Job Discussion Forums

[Noelle]

I don't mean this in a bad way. I just thought the thread title might generate a response...

I am teaching at a private language school for adults in San Diego. I'm not really that familiar with Turkish culture. I've had a couple students from Istanbul and Izmir come through my classes. At the moment I teach a group of elementary level students from Korea, Thailand, Switzerland, Brazil and Turkey. The Turks have the majority and they are often the source of great frustration in and out of class.

Many of these students come here with the intention of getting into an American university to do their MBA. They are low level but think they should be placed into TOEFL courses. It seems to be a trend with young male students from Turkey... (24- 29ish). They also speak their native language entirely too much even though our school forbids it. While I find them often very charming and entertaining in class, my current Turkish students (the men) are about to drive me up the wall with their "I'm way above this class and these lessons" attitude. The female students from Turkey are quite the opposite... they're LOVELY!

These guys are smart, don't get me wrong. I think they know a lot about grammar but their oral and written production is not that good. They just refuse to hear it... particularly from a female teacher. Even though I like them, I find them arrogant and often very disrespectful... at least in groups. Perhaps they would be different if they weren't in the class together?

Any comments...?

[tarte tatin]

Yes I have had similar experiences with Turkish men in the language classroom. Some are great (I married one!) but many are difficult and try to dominate the class. Even nice ones can be resistant to having their errors corrected.

I think many have come from the private school system where their grades reflected the fact that the school did not want to lose custom, therefore they have had an inflated idea of their ability since childhood.

You are right in thinking that they behave better if separated from their friends. Being a group culture they tend to support each other's distracting behaviour.

In my experience many Turks do not like being away from home turf (men and women miss mummy terribly) and may be simply homesick or suffering from culture shock. Their behaviour may be their way of coping.

I begged my last boss not to put anymore Turks in my class (the other students were also very tired of their antics) and I think my colleagues are amazed that I married one and came to live in Turkey!

[dmb]

[lovelace]

This is going to sound awful, but what seems to work with disruptive male students is a combination of being all sickly sweet while taking the p**s out of them. In a nice way of course. Identify the strongest one and very carefully show him who's boss. Turkish students usually have a really good sense of humour, if you can get them laughing (a little bit and good-naturedly) at him at first, he'll soon join in.
And if you or fellow classmates express any curiosity at all about Turkey (not by asking if all women are covered though, beware), they'll happily talk for hours. Turks can have a real battling, victim mentality - they think the world hates them. If they feel comfortable, the barriers usually come down and then they can be great to teach. It must be hard for them though. They might not all be private school brats. Imagine if you feel you've worked hard on your English for years, you think you're a certain level (as you've discovered, they're obsessed with levels), then you get to your new language school abroad, placement tested and suddenly you've gone from Upper to Pre-Intermediate. You'd get a bit defensive, wouldn't you?

[Noelle]

What exactly do you mean by taking the p**s out of them? Teasing them? Not sure my guys would appreciate this. They are nice students. They just respond better to male teachers here in the states. I am also quite young (compared to the other teachers in my school)... only a year older than most of the Turkish students and don't really have that intimidation factor. They kind of see me as someone to "play around with".

Today I sat down and spoke with them in front of the whole class about using Turkish in the classroom. When I told them how they were excluding the other students who aren't from Turkey and being rude to me and to their classmates by not speaking English, they acted genuinely surprised and sorry. Now they ask... "can I speak Turkish.. only some words?" when they try to help each other with grammar.

As for the level changes, of course it's discouraging to come here and be "demoted" to a lower level. This is however what they pay us for... to be language experts. They take a placement test that determines which class they're put into. Rarely do the students in our program place above intermediate... yet they all think they're ready to take the TOEFL intensive course.

What I don't understand is, where do they get the idea that they are so high functioning? What is this system in Turkey? And where do they come off thinking that American teachers don't know how to assess their skills when they come to study abroad?
I feel like many of these guys are in for a rude awakening when and if they attempt to apply to grad schools here...

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

In fairness to students coming to study in English speaking countries, how do they know that the schools they'll be joining won't be as unscrupulous as some of those back home where the English language game is big business ...

I presume their education is not for free ... so why should they not think that schools in the UK and US might also be out to stuff their pockets with extra helpings of greenback by having students enter at a lower level and take 3 courses instead of 2 ...

[thrifty]

Some?

[justme]

Noelle, doing what you did (pointing out in front of the others about using Turkish in class) is kind of what I think of as taking the piss with these kinds of students. Harmless, but gets the job done, or at least temporarily. As long as it's done in good fun, and obviously you can use your judgment about whether a student is getting genuinely upset. In my experience, boys like this enjoy the attention, but at the same time, don't like being held up as an example of being different from the others, and so will try to be 'good' in order to attract positive attention, and it sounds like they're doing this when they ask if they can use some Turkish.

Much as I hate to say it, these kinds of guys are usually my favorite students-- they may be spoiled or whatever, but in the context of Turkish schools, they'd be among the cleverest in the class, and they're generally engaging and interesting-- way better than the ones who sulk and disrupt inappropriately. At the same time, they're hard to have in a classroom because they easily take all my attention, and because they're so demanding, I find myself inadvertently pitching the lessons to them.

Being young and female seems like a weak point, but you can use it to your advantage, because they really will respond to positive attention from you, so long as they know there's a line they can't cross (and negative attention will genuinely upset them!). I once had a class of about 20 boys like this (electrical engineers aged 19-22), and the lessons were often complete pandemonium, though it would stop immediately if I got angry fo real. I also found they just needed to feel challenged-- sometimes I would give them something slightly above their level and tell them it was really difficult and I wasn't sure if they could do it, then just enjoy the 2 hours of silence while they buckled down to prove me wrong.

As for the levels, I expect it's partly being misinformed here-- a lot of schools will pass students through levels with correspondingly higher-sounding names, but an 'advanced' class is usually just solidly intermediate students. Or, because 'Upper Intermediate' is the highest level offered by most schools, they think passing upper int means 'finished with English,' and they don't realize that 'intermediate' only means middle. Partly also, when they get to the US, they're suddenly among the brighter students from all around the world and go from being the big fish in a small pond to average fish in a big pond. And as we know the naming of levels is somewhat arbitrary-- Level 3 here probably isn't the same as Level 3 in Japan or in Ohio or in New York even. But the students don't always get this, and it's hard for a top of the class kid to suddenly get 'demoted'...

If you're confident it won't backfire in your face, you might send them to sit in on a graduate-level lecture (or show a recorded one in class), or give them graduate-level reading so they can see what they will be up against...

[lovelace]

[tarte tatin]

Some of the blame perhaps lies with the agent who sold them the course, if they used an agent and most students do. The agent should have level tested them and advised them what to expect.

Most schools have an online pre-course test so at the very least they should have been directed to it.

Anyway glad for you the problems seems to be sorted.

[Noelle]

Thanks all for your input.

Teaching for an IEP (intensive Eng. program) in the states is quite new to me after having spent years teaching mostly children in Asia.

It is helpful to understand some of the background of these students. My co-workers always tell me how difficult these Turkish men are when they come here insisting that they belong in a Cambridge or TOEFL class.
What I've been noticing is that they interact very well with the other European students and yes, they do know their grammar, but their level of production is not nearly as high as that of their Swiss friends. Like the Asians, the Turks seem to really know their grammar rules and as stated by another poster... they cannot apply those rules in their speaking and writing. They don't know how to monitor themselves for accuracy. Some of them are more humble than others.

Aside from being late frequently, my students (26-27yr old engineers and programmers from Izmir and Istanbul) are really quite good in the class when they're not speaking their native language. I am still developing rapport with them but I tend to give a lot of attention to the Asians having spent so much time in that culture. I think if I only had one Turkish student in the class, he would probably be the shining star. As it is, I sometimes feel like it's a power struggle between them and me. We joke a lot but I feel it's too much. I want them to understand that I'm not a member of their class that they can flirt with... I'm the TEACHER.

While I may not have experience working in Turkey, I am capable of assessing the progress of any student in the class and I'm currently finishing a masters in TESOL as well. I like the idea of showing them an excerpt from a graduate lecture at UCSD or better yet... bringing a guest in to speak with them. I may try something like that in the future.

I will also try to be more sensitive to their egos this coming week. Thanks again for all the input from those of you with experience. If you have any more tips or info on this particular culture of students, I'd love to read it on the forum or in a private message.
Appreciate it![/i]

[FGT]

I broadly agree with everything's that been mentioned before - humourously taking the p!ss, being friendly but imposing boundaries, etc. Something else that comes to mind as you mention Asians in the same class - Turkish students generally have relatively few pronunciation problems with English (apart from "th" and "v") so this might be an opportunity to praise them in one area whilst disciplining them in another. They can then maintain their balance of feeling confident and being seen to be good at something whilst appreciating the need to improve in other areas.

Once you become accustomed to their wiles you'll probably end up loving them. They need to learn to respect you but that's not necessarily a problem. After that, it's usually plain sailing.

If all else fails and they speak Turkish in class (without permission), say "Harbi Mi?" It usually stops them in their tracks (as you appear to understand everything they've said and speak colloquial Turkish)!

[Noelle]

What is "Harbi Mi"? Is that pronounced exactly as it looks? What does it mean? I don't want to offend anyone!

[yaramaz]

It means something like "really?" or "is that so?"-- harbi means true/correct, and mi is the question word. It's pronounced like "Harby me?", as it's written, with the 'me' part rising at the end as you would do anyways with questions.

[Noelle]

Thanks! I'll give it a try next week...

Anything else I should know?