written by the employer himself. Many of us thought it useful to encourage students to complain. However, those complaints meant something far different to the employer. They meant - THE TEACHERS DON'T KNOW HOW TO TEACH THE MATERIAL. Soon, however, we learned to tell the students that the materials were just fine - and work around them.

[lozwich]

What kinds of materials are you using? If you have question prompts, you can start with a list of very easy ones, and make them more difficult as they go along. Tell the students that it doesn't matter if they don't finish. That way the more advanced students will zoom through the easier ones, and slow down as they get to questions that are more difficult, and the lower levels will take longer to get through the easy ones, but everyone will still be talking about the same topic.

Cheers,
Lozwich

[Will.]

Divide the class into two facing the board and, as Stephen said, teach them separately, any complaints from upon high can be dealt with a simple request for a demonstration of something better or more effective from the person complaining who obviously knows how to do it better than you as it was they who insisted it could be done.
The other solution would be to allow the students to intrrview each other and write up a report, journalist style for the wall display. This should allow for the discrepancies to be displayed for parents, students, the admin staff and Uncle Tom Cobbley to see.

What can't talk, can't lie.
There will be confrontational positioning about this until the profitability issue is explained to you by your school owner as:

"They pay me, I pay you."

Your position is:
"I teach two classes and I want to be paid for teaching two classes".

The boss wants you to teach two classes and be paid for teaching one.
Until it is resolved you need to plan two classes to run simultaneously in the same time frame and classroom. This means extra work and no extra pay.
Divide your time equally between the two. You are not paid enough to teach more than that.
You are happy. You have acted professionally and have explained the situation to the people in charge. They are paid to know what they are doing.
You have demonstrated your adaptability to the management proposals and have found a solution to an unsatisfactory situation.
They are paid to ensure this does not happen.

Now wait for the complaints and continue teaching. They may not ever come

[Kaspar Hauser]

[pollitatica]

One thing I also did in a similar situation was to play games, breaking the class in teams. Make 3 groups, with 2 of the more advanced students in each group. You can play things like jeopardy , with more than one level. I like the idea of starting easy and working harder. If you don't want to plan two class at the same time, give the more advanced students warm up activities at the beginning of the class that will take then 15-20 minutes, maybe working in partners, and work with the lower students on the basics in a little tutoring session. Plus, you can intro them into the conversation or whatever you're going to do as a whole group - try to make the input comprehensible. That way, the lower level students get some special attention and don't feel completely lost, but the advanced students don't feel like they're getting the shaft either. And it's a little less work for you. Maybe somedays you can plan separate lessons and some days have the class work as a whole.

[VanKen]