Job Discussion Forums

snacksturbo · Joined: 01 Jan 2011 Posts: 25

In a college I have done many things for punishment in these situations.
I have made the students:
Run around the buildings several times, then when they are tired. I ask them, "Now do you want to work with your body some more, or your mind?
In dead morning classes, we do calisthenics. Just to get them woken up.
I have had them sit in the corner.
I have thrown them out of the class.
I have given them lines to write.
I have threatened to take and destroy their cell phones. To get it across, the next class I drop one of those fake display phones on the floor and stomp on it muttering about that poor student who needs a new phone. The effect, priceless.

For kid�s classes:
Each class I give out reports that must be signed by the parents. it is a simple happy face descending to a frown face system. Since the parents usually cannot speak or understand English them selves this works great. The parents ask the child to explain why they did not get a happy face mark for the day. I know I am a genius.

The real problem is, the administrations don't care. From what I have seen, they don't care if the students learn anything either. This is the business side of language, and you have to take it with a pill and do what you can. I like to call we foreign teachers the "dancing monkeys". More often than not, we are asked to entertain more than educate.

mrwslee003 · Joined: 14 Nov 2009 Posts: 190

Dancing monkeys doing it for the sitting monkeys, or sloth monkeys....

Its called "creativity"!

creztor · Joined: 30 Dec 2009 Posts: 476

flyingscotsman,
I think students really shouldn't be fighting or shouting, but the complete lack of interest is a widespread problem, or so I believe anyway. Laying down the rules only goes so far, because most places now have an evaluation period at the end of the semester where students evaluate their teachers. What's the point of being a Nazi and getting yourself worked up all semester only to get a scathing evaluation from your classes? All that will happen is you'll probably not be asked to resign your contract, or at the very best you've just managed to increase your stress by several fold. Teaching adults is completely different to teaching children and if they come to class with the attitude that they don't want to study or don't care, then there is only so much you can do. I'm not saying that we should be lazy and not care about teaching the students, but this problem goes far beyond the classroom and as many already pointed out it has to do with management and how the schools are run today. You're not going to change anything, so I think the best anyone can do is just teach the material you're meant to teach. Have you ever sat in on a local professor's class to see how they taught? I'm not sure what it's like in China, but I have here in Taiwan and the professor basically did what I said above. He made it very clear to the class that he expected them to do their best, but then went on to say that since he is now evaluated there's only so much he can do. The system is broken and there's no point in trying to fix it. Trying to do so makes your life much more difficult and achieves nothing. I feel for you and hope things work out for you in the future.

wangdaning · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 3154

You can treat you students like children and teach them to want to learn English (not really teaching English). I think this is a joke, did they not sign up to learn this?

If they want to be lazy b@stards then fine, but you still have to teach what they need to know.

There are different schools of thought on this. I feel students should come motivated, as they signed up for this. Others feel somehow teachers need to motivate the students (is this CELTA related?). I am not a motivational speaker and am not paid the salary of one. I majored in Chinese at university and never needed anyone to motivate me, I signed up for the class because I wanted to learn the language.

This only goes for adults as they know damn well what they are signing up for.

The Ever-changing Cleric · Joined: 19 Feb 2009 Posts: 1523

igorG · Joined: 10 Aug 2010 Posts: 1473 Location: asia

Schools or parents sign them up.

mrwslee003 · Joined: 14 Nov 2009 Posts: 190

So there you have the answer- if the parents sign up their kids then it is
the responsibility of the parents to explain the reasons to them, to instil
a sense of purpose in their children on how to behave in the classroom
and why they are there in the first place. This is when the mothers become "tiger moms"!

The tiger moms have this emotional contract with their kids and the kids
know that if they do well in school they will get rewarded, but if they do poorly they will be punished emotionally. The mothers will lay on the guilt trip etc. so the kids have this "vaccum" for approval, in them, created by their mothers.

So mothers, get your emotional whips ready and do your duty. Lay out what you expect of your children when you sign them up for English courses or else they will become trouble in the classrooms.

clownshow · Joined: 19 Dec 2010 Posts: 181

Motivation in the form of a a phone call to the parents does wonders for a classroom attitude.

wangdaning · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 3154

I am apathetic towards adult children. Same reason I ended up yelling at my father in-law the first time I met him. My wife went to child mode, and I couldn't take it. We are adults the students are adults (again talking uni here). No excuse gets that taken away. This is China/there still young blah blah...They either pull it together or piss off. No hand holding or motivation should be needed (again not paid the salary of a motivational speaker). The more you treat your students as children the more they think it is ok to act like children.