Job Discussion Forums

[Atlas]

I teach vocational business students and only about half of any given class is actually motivated to be there. The other half is utterly restless (though this week their tails are tucked!). As the teacher, what I want more than anything, if not stunning bliss for learning English, is a quiet classroom.

Is it ok to ignore walkman's, gameboys, comic books, etc, if it keeps the monsters quiet? Is it ok to actually tell the students "Bring whatever keeps you busy, go to sleep, anything but your inane chatter!" Or should I always confiscate said contraband and force them to conform, thus making the lesson into a kind of punishment?

Should I just quietly overlook these things? What about food? (I politely ask them to finish their meals in the hall, then SMS the DOS to take a stroll by the room if he has the time--what fun!).

I'd like to just spend more time teaching those who want it.

[foster]

Must admit that this is a problem I face in a HK high school as well. Honestly, sometimes, I think a blind eye is the best defense. Are they quiet? Are they letting you teach? Are they not bothering other students who ARE modivated to learn? Are they doing something semi-productive? If you force them to do your activity, will they (A) Benefit from it or (B) retain any of it?

I get students who are doing other homework in my lessons. Depending on the lesson, I will take it away or let it go. I have students who read Chinese books during our English Reading Time. As long as they are quiet, I pretend not to notice.

I know one teacher at an international school who encourages about 6 of her rotten teenagers to nap for a bit during her lessons, due to their disruptive nature.

One teacher in my school gets very irrate about gum and lollies, but I think that is minor compared with the slings and arrows they throw at me in Cantonese which I do not understand.

I will not tolerate mobile phones. Some kids will be plugged into a MP3 player or walkman with one earphone.

Does this make us bad teachers? Honestly, no, I don't think so. Some kids are not interested in learning a second language. When in class, they are rude and disruptive but they MUST be there. If I waste all my time trying to get them quiet and working and listening to me, the other 39 kids in my class will not get a lesson.

Choose your battles wisely and best of luck!

[ls650]

[Joachim]

No mobile phones, walkmans or gameboys and I will confiscate them. The rule is they get them back at the end of class, but if I cantch the same student using one of these things three times I will confiscate for good. Not happened yet though.

Personally I'm not bothered if students eat or drink in class, so long as if they make a mess they clean it up themselves. Particularly here in Hong Kong where students seem to spend a whole day at school and then go for additional classes in the evenings and at weekends, when else do they get a chance to snack??

[dmb]

My students are told(by the management) that they are not allowed phones,MP3s, food or drink in the classroom. If they are caught by the managers when they pop in to the classroom, then whose fault is it? The teachers of course!!

[Atlas]

[Roger]

If you are soft in the beginning you will never be allowed to run the class properly!
Since your students are adults, or near adult age, you must insist on some modicum of behaviour; mobile phones have to be off. Eating or drinking? I hardly ever notice such things in mainland schools, but it's true these habits are part and parcel of Hong Kong social life. Like the mobile phones being used under any circumstances, whether welcome or not. Maybe the school management ought to enact some rules.
I told my students at the beginning of this semester that if "your girlfriends call you, boys, or boyfriend calls you, girls, let me talk to them..." They took it with humour, and believe me: their phones never interrupt my lessons. Then again, my university has no discipline problems in general, and all my western colleagues are very upbeat about their students, as am I.
I also make them work during the lesson; since one of my lessons is Writing, I demand that they do it during my class time. They are wonderfully cooperative.
Even in Speaking lessons they have to take NOTES, so there must be some conscious effort on their part to stay tuned.

[dmb]

Last year in Qatar all the mosques were fitted with some device that blocked all mobile phone signals. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could install them in our classrooms? Maybe something for the future.

[noodles]

I had a student who would constantly play on some hand held game console in one of my classes. After several warnings, the last explaining what i would do with it if i caught him again. I had no choice but to follow through with my threat.
I think he was quite shocked when i snatched it from his fingers and threw it out of the 3rd floor window.

He wined, he moaned, he threatened to tell his parents but he learnt his lesson.

[foster]

I have been tough. I have taken things away. I have given after school detentions and horrible amounts of work for those who break the rules. I still have some who refuse to listen.

I have other classes that know when Ms. N raises her voice, they best shut the fek up. I have writing classes where some of them work and others when they don't. I found that my organization is key in keeping them busy.

[khmerhit]

I realize this is a curmudgeonly thing to say, but mobile phones are a scourge--- a huge pain in the backside. I cannot get used to them. In my classes a few years back, only the odd spoilt sixteen year old girl would dare use one, risking and earning immediate ejection. The cheek.

Now, I dont know about classrooms here, but everywhere else is apparently fair game, including public libraries. Excuse me? Since when did people conduct all manner of business and personal business by telephone in a library? I feel like I nodded off for a few years, woke up and voila---except ---whoops---I've woken up in a different century. (Maybe I have, too.) This afternoon I was obliged to walk around a teenager who was drifting about in front of me, oblivious, with one of these devices glued to her ear, while I havered politely and waited for her to decide which direction she was drifting in. Last week I had to to ask someone to stop talking on his phone at the top of his voice--"Yeah! Hello! It's me! Right! About five minutes or so! "-- until I went 'HEY HEY' with as wounded a sound as I could muster, and he looked up and shamefacedly realized he was in a freaking library. What is to be done?
Morphing into a Scrooge-
Khmerhit

[foster]

I must agree that I also detest mobile phones. I could not be without mine in Japan but in HK, I hate it. In Japan, I was lucky in that they never worked on the trains and the undergrounds. Sadly, here, they work everywhere. There is nothing more annyoing than sitting on a bus/subway and having some old lady scream "WEI???!!!!" into her phone.

I am sick of them. I want all mobile phones stricken from the earth.

[James_T_Kirk]

[foster]

AYE AYE AYE!!!

[ls650]