Job Discussion Forums

gtidey · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 93

What blundering baffooneries did you commit when you first started teaching? Embarassed

latefordinner · Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 973

Too many to count. No doubt I'm making a few still.

Sonnet · Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 235 Location: South of the river

Thinking I could teach while half-cut (only ever tried this one once)

Giving the kids in one class nicknames (apparently 'cabbage' is quite offensive in Chinese)

Admitting to 12-year old Asian girls that I didn't have a girlfriend at the time

Using permanent markers on the whiteboard

All of the above deserve a pretty big Rolling Eyes

, I know. I swear I'm a lot less amateurish these days - equally, I'm sure that my mistakes are still probably fairly amateurish. That's the point of getting experience, no?

ntropy · Joined: 11 Oct 2003 Posts: 671 Location: ghurba

My mistakes are never "rookie," which suggests they're minor and correctable. Mine are monumental, earth-shattering and I hope I make more. People who never try anything new never grow Embarassed

Joachim · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Posts: 311 Location: Brighton, UK

I guess trying to be friends with the students before establishing authority.

And I wrote on the whiteboard with a permanent marker once too!

inmexico · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Posts: 110 Location: The twilight zone

I wonder how many of us HAVE written on a white board with permanent marker. My biggest blunder - falling in love. My biggest accomplishment - falling in love.

denise · Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 3419 Location: finally home-ish

Assuming that my students, while not proficient in English (that was MY job), were at least well-trained students familiar with academic activities.

I remember being astounded after assigning a writing assignment and getting from some of the students strings of individual sentences instead of nice, flowing paragraphs. What?!?!? Hadn't they ever written an essay before?!?!? (Uh, no... apparently not. One of my colleagues pointed out that perhaps they were math/science students and had never had to write in any language before.) I thought that teaching them how to write should not be my responsibility and that all I needed to teach was the language. Oooops.

d

gtidey · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 93

if i had a quid for every time i saw a teacher use permanent marker on a whiteboard... i could buy a whiteboard.

and maybe some pens too.

red ones...?

biffinbridge · Joined: 05 May 2003 Posts: 701 Location: Frank's Wild Years

Working for Language Link in the Czech Republic in a coal mining zone and getting the local police chief's daughter up the spout.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

I find that when I write on the whiteboard with a red or green pen students complain that they can't read it beacase of light reflection. Stick to black and blue.

zaneth · Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2004 7:32 pm Post subject:

writing on the local police chiefs daughter with permanent marker.

lajzar · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 647 Location: Saitama-ken, Japan

My rookie mistake was trying to get a mute student to talk. After teh lesson, the local asistant teacher informed me that that kid was mentally disabled. Rolling Eyes

Perhaps they could have told me before I made a fool of myself?

Anyway, for those who have ever written on whiteboards with permanent markers, overwrite with a whiteboard pen and then you can erase everything. Cool

Laura C · Joined: 14 Oct 2003 Posts: 211 Location: Saitama

[quote="lajzar"]My rookie mistake was trying to get a mute student to talk. After teh lesson, the local asistant teacher informed me that that kid was mentally disabled. Rolling Eyes

Perhaps they could have told me before I made a fool of myself?

Stuff like that always happens at one of my elementary schools. It's a big school with a few learinng disabled kids and quite a few physically disabled. I'll give the JTE my lesson plan a week in advance and she'll say it's great. Then when I get to the class and tell everyone to stand up, push their desks back and let's jump around for a bit, there's a kid in a wheelchair looking reproachfully at me...After the clas the JTE says something like, Oh, he was very upset because he couldn't join in the game... Rolling Eyes

L

dandan · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 183 Location: Hong Kong

I once heard of a rookie who believed something he read on Dave's ESL Cafe.

One of them urban myths though, I reckon, nobody's that dumb.

Will. · Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 783 Location: London Uk

I learnt how to clean the permanent marker off the board. I also learnt to clean it after my lesson. Big mistake.... now I clean it automatically at the end of my lesson just before i leave the class. that's what students are for isn't it? I never learnt to ask them to clean the board.
If I had a quid for every time I had cleaned someone else's permanent marker off MY board or cleaned up the mess they left on it. I would not have been paid enough.