Job Discussion Forums

[Atlas]

Noise in the classroom!

Some of my classes hold about 40 college kids, and they are WAY too noisy.
I find that no matter how I cajole and threaten them, or try
other strategies, they just want to talk talk talk to each other,
usually utterly oblivious to the lesson. Now, one thing we are
trying is splitting the lower level speakers for another class,
because a lot of them are just bored and have no business
being in college-level english, having difficulty with even
the pronunciation of letters, let alone english business concepts!
Seriously, how do these kids get this far? So this may help a lot,
but i know the problem persists. I would rather not start a cultural
debate about the socialist diffusion of responsibility,
I just want to know a civil way to get them to shut the hell
up without scaring them to death. Any ideas?

I'm beginning to understand why so many people here in Shanghai are
megaphone-happy.

[Roger]

My sympathies go out to you, as I know what you were talking about.

Sometimes nothing can be done - really!

I have some success by asking individuals to repeat what I say - and when they fail to reproduce my words they must stand up - often the whole class until they can chorus my own words.

Asking them to stand up may be a novel approach - they have been used to being passively sitting too long. Break this habit - they need to act more rather than speaking!