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[kev7161]

Background: I have five Senior One classes (along with three Senior Twos). Class One is just fine. I would say about 90% are attentive, bright, seem to want to practice their English, and do well on exams.

Class Two has about a dozen (out of 30) that fit the description above. Class Three, Four, and Five? Maybe 6 or 7 per class. Last semester, I was spending a lot of my time fighting with these kids. Wake up! Stop Talking! Put away your mobile phone! You know the story. Many of you have listed similar problems. A couple classes were so bad that I just stopped teaching them. I'd go in with papers to grade or a book to read and just let them visit for 45 minutes (twice a week). Amazingly, nobody ever came to me and said I couldn't do that. However, that's not why I was here and some students actually did want to learn.

So, I went to the director of my department at the start of this term with an idea, an experiment if you will. I suggested we leave Class One alone, I'd continue to see them 2X a week as scheduled. I suggested for the other four classes to let me pull some of the brighter eggs out of the class and have a "special" English class. I'd even come in during the evening and conduct these classes: Class "A" and Class "B", about 20 students per. Then, I'd see the entire class once a week and we'd watch movies or listen to music or something they might enjoy. It really wasn't "teaching" them English, but they'd be happy, I'd be happy, everyone would be happy.

My director thought it was a swell idea, but he wasn't keen on the nighttime classes. They have self-study from 6:30 to 10:00pm every night and they need that time to "study". (Nevermind the fact that I've been in these classes at night - - TVs are playing, kids are talking, some are studying, or reading, or whatever). I told him I understood, but it would only be two evenings out of the week for 45 minutes each evening. Surely the brighter students didn't need all that time for studying? But he wouldn't budge and instead scheduled the classes for "8th period" (we have 7 periods a day. "8th" period is free activity time: sports, piano, etc.). Well, you can see where this is going. My argument was that most students who had just spent all day in their classrooms were not going to want to come to yet another class - - especially as it was getting nice outside. His counter was that they wouldn't be able to keep track of the kids if we had an evening class. He said that some kids would say they are going to my class then disappear somewhere. I told him there would be a class list (naturally) of names that I would have made up and distribute to all the teachers (different teachers have duty on different evenings to watch over the kids). And I would be keeping attendance as well. Still, no, afternoons are better.

"Okay," I sighed, "I'll do what you say." So, I invited the various students and, sure enough, only about 1/2 showed up. And some of these aren't coming on a regular basis. I talked to all the head teachers of each class to have them stress to the kids they needed to come, but ??? I finally combined the two classes into one and now I have a decent-sized class (about 22 students) and I leave the other class "open" in case the school can somehow convince other students to come to a spoken English class.

So, here's a case of what I thought was a good idea gone bad. I thought had all the bases covered so there would be very little work involved from other Chinese teachers or staff. I even said that Chinese teachers that wanted to brush up on their English were welcome in the class!

From one class I only have ONE student that comes (out of 8 names), another only TWO students (and these two girls are only attending sporadically). I sent an email to the director telling him it wasn't working and we should probably just go back to the regular schedule but he said it is too late as other subjects are now being taught in the holes I left behind. I think some of these students viewed this as an English "club" or an English Corner kind of thing; not a real class.

Here are my questions: First of all, what do you think? Was this a good idea or did I blow it? Should I worry so much about it? Should I continue to show movies in those classes where only one or two are attending (if they show at all) or should I go back to babysitting? We are only about 3 months away from the end of the term (including our huge two-week May Day holiday) and then I'm out of this school. I'm guessing what some of your feedback may be, but I'd be curious to get some opinions on this.

Thanks for you time and attention.

[tofuman]

Kev, Your mistake was a simple one: You cared. It doesn't pay cash or validation to do that in most if not all of the "helping" professions.

I wanted to do something similar but the department head vetoed the idea. He knew what you found out the hard way. Even the better students do not appreciate these kind of things. They are usually good because they are gifted and they already know what works for them.

Nice try.

[Spiderman Too]

Some years back I knew an Italian immigrant in Australia. He had successfully operated his own restaurant in Italy for many years. He opened an Italian restaurant in Australia. He was both very motivated and very passionate about his new business venture. He attended the food markets at 4:00 am each day to buy the freshest and best vegetables, meat & seafood; the idea of using frozen or canned ingredients never entered his mind. The d�cor of his eatery was charming and the location was in a prime pedestrian traffic area.

For the first 2 months the restaurant did well. Subsequently, patronage steadily declined and after 6 months he was forced to close the premises for fear going bankrupt. He couldn�t understand why his restaurant had failed. He had tried his very best and, after all, he was an experienced and successful restaurateur back in his home country.

His problem was that he couldn�t see the wood for the trees. His style of food preparation simply did not suit the locals. The restaurant was a novelty at first but customers soon became bored with, what they considered to be, uninspiring, fairly ordinary cuisine. That the food was healthy and cooked well was never in question.

Subsequently, whenever anyone raised the subject of the restaurant, he would go into a highly emotional tirade about how the locals were ignorant, ungrateful peasants who had wasted an opportunity to expand their horizons and partake in an international dining experience.

Such is life!

[burnsie]

Nice story by Spiderman that hits the nail on the head. Understanding what the locals want is the most important. If that means a figurehead of white flesh well be it. Unfortuntately this figurehead of white flesh is YOU! AND ME!

Nice try though. You got some of the students out that wanted to study.

Play movies and music in the class. At least you will have a bit more fun.

[clarrie]

[Austrian]

Kev7161,
I'm also afraid it might be too late by now to revert the rules again, in particular as you have not that much time left (weren't you leaving sooner anyhow due to some of your students getting into your PC without your knowledge and permission or was that 7969?)

I also think showing DVDs without any special purpose could ruin classes from that time on - they might expect this over and over again.

I still remember my math teacher in high school - he was the best teacher I probably ever had. He could be extremely funny but he was also dead-tough when necessary.

My teaching experience in China is still very limited and what I say might be a newbie's illusion, however ...

I currently teach 20 Senior 1 and 2 classes, all of them have between 70 and 80 students. The boys are usually weaker and also congest in the back rows, some sleeping, some talking, well the usual. I have been breaking up the lessons into 2 to 3 time slots, the last is always a competition, which gets them going and they leave the class in some good spirit. Before that I do some dialogues and the usually get a script, where they have to add some info on their own. I hope to make it a little more difficult as the weeks go by. In the first round I try to get some better students, but from the 2nd one on I really don't care - I get the mutes and the bums and often we have a laugh as they have to come up stage and perform. I have noticed that a lot of the students actually enjoy the attention, not all of them, but still - and of course they forget everything the moment they walk through the classroom-door, but that is another story ...

I guess teaching is like Don Quijote fighting the windmills