Job Discussion Forums

[john123]

Well, I took on a new private student on Tuesday. I can pick out those who will make my life difficult and turn up unprepared a mile away. However, I thought that I'd give him another go today - the intrigue was uncontrollable..

So he rolled up with his worksheet from Tuesday (we got to grips with 'What do you do?' / describing duties at work / working hours etc), the day he told me that he's been working in a local museum as an archivist for two years. I now know that he kept up this charade for one hour on the Tues.

Anyway, I asked him to use the collocations again to describe his duties, working conditions, hours, which he could do. However, he stopped to confess that he's actually unemployed, and has been lying to his family about his job for two years. The mind began to boggle. 'How? Where do you get your money from, if I may politely ask?' 'What do you all day in the city while your parents are at home believing you are sorting documents in the archives?' He started to waffle on about having all these savings and about his association with the Catholic Church. I was too stunned to take it all in.

When the next batch of stories came, my mouth was wide open, gasping for breath. He's written a book about suicide and suffering, and has been hounding several publishing houses in Poland for over a year to get it published. Anyway, he wound up one day at a publishing house in a town called Tarnow, many many kilometres away. A lady told him that he had got the wrong address, and somehow they worked out that it was 15 km away cross country. Then I really fell off the edge of my chair. He got a bicycle from somewhere (didn't catch where), rode across the rough terrain to reach this 'publishing house' - and told of a woman staring at him through the window of the publishing house. She looked scared 'as if he was some kind of robber' (his words). He then told me how he was chased around the publishing grounds by a ram. I think they got his book..

Quite disturbed, I asked him about his ambitions in life. Indeed, where do you see yourself a few years down the line? He plans to move to London to be next to the pop star Florence Welch. I had never heard of her because I'm stuck in the 80s. Oh right, so you are going to see her perform? 'No, I've watched her interviews and she seems to be quite a divine, spiritual creature. I think it's love'. Yes, he's going to London to hunt down Miss Welch (get the bodyguards ready), and plans to rent a flat, and everything. At this point, I tried to inform him that she might not be single, and that he should think it over a little bit. 'I just wanna get to know her'.

Should I prepare him for life in London?

Never, in all these years, seen or heard anything like it.

[JSutt]

Wow, I thought 'I know my Father loves me because he smiles when he hits me' was bad!

[Prof.Gringo]

Dunno about others....but I've had some private one-on-one classes with female students that got pretty wild!

Cancel that EFL class... we just started a new course:

Anatomy and Physiology 101

[john123]

Woke up on this one this morning. I've had 2-3 private classes this year that left me contemplating the human psyche, and the role of the teacher - just to teach language. I think not.

[coledavis]

Oh dear, I don't like the sound of this, just considering the prognosis for this student.

I had a scenario which I think is the inverse. One of my teenage students came to see me, a nice if highly conventional central Asian boy who we shall call Tariq.

"Cole, I've really got to speak to you. There's nobody else I can talk to about this."

My mind boggled: not only did I not know quite what I had in common with this young man, but I was not sure how much useful advice I could give him about something drastic and presumably horrible happening in the middle of Siberia.

"Yes, Tariq, go on."
"It's Man U. They defeated Portsmouth!"

[rioux]

I was tutoring this Korean guy in the Philippines but he cancelled right before our second lesson. The reason he gave was that since he was just starting to really study English he wanted to take lessons from a Filipino teacher because my English was "too pure" so it might confuse him

[fred13331]

[fred13331]

[artemisia]

Not the most bizarre or even an actual lesson but I can�t compete with the OP.

I had some classes for a short time and one day after the last one of these classes, I stayed behind to finish off some marking. Two students (Russian and Saudi) also stayed behind to hold a fairly lengthy and rather loud conversation about the local dating scene.

I went off to the admin block to hand over some paperwork. When I came out, the same Saudi student was standing outside the office. I said �Hello� but he just stared at me in shock (?), barely answered and looked like he was about to keel over.

After a while it dawned on me � had he thought I�d been offended and gone straight to admin to report him (them)? I don�t know, but I�d heard from a few sources that when Saudis are abroad, they get checked up on to make sure they�re (still) leading upright and moral lives. I don�t know if this is really true but apparently some of the �checkers� pose as students for a period of time and then head home to give a report.