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[dmb]

Does anyone have any stories?

I once had to fire a guy because he was ... well not a teacher.

It was a zero beginner class and he totally lost it in the class(I was observing) because the student said "I live Istanbul"

He then dropped to his knees and started shouting "IN Istanbul IN Istanbul"

The other students were obviously freaked out and started muttering in Turkish 'what's going on' He was infuriated more by this, took his shoe off and threw it at the window. It smashed. I wonder what his unobserved lessons were like.

[basiltherat]

many years ago, a guy i observed, when asked by a student what the meaning of 'constitution' was, he answered "How the f@#$ should I know !"

Wonderful in one sense but really sad in another.
best
basil

[jonniboy]

Admin were getting very negative feedback from students about a teacher working in our school. As the offices were tiny, the computer was also in his class and they asked me to go in and use it for 30 minutes during his class. A kind of sneaky observation as it were.

It was a conversation class, but he just spoke without a break for over 15 minutes about his life in Australia and the difficulties of adjusting to life in Latvia. All this in a thick accent without any effort to slow down and speak clearly or even explain unfamiliar terms/concepts, while the clearly bored students fiddled with their pens. He rounded off this 'performance' with a quite astonishing tirade against Latvian culture and the country, which hardly served to win him any friends either.

He didn't even last a month.

[Otterman Ollie]

I have many ,too many stories of people I've met ,worked with and shared offices with who should never be allowed to work in the teaching "profession " .
Sadly my opinions were never sought or asked so many are still doing the same things in the same way and getting away with it .Even more disturbing many of them are well thought of by people in authority just because they know when to say the right thing at the right time ,in the RİGHT language .

[canuck]

[zorro (3)]

NAME AND SHAME! NAME AND SHAME!

[madison01]

I observed more than one person who needed 'guidance' but only one teacher ever gave me nightmares, luckily it was only 4 lessons into the semester and he was fired the next day.

I had arranged the observation two days earlier. I arrived 15 minutes ahead to look through his lesson plan and materials but he didn't turn up, The students arrived on time and waited, after 5 minutes it seemed obvious he wasn't coming so I started the lesson with their homework desperately racking my brains to come up with another hour and a half of lesson, as we finished the homework the teacher wandered into the class (now 30 minutes after our arranged meet time and 15 minutes into the lesson) I told him we'd gone through the homework, he didn't say a word to me, sat down (without taking off his hat and coat) and proceeded to ask the students what they'd done over the weekend, This was Thursday and he'd already taught them once that week. Then went on to tell them what his weekend had been like, then started checking the homework, again.]

The rest of the lesson was essentially him sat in front of the class telling them to do excercise by excercise then going through the answer key. I've never seen less interested students in my life. I nearly chewed my leg off to keep myself awake.

This was now 60 minutes into the lesson and I decided to give up the observation, as I left the room he asked me if it was possible to get an advance on his wages.

The next day we called him in and I told him my observations, e.g. that was crap (in a more professional tone though) handed him a cheque for his work and asked him to go away.

Any one after that seemed salvagable

[Stephen Jones]

One place I worked at they had a teacher they were worried about and after varying visits they asked him to sit in on another's teachers class to see if he learned something.

The teacher who was giving the newbie the demonstration lesson/master class was stunned at the end of the lesson when the newbie approached him, handed him a piece of paper with numbers on it, and told him that he, the newbie, had seen the whole lesson, but didn't think it worthy of a passing grade.

Another time my mate was asked to go in to the class of another teacher to write an evaluation. It was a listening lesson, and started off with this monologue "Right, today we're going to do lesson 9. Ah, yes, a video lesson. Anybody know where the video recorder is? Oh dear, we don't appear to have one. And I haven't got the video tape in my bag either. Err, let's have a look at another page."

What amazed both me and my mate was that the teacher's concerned still passed their probations and went on to stay two to three years.

[spiral78]

The retired third-grade teacher who expected her teaching skill set to serve highly educated, professional adult learners as well. Massive failure.

[Stephen Jones]

[guangho]

After a prolonged absence connected to consuming fermented bread (ahem), the lad appears while I was teaching "his" class. Looking like something out of a horror movie, his sallow, red face covered with an oversized hat, said teacher muttered in a grating Louisiana drawl "Oh boy, oh boy am I in for it now" and proceeded to the presentations scheduled. One lass gives a speech, undoubtedly heard online, on macrobiotic diets and vegetarianism. The fellow- his face still concealed by the hat mind you- proceeds to grill her for twenty minutes on the vagaries of said diet and how he could get started on it. I was having a stroke in slow motion.....

[gaijinalways]

At one of the Japanese universities where I work, a lecturer managed to get fired by not showing up for the first 5 classes in a semester. Sadly, the students didn't notify admin until after the 4th class !

[tedkarma]

[spiral78]

Actually, good point. I myself taught third graders for a year - so long ago I'd forgotten serving the time to finish my BEd.!

However, the issue was actually respect. This pensioner had ruled her kiddies with an iron hand for many years (she wasn't wildly loved in the elementary school system either, frankly) and had very much an us-versus-them kind of approach to the thing. She was also very much wedded to the "open the book to page 72 and we'll drill together" approach to teaching/learning.

I have to say in my experience, outside of the obvious unprofessional behavior described by many posters above, the other common problems I've experienced with teachers are a lack of respect for professional adult students and a strong desire to micromanage the classroom. Oddly, there seem to be as many younger teachers who do this as older ones. I think it's connected to how people thing teaching/learning takes place, probably arising from their own early school experiences.

Myself, was lucky to have been educated (first six years) in an experimental situation, with little control but tons of support. This seems to work well in language learning with adult learners - at least, the basic approach is generally supported by the ESL research.

[dmb]