Job Discussion Forums

[rusmeister]

[naturegirl321]

[John Hall]

Tedkarma, rusmeister, Sherri, Glenski,

Thankyou all for your very insightful comments. They've given me a lot to think about.

Fortunately, I get the chance to teach this course again next semester, and can tinker with the syllabus to try to make it better. I wish I could change the textbook entirely though. North Star (Advanced) is not an interesting book for 18 - 22 year olds. Also, it's too long listening excerpts and lack of an accompanying workbook make it pretty tough going for the students.

[sheeba]

I find with my Chinese students they had a problem - 'learned helplessness'

Really this needs to be addressed.


I f I might say so Motivation is a MASSIVE problem in China. Keep motivating !

[gaijinalways]

Motivation is key, but something has to come from the student. Unfortunately, with many Japanese university students, the 'come to class and do as little as possible to get a passing grade' is the norm rather than the exception. I had 3 of 16 classes that I would call more enjoyable to teach, and size does make a difference.

Think about it Sherri, how many individual comments can you make in a 90 minute class with 40 plus students?

I try to circulate as much as possible and also work with some of the weaker students and/or 'hiders' in the back as well, but I am stretched thin sometimes.

[rusmeister]

NorthStar sucks, and so do most American publications in general (I say this, sadly, as an American). Use Brit books. They have far more research behind them.

[Sherri]

[tedkarma]

[Glenski]

[Sherri]

Hi Glenski
Yes, I do understand. I worked for a school that training interpreters and translators in Tokyo, so the students were high level (TOEFL 550 and up) and very motivated. The most I have had in a class is 30 and that was my limit. And yes, I do know that I was lucky and that is probably why I stayed in Japan for as long as I did.

After having kids and re-assessing my job prospects in Japan, I realized it was time to leave. I did not want to teach in unis, have the big classes with disinterested students. Plenty of my friends are doing that. I have been teaching EFL since 1987 and my days of taking any job is over! I do have a choice and I made it!

Now I am working with students who choose to come and study English, who usually have well-defined goals and more than not are paying for it themselves. They already have motivation--but they also rely on us teachers to keep up the momentum. We just finished our summer session and I gave a number of pep talks to students who felt demotivated. I also gave a lot of praise to the students who completed our program and will be able to join mainstream students in the college.

Now I have started to think back on some of my first teaching jobs. One was teaching teenagers at a summer school just outside of London. They were kids from all over Europe, Italy, Germany, Spain, France. They all had rich parents who had basically dumped their kids with us for the summer. The kids thought they were having a holiday in London and we teachers thought we were going to teach EFL. It was a clash of expectations! The kids drained me. I was always trying to think of something to keep their interest and it was hit or miss, but it did stretch my creativity and I think it made me a better teacher. And, yes sometimes I think they were even motivated to come to class and do a good job. Since then though I have never, ever taught teenagers or younger. Not my thing at all!

I think you are doing the right thing in your science classes to relate your lessons to what they need for their careers.
S

[rusmeister]

One other thing that Sheeba pointed out - 'learned helplessness' - is equally valid in Russia, and an awful lot of other countries, too (they all seem to have the same general model for how a school works - has anyone besides me read JT Gatto?). The end result is that they are totally passive in the classroom. They wait for instructions from a teacher before attempting anything, (if I can use this image) almost like baby birds awaiting the beakful/spoonful of learning from mama bird. I think this is true with a lot of (most?) grads of public education anywhere in the world.

One of the main principles in my classroom is to start teaching both the kids and adults to teach themselves. This involves doing things they are not used to (depending on their age), such as simply waiting quietly, playing 'the stupid teacher' ("Duh, I don't know - what DOES 'invariable' mean?" Students sigh, then reach for their dictionaries...) If they have no concept of taking initiative in the learning process, it's difficult to get results out of them in your absence.

They've learned passivity all their lives. You won't unteach it in a week.

[Sherri]

[John Hall]

I once used the first edition of North Star with a group of highly-motivated adults. We covered every exercise in the book, and it went very well. The second edition has been dumbed down, as is often done with second editions, but the series still basically works the same way.

But it just doesn't work with the 18-22 year old crowd any more. Most of the topics (the Dalai Lama, the Gulf War) are often things that they don't know any of the history behind. (There is one notable exception: Tony Hawk.) Other topics (workplace privacy, marriage contracts) just aren't interesting to them.

[gaijinalways]

Depends on who your students are. I use the intermediate Northstar reading and writing series for my Academic English class and I pick and choose the chapters and activites I use. Since I teach my class in the lab, I often supplement with Internet related offerings. These students are intermediate to early advanced, a small group of 5-6 students usually.

Sherri, I was tempted to add that comment originally, that of using group encouragement, as it can be useful to comment to groups or pairs, but it can also sound a bit 'automated' at times and not necessarily motivating. I think it helps to try and use a variety of methods to motivate, but you know the old saying, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't always make him drink.'

[miski2]

Sometimes it's a nice idea for you to give a little speech in your students' language just to show them that you too can make errors-it gives them a good laugh and breaks the ice , showing them that everyone is human.