Job Discussion Forums

[jonniboy]

I don't mean necessarily bad, as in student's behavior but in terms of the topic matter that you had to cover/appropriateness for the students levels etc.

As an example there were two of mine which required abnormal amounts of preparation time. The first worked as a buyer for an airline and thus needed to know the names of all the aircraft parts, right down to any special names for the parts of the seats. Took a lot of research, but luckily she was an advanced level student which made it easier.

The worst was a student who was barely pre-intermediate who was attending a conference in international money laundering prevention. It took ridiculous amounts of preparation time just for a lesson plan which is still in my file but in the 'virtually unusable' section.

Anyone have any more exotic topics to explain to beginners?

[rusmeister]

That would be what they call 'English for special purposes'. I won't touch that. I personally believe that a language ought to be learned properly from the ground up.

[spiral78]

ESP can be a quite valid approach for some students. There are millions of NNS speakers around the world who need English for things like air traffic control, or hotel management, or other specific fields. Once they've achieved an intermediate level of general English, I think it's perfectly valid to then focus on the kinds of language that they specifically need in their work.
This is a relevant and time-efficient way to learn, for many.

I agree that, if one has the luxury of time, money, and energy, it is ideal to 'master' a language 'properly,' in all its facets, but that's not the reality for many students.

I've worked on quite a few ESP projects, ranging from the petroleum industry to teacher training, and they can be highly time-intensive from the preparation standpoint, if curriculum hasn't been developed in advance.

I can remember one project that was 6 hours, 6 days weekly in -class, and required at least 4 more hours per day in terms of planning and modifying the course I was supposed to deliver, to meet the needs of the group. Ideally, the course would be repeated so that all those hours would pay off ultimately. But even if not, it was a professionally satisfying event - I have a feeling of accomplishment that I was able to make it all work in real time - I learned as much as the students, in that course. But I wouldn't be able to sustain the effort indefinitely!!

[jammish]

Has to be my CELTA course. The TP (teaching practice) lessons. I was lumbered with doing one about Relative Clauses. I fucked it up! Luckily I passed all the rest...

[Sherri]

Mine was teaching a group of near-native English speakers (and a couple of native English speakers) as part of a beginning interpreter training class. I had to teach appropriate register and vocabulary used in conference interpreting mostly in the fields of economics and politics. I also had to teach high level listening skills, paraphrasing and summarizing. Every class was a huge challenge. I prepped for hours beforehand looking for the right materials--they had to be authentic, and then developing activities and materials to go with them.

The students were very demanding and had to right to be that way, they were spending a lot of money and their careers depended on their results in the class.

These classes were easily the most demanding and difficult I have ever taught, but I ended up becoming a better teacher through the experience.

Sherri

[dreadnought]

I worked for a school in Lithuania who won a contract to run a short English language course for anti-corruption specialists within the police form. Basically, they were ex-KGB now roped into investigating dodgy politicians, civic corruption, cross-border smuggling etc. The course was supposed to be tailored to their profession and, as the DoS, it was my responsibility to design the whole course.

Didn't have a clue where to start. Found stuff on the internet, got some pamphlets from the organisation itself, but barely understood a lot of the stuff myself. Eventually cobbled something together for the teachers to follow. Really sweated over it.

Anyhow, turned out that the students hated learning this stuff, knew most of it anyway, and were much more interested in learning vocab connected to football and chatting up women. Shouldn't have wasted my time!!

[MELEE]

To take a different turn.

My most difficult class was in Japan, a group of 3 year olds. One little boy had his hands down his pants the whole time. The class met twice a week and this "phase" of playing with himself went on for two months so I had about 16 40-minute lessons like this. We did a lot of flash card games and pass the ball and things like that and when ever he had to hold something, he'd take out a hand and take the item then pass it on then immediately return his hands to his favorite place. I had NO idea what I should do. When I asked the Japanese teachers what I should do they doubled over in fits of laughter unable to tell me anything. I just tried ignored it and keep the other kids from noticing. I still don't know if that was the right thing to do. I was so relieved when he finally grew out of it.

[John Hall]

I had to teach a Japanese three-year-old once. First, consider the fact that my knee was taller than him. So, I lied down on the floor and tried to get him interested in the language games I had brought in. Then, he decided that he was not going to talk to me. Finally, the class ended and his mother, who had been listening in on the class, verbally ripped me to shreads for everything that I had tried to do in the class (even though most of the problems were beyond my control to begin with).

But that wasn't the worst...

There have been several occasions where I have been asked, a minute before the class began, to teach a class where the teacher had either phoned in sick at the last moment, or had just walked off the job. One of these "no prep" classes was four hours long!

Still, that wasn't the worst...

Probably the worst of all was one that I did as a volunteer in Canada. Slobodan Milosevic had just invaded Kosovo, and Canada had just airlifted more than a hundred refugees to the military base in my small hometown in Canada. In the first class, there were over 60 students. Less than a week before, they had all been on the run for their lives. Many had lost everything except the clothes on their back. Some had been tortured or witnessed atrocities. The vast majority had no knowledge of English at all, although a few had varying levels of fluency. To assist me, I had a handful of public school teachers, with no TESOL experience, who were convinced that they could teach anything. The biggest problem of all was to get the students, who through their own school system had been accustomed to writing everything down in their notebooks, to stop doing that so that they could develop their listening and speaking skills. Also, we had no books.

After the first class, things got better. For three months, I worked at the military base where the refugees had been put up, while they waited to be set up with a sponsor in Canada, or to go back to Kosovo, depending on what they decided to do. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my entire TESOL career. I will never forget the stories the students told me of their harrowing escapes, the experiences they had exploring the utterly foreign country they suddenly found themselves in, and all the things that they taught me about their own repressed but vibrant culture.

[mdk]

If I may, my most difficult class was at a certain university somewhere in Siberia. I had electrical engineering students who reportedly had 6 years of English.

Two things stood out:

(1.) None of them had the book to take home. It was distributed and collected during class.

(2.) It was like pulling teeth to get them to speak English. "Hello, what is your name?" would win me 5 minutes of staring at the wall like a deer in the headlights.

After a bit of this I went back to square one and just got them modeling speech ... i.e., My name is Ivan. I was born in Novosibirsk. etc. and from there into role playing. They could read and complete the exercises in the text, but as far as speech ... they needed to start from square one.

I ended buying the school an extra set of textbooks to be given to the most promising students. I think by the end of the term I had them modeling things like buying a train ticket and ordering lunch in a cafe. But they never really got into it until I pointed out that they may someday have to work with somebody from, say, India and only have English as a common language.

[JDYoung]

Severely mixed abilities in a preintermediate class. One with a learning disability (ADD and low IQ) , three repeating the level and one new really bright student. AAAARRRGGHHH

[chola]

That would have to be a 4 hour Sat. morning class of kids ranging in ages from 5-11 and abilities from 0-near fluent, no curriculum, no materials, nada. In the end, I really enjoyed teaching the class, once I figured out what worked best (games. lots and lots of learning activities with physical activity built in)....it was a real challenge.

[mondrian]

Italian teenage girls in a London crammer.
A totally frustrating waste of time
I had to teach to a text book and all they were interested in were: partying, partying, partying (and that entailed: music, clothes, boys).
No support from the DoS as to what I could do.
After 4 weeks the parents complaints began to roll in.
I quit.