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[wonderd]

Well, China was a lot different than Canada, the US, or Mexico (previous places I taught and trained) but in the end, I think people from around the world have the same things in common.

I have tried many things for discipline, and I have to say, for the most part, the discipline is getting much better. Here's my tips (they work for me, I don't know if they'll work for everyone) of things I tried that failed and I will never do again, and things that succeeded.

Before I start, the one thing you have to get over is feeling guilty. Sometimes when I discipline someone in a class, I would feel guilty about it. It's not always easy to put your foot down.

Things that FAILED - berating the students. In my experience, doing this has just caused the students to hate me. Calling them babies, animals, or stupid doesn't work.
- yelling. As you mentioned yourself, yelling is not something that really works because, as my mother taught me (who is a teacher herself) when you yell, you show emotion. If they think they've made you angry or upset, a lot of time it's like a small victory for them. And they can always hide behind the "tin bu dong" (I don't understand).
- showing too much bad emotion is not a good thing
- standing at the front of the class quietly waiting for them to be quiet worked in other countries. It doesn't work for me here.

Here's my SUCCESS stories
- I always divide the students into four groups. It's not hard to do as there's usually 30 - 40 students, just make each of them their own team. I tell them to come up with a team name. I used to do points for them, but now I've gotten to something much more fun... money. You don't have to give them anything, but yesterday one of my classes made $14000. I don't know why, but they love it when you write for each team money that they're making.
- Something really important is to have some sort of communication with the falculty about what you can and can't do. I remember at one school there were a couple of students always causing problems for weeks and I felt I couldn't kick them out of the classroom. I thought if I did that, then I failed. One day a Chinese teacher was walking by and saw me having trouble with them, and he grabbed them, pulled them out of class, and I didn't see them for the rest of the day. He also asked me why I didn't do that myself... since then, I have.

In the end, the way I handle discipline is pretty simplistic. In all of my classes I have great students, good students, and students that for whatever reason just don't want to get involved. I always focus on the good students and if the noisy students are getting too noisy, I will tell them if they don't want to learn, fine. I tell them they should go to sleep, but when they're talking they're hurting the people that are here to learn and are trying.

Eventually I will eject a student or two out of the class. It's a last resort, and I've only done it a few times, but the class is much better when they see an example of what can happen.

Yes, activities must be exciting and interesting, but I'm sure we can all feel for the times when you have prepared what you think is a great lesson, and you can't even get started because of the behaviour. Don't be afraid to put your foot down.

Also, cheers and jeers work for me as well. The Chinese teachers, for the most part, are pretty proud of their work and their class. So, let their homeroom / class teacher know if the class was good or if they were bad. Sometimes that alone makes the difference.

After saying all that, I still have problems, and I doubt that will ever change. Getting everyone to cooperate and work well together is not the easiest thing to do in the world. I just try to keep my problems to a minimum.

Hope that helps