Job Discussion Forums

[feisty-red]

Ok, quick recap:

Thanks for the helpful hints so far. To anyone reading this and wishing to comment, please consider:

-I am the only teacher at this school. Just how do you propose I get someone to observe me and on a Sunday of all things?
-This was the first day of class.
-The students are all students I have never met or have met once before.
-The text was written for Europeans wishing to learn English.
-The text is simple for the level, even headquarters admits to this.
-The level of students is either below level or ...and I really think this, they just don't want to speak in front of each other. In groups, they won't shut up.

And lastly, of course the title shows frustration! Aside from yesterday's class I had a rough day. You name it, it went wrong before I even got to work. That class was the icing on the cake.

And super bonus, Canuck isn't the only pregnant bitch I encountered as I work with one too.



So, my aim is to get them talking in front of each other and to participate in conversations. That's what I want help with. Even if you feed it to them they still do the deer in headlights look. I know better.

[feisty-red]

I would also like to add that of all the schools I have worked at here (and there have been several, I was subbing and I have two other schools now), this is the only school where I have complaints.

And I think this due in large part to the pregnant *beep* I work with. For whatever reason, she mutters some crap to them in Japanese before I even say hi to students, and everyone looks at me with a stony face. What on earth is she saying? And furthermore, I've had to give demo lessons and guess who had to prepare the materials? The pregnant *beep*. I was given material clearly marked for a level 2 or 3 levels above that stated for the prospective student. Does she not care about sales? I guess not because in a few short weeks she will be a homemaker and not a school director. When I asked about the material she suddenly lost her English ability and gave me the deer in headlights look.

And of course the complaints are told to me by the pregnant *beep*. Funny. You think if I had so many complaints I would hear from headquarters.

I can't wait until she leaves.

[shuize]

I agree with the advice offered in the posts above. Here's mine: Calm down. One solo class and you feel the need to run to the internet to vent? Relax. Otherwise you're going to be in for a very long haul.

[Angelfish]

Seriously, calm down. If this is your first class, they're probably very, very nervous. You're new. They don't know you yet. They probably aren't familiar with your accent and intonation. They have no idea how you'll respond to their questions. Basically, they're probably scared of you right now. Give them a couple of weeks and they'll warm up to you. They'll open up and then start asking you questions about stuff they don't understand. You can't expect perfect class cohesion in one lesson. I don't know the situation, but have they even met each other before this class? Why don't you try doing an introduction warm-up? Get everyone to stand up and say a short piece about themselves - name, job, hobbies, etc. Then encourage them to ask each other and you questions about yourselves. Break the ice a bit.

[gaijin4life]

I agree w Angelfish re doing a warm-up at start of class. A short quiz, guess this word; or game can help to get students more engaged and relaxed.

As others have said, try to relax.. I know its probably difficult and you may be feeling pressured but being new, you can only do your best. Give yourself time to get sorted out and try different things until you hit on things that work

As for not knowing what colleagues are saying and working with difficult people, I found it worked for me to ignore everything that wasnt said to me directly. That way I didnt have to worry about what others said etc. I thought that if it was important for me to know, someone would tell me. Some people like to b*@*h and moan, thats their choice ..

[Glenski]

This is beginning to sound suspiciously like a recent poster (and a couple of much older posts) where the director was a very caustic bossy Japanese woman (whose name I forget), and who was just out to get the cheapest gaijin to teach, sometimes even for one-off lessons.

How can you have been here 2 months, and have only just taught this class once?

Who are you working for?

Are you looking for other work to replace this (because you should)?

[furiousmilksheikali]

Feisty-red,

You are asking for advice and we have given it as best we can. I did ask you if you could tell us the textbook you are using, some vocab you are having trouble teaching or at least the target of the lesson you are teaching.

It makes no sense to ask for advice and then tell the people you are asking that "Even if you feed it to them they still do the deer in headlights look. I know better."

I think you have confused a lot of different problems and made them sound like they are all the same thing.

1.) You're having problems with the woman you work with.
2.) You had a bad day before you taught the class.
3.) Your students are driving you NUTS!

It sounds to me as if you weren't in the right frame of mind to teach the class and as a result your lesson suffered. If you had only one student that was causing problems then you should focus your question on that student but seeing as you feel the whole class is a problem then my guess is that it is something you are doing that isn't right.

I can only guess, but it could be one or some of the following:

a.) Your instructions aren't clear and the students don't know how to respond to your questions.
b.) You are showing your frustration too easily and becoming impatient with them, leading to nervousness on their part.
c.) The vocab is not being presented in a way that is easy for them to understand.
d.) You may be confusing them by writing things on the board when you talk and not being clear about what the students should focus on.
e.) You're speaking too quickly or you have a thick accent that the students aren't used to.

Or it may be somthing else entirely. Just ask yourself this question: Is it really the fault of all of your students or is there something you aren't doing right?

[J.]

I can't understand by your description who the students are that you are having trouble with. Are they adults in a culture class or adults in a private converstion school or high school students in a private or public school or someone else? It matters a good deal who your students are and their reasons for being there.

If they are high school students, and the silence sounds like they might be, then you need to discover why they aren't speaking. In my case I have found that the self-consciousness of speaking English before the whole group is a factor and needs to be diffused before you can have success. Actually, that could be a factor with adults, too. I feel you need to "warm up" the atmosphere and make it as friendly as possible and let people get to know a bit about each other and you before you get concentrated on the text. You could do this with communication games, other games, simplifying the conversation (from the text or your head) to one question and answer (which you rehearse first and write on the board along with the pattern for an answer) and then letting students stand up and ask every other person the same question in turn. (This works better with adults than high school students who might be better in pairs.) You need a question that comes from your students life experience, even something like "What did you do last week?" should work. Of course if you think they may have trouble answering then you could first do a brainstorm on the board, which is just writing the question inside a circle and then asking students for their answers which you put into good English phrases or sentences and leave on the board as cues for when you get to the "walk around and speak" or pair practice part of the lesson. As a follow up you could ask the question again the next week and see who remembers what. You can do this by going round the class and asking some/all students yourself. It will reinforce the learning.

You need to adapt your lessons to the character of the individual classes. Each class has a character; some are chatty, some are stony. As a teacher, your job is a little like a detective. Try to find out more about your students and adapt your teaching to them. Find out what activities/ interests/ things they like in life and build your lessons on that whenever you can. And remember-- low key and fun is better.

And by the way, almost all classes are a little uncomfortable at first. Pass that warm-up phase and if you truly try to teach them as people that you like and respect, there should be little problem.

ps Students here are not apt to "take responsibility for their own education" as we expect in North America. I think they want /are accustomed to more leading from the teacher here. That means you may have to be a bit of a "mind reader".

[JonnyB61]

Tears in the teachers' room is not a new phenomenon but it is often caused, in my humble opinion, by people making the erroneous conclusion that: I can speak English so I can teach it.

I'd like to confirm the positive advice that this thread has generated and add one more suggestion.

Give yourself time!

Being a successful EFL teacher isn't as difficult as rocket science or brain surgery but it is a craft that takes some time to learn. Don't quit, as one poster suggested, that would only prove that you're a quiter. Stick with it, be prepared to learn and adapt and in a couple of years you will find yourself offering guidance and support to other newbies. Then you will look back on this period with a smile and see it for what it is: a learning curve.

This a funny old job. When no-one likes you and you just want to go home, then it's probably not as bad as it seems. The opposite is also true. When everyone likes you and you feel like a superstar, it's probably not as good as it seems. The truth lies somewhere between.
Stick with it and good luck to you.

On a lighter note, I once tried deep fried spiders in Honduras. They serve them as a bar snack. I suppose they were tarantulas. You only eat the legs, (the body would be disgusting!) and they are rather like a hairy Twiglet. Not bad with a cold beer.
Cheers!
JB

[craven]

There have been a lot of positive suggestions so far on this thread, and I'll chime in and agree with them as well! It takes some time to get the hang of teaching EFL in general, and new classes are often difficult. I work in a special needs school at the moment, which means that not only do I have to deal with shyness speaking in front of people, but also mental and physical challenges that require me to constantly adapt and re-adapt my lessons. Sometimes things work well, other times they don't. When they don't, I make notes to change the lesson in the future, go home, and have a beer (without spider legs thank you very much).
You mentioned you've been here 2 months...have you started studying Japanese yet? One helpful hint I got from another teacher when starting out was to make notes of what worked and didn't work for you as a student in your Japanese lesson. If nothing else, this will certainly give you a sense of what it's like to get caught up on one frustrating vocabulary word, which then makes the rest of the lesson a trying task!
Good luck, relax, and keep at it

[jademonkey]

[canuck]

[furiousmilksheikali]

[jademonkey]

[fizayded]

Yeah, I think there has been a lot of good advice on here. Sounds like you are freaking out but I just wanna say that we have all been there. And... for like the first 4 months I would say my lessons were pretty lousy. If you stick with it theres a point where everything clicks and you say "this is pretty easy." But then again, what's cool about teaching is that I learn how to do something better every day. but anyway, here's even more advice

1) Smile. Make them open up by opening yourself up first. It's really important to make them feel comfortable in class.

2) If its your first week why not do an introductory lesson? Give them a quiz about yourself, why not? Why not write down some objectives for what they want to learn in the class, e.g. "improve pronunciation." Or "level up my English." Then you can write some objectives you have of your own, like "make friends in Japan" or "eat sushi" or whatever. They could probably give you lots of good advice for how to make friends or where to get good sushi. Then that would get them talking in English and feel empowered because they are helping the almighty English teacher.

Another thing my trainer at the time told them was that when you give them compliments, be specific in your praise. Telling them "good" doesn't really help them much. If you say "your pronunciation of the -th sound is getting better" that is much more helpful.

hope that helps, don't freak out!