Job Discussion Forums

[Mekon]

I have been teaching at a small private school in Japan for almost 6 months and I love it. I started with NOVA but moved after 5 weeks to this private school for a couple of different reasons. I am not a teacher and this is my first experience at teaching English. I love children and am enthusiastic about my job.

I teach mostly children aged from 4 to 16 years. I have one class of troublesome girls and I don't know what to try next to make my class more enjoyable for both the children and me.

The class is two girls who don't talk at all, unless prompted by me. They are 10 and 9 years old and we are currently studying double vowels. We are reviewing what their previous teached did. They are finding it a little difficult especially one of the girls.
They are taking a long time to get a grasp of it and I am trying to make it as fun as possible. These two show no emotion at all, no smiling, no talking (not even amongst themselves in Japanese). I have tried to make them laugh, I have tried to make them realx and have fun and also tried so many games but the games that require energy, like slap, hopscotch or any type of racing game don't usually work as these two have very little enthusiasum. They have been coming to the school for a couple of years and have been taught by a couple of different teachers and the comments from each teacher has been the same as mine. I am not sure of the teaching style of the last teacher but these girls obvouisly don't like english very much but are sent to class by their parents. I want to make it a fun learning environment!!! Please help! Thanks

[guest of Japan]

Your best bet is to use positive reinforcement. Rather than focus on what they can't do or don't like to do focus more on what they can and like. Give ample praise and make them feel like they can be successful. Play some games with rewards like cheap candy and just try to make them feel special and wanted.

All the above have no guarantees of success, but sometimes success doesn't come despite our desires, intentions and efforts.

Kids tend to dislike things they can't do and like the things they can. You just have to make them realize that English is something they can do. It's easier said than done.

Also if possible keep the girs separate. They may be feeding off each other. Get the other students to welcome them into the fold if possible.

[Mekon]

Thank you for your suggestions. At the moment it is difficult to separate the girls, as their schedules are set and cannot be easily changed. Apparently, they are friends and want to be together, but I see no evidence of this before, during or after class. They don't even look at each other let alone talk.

I will continue to be positive and just try more and more encouragement and maybe little incentives like you mentioned.

I will be persistant with this one.

Cheers

[spidey]

Mekon,

Maybe you could consider doing a class project of some kind. Making english posters to help decorate your classroom, for example. Projects that can be either done together or individually. I'm sure that these girls have some creative energy that they would be willing to share.

Good luck

S

[mrjohndub]

I agree with Guest wholeheartedly except for one thing that I would caution you and anyone else against doing: giving children any kind of candy or food that is not okayed by their parents first.

I'm sure somebody will follow this up by telling me that I am too uptight, but I'm really not...it's just unethical (in my and many others' opinions)and it puts you at risk. Candy, food, drink, etc at school parties that is sanctioned by and in full view of the management is where I draw the line.

If the parents know that you'll be doing that and are okay with such incentives in the classroom, great! It's a useful tool.

The reasons include that many parents would not appreciate superficial incentives being introduced into the classroom seeing as their regular schools promote a rigorous, honor and duty-bound attitude about academic achievement...you'd never see that in Japanese schools, also they may plan to keep their children in English instruction for a while and know that you might not always be their child's teacher...therefore you are sort of pushing the envelope as far as rewards go...and they can't be sure that their children will respond appropriately to other future teachers who might not do that, particularly as they grow into adolescence, when most of these kids will feign interest in the class at best, and on top of that, they may just not appreciate having you decide what their children ingest...sugar or whatever...plus, some kids develop allergies or diabetes at this age...do you know the medical history of your students? I don't.

I suggest you play it safe, for the parent's state of mind, for the kids own well-being, and for your protection from complaints or the remote, yet real possibility that you inadvertantly contribute to something bad.

Or, you could just ask the parents for permission, through the management. Some may enthusiastically agree that it's an appropriate thing. And they'll respect you and the company for seeking out their permission.

On another note, I also agree with the previous post about doing more artistic activities. These quiet girls will probably like it, whether they show it or not, and they'll feel less pressure. Maybe over time, they'll open up to you.

Don't forget, there's a good chance that they really do like you and class. They might just not show it. I have two sisters (12 and 9) in one of my classes who don't say a peep or change facial expressions the whole class, week in and week out, and then they go home and rave about me and how much they truly did enjoy the class to their mother. It's baffling.

Kids tell their parents everything the moment they walk out of the door.

good luck!

[abufletcher]

In general I think all the ideas above sound like good avenues to explore. But I just want to point out that you may be dealing here with something quite beyond the scope of any language teacher.

I teach at a university and every year I have several students who I can only describe as severely socially handicapped. In fact, when I first arrived in Japan I actually believed they were mentally handicapped. They seem to be completely unable to deal with any sort of human interaction -- and this is as true with other Japanese as with foreign teachers. They will not speak with or even look at any other students. They do not interaction with others either before or after class. Often they will contort their bodies in odd ways to avoid their classmates (for example when forced to participate in groupwork). They are completely unresponsive to any type of external stimuli -- except in the form of being visibly repulsed by it. If they do react it is likely to be a kind of mild "freaking out" that you probably want to avoid. BTW, I have never experienced students like this from any other country -- only here in Japan. I believe there is actually a Japanese term for people like this, something like "hikikomori" -- though the term "social phobia" might be descriptive.

With people like this you really have to forget about teaching English and focus instead on training them in simple human interaction. For example, practicing handing an object around or back and forth (avoiding physical contact at first), or playing some eye-contact games (eye contact tag is fun with a small group). Think of the sorts of activities that a special ed teacher might do with an autistic child.

Your students at ages 9 and 10 are a little young for this and this phenomenon is a little more common in males than females in my experience but they could well be headed that way. I'd want to be seeing them in a Japanese context, for example with their friends (if they have any) or at home, to see how they interact. If you suspect there may really be a problem you may want to try to involve the parents in a solution.

[guest of Japan]

mrjohndub, you've put more thought into a 10 yen piece of candy than I ever have.

Any educator will tell you that extrinsic motivation is the weakest kind of motivation and all caution against its over use. However to develop intrinsic motivation you have to make the learner feel like he/she is capable of or even good at doing the initual task at hand.

Your idea of the Japanese system as one where the students are honor and duty bound just cracks me up. There is social conditioning being done in the schools, but its major focus is not in terms of academics. Japanese teachers are very quick to separate those students who can do from those who can't. The whole system is geared this way.

I do have to agree with you about asking the parents permission though, especially with younger students. I teach high school kids, so that is not a problem for me.

Abufletcher does bring up an excellent point about possible social disorders. I have taught several students who probably suffered from this and there is not much you as a foreign teacher can do.

[mrjohndub]

Yeah, I hear you Guest. I meant that the parents view their children's regular school as being tied to those virtues, whether they are that way in practice or not. If you do something that is far outside the bounds of what they perceive is the correct thing for their child, they'll complain. And they're in the driver's seat.

Even on the surface, even the most easygoing parent is likely to see it as promoting bad habits. They may also believe that as a high profile gaijin you somehow have influence on their child proportionally greater than you really do. People find a million and one things to complain about, whether it's their child or themselves who are the students.

[pnksweater]

If candy is out of the question you might consider stickers. I don't know if they keep logbooks of their lessons or workbooks of some sort, but stickers at that age can also be a good motivator. It also provides physical proof to the parent that the child is achieving in the class.

I had many quiet female students around that age... it seems pretty common. Something I've done to pull students out of their shell is break out colored pencils and half lined half blank paper for journaling. Students can spend some time getting used to the classroom environment then tell you a little about what they did or drew. If your students have homework this can also be a great way for you to communicate with them without forcing them to risk making mistakes or looking stupid in front of their peers. Take the time to comment or write back in each journal. Many of my students really look forward to this activity, and I've gotten to know them much better.

[abufletcher]

BTW, I've found it useful to consciously work on "responsiveness" training with my Japanese students. Little things like training them to look at you when you say "this" or look at you and then follow your pointing finger when you say "that." I am endlessly amazed at how often my students don't do these simple things -- which of course means they miss a lot of valuable visual information.

Young children almost never have a problem being responsive but as they get older they start to learn "accepted norms" of non-repsonsiveness. When a person of authority is speaking school aged children learn not to respond in any way either physically or verbally. This is perhaps a way of demonstrating proper respect. But Japanese (and Asian more generally) students need to understand that this is not how this behavior is read in other cultures. It can be read as "sullenness" or "boredom" or even "hatred."

This may not be exactly on-topic but what I guess I'm saying is that we sometimes need to help older learners remember what it was like to be a young child.

I also agree that girls this age can be very quite in classroom settings. I guess it's part of learning to be demure.

[Mekon]

Thank you all so much for you helpful hints. I will take them on board. I appreciate it as this is my first time to use this discussion board and I have some very interesting responses to think about.
At our school the children receive a sticker (to put on their name sheets) and candy at the end of the lesson. So that wont be happening in the class room. The parents are aware of he candy being dished out at the end of the lesson so that is no problem.
I also think that this problem may be deeper than just boredom or not wanting to learn as Abufletcher pointed out.
I will put the learning English aside for part of the class and just try to communicate with them on a social level and whipping out the colour pencils may be a good way to help this happen.
Thanks so much!

[spidey]

[Mekon]

Thanks Spidey, more good advice.

Please excuse my ignorance but still be fairly fresh in this game I don't know what IMHO means....can you fill me in?
Cheers,

[spidey]

[abufletcher]

IMHO is chat-lingo standing for "In My Humble Opinion." Sometimes you'll see it as "IMNSHO" (In my NOT SO humble opinion).

Re your students, I'd suggest starting out with some form of interaction that doesn't involve any talk at all but rather simply requires that the two girls work(play) together in some way. Look at the way they interaction during this shared activity. If they seem to have fairly natural non-verbal interaction you can safely assume this is just an issue of Japanese shyness and procede slowly from there.

I like to feel that language should always be deeply embedded in an activity such that one is never overtly focused on language itself. Actually at times I wish I were teaching children instead of university students so I could explore this area of interaction more thoroughly.