Korean Job Discussion Forums

[VanIslander]

Like many of us, I've some good classes and some bad classes. And I know that what I do largely infuences how the students act and react. I've had some successes and some failures. But one strategy doesn't fit all, and it'd be useful to have some practical advice by fellow Korean ESLers.

For those of us struggling to change a dysfunctional class into a functional one, how have you?

How do you transform a class?

I have had some big and small successes (and a few failures) by using the following two tactics:

TIP: Choose where the students sit.

I put the attention-deficit kids in the front row and they chat a lot less; if space is limited, I put keeners in the back row; if I can, I cram more students into the first two rows and avoid the back row entirely; I put better students next to worse, to encourage them to help each other and to equalize team game scores; I put troublemakers in the middle rows because they seem less detached than when they sit on the outside and turn and face the class.

TIP: Re-arrange the desks to suit specific classes.

If the class is small enough, then I place them all in the front row, and capture their attention so much easier; I experiment with layout, and find semi-circles or v patterns work for some classes, while straight rows or in-pairs work for other classes.

Those are two tips that've sometimes worked. Yet, with two classes, nothing has ever worked. One is an unproductive form of chaos and the other is dead headed. New ideas would be nice.

Bring it on.

[sandstorm]

I have several classs that I've tried to work on to become more responsive.

I try to rely the old peer group pressure system and flat out bribery. I have a system whereby students get stickers either individually or as part of a group ... as soon as they reach 300 stickers, I throw them a "pizza party" or "cookie party" and they LOVE it.

I find that when I reward good behaviour (and they quickly adapt to things like not having books or pencils ready equates bad behaviour) for which they do not receive stickers.

Before, I found this class the most difficult to teach (9~10 year olds) but now they are a walk in the park ... especially as their discipline come from their peers, not from me.

[captain kirk]

it's your classroom and, short of being an insane/inane despot, you call the shots. moving kids around is the first thing. some kids look like they have some hyperactivity disorder, always clowning around, working up a mutiny with the pals they can stir up...but that's just them. it's weird. they're just kids. and instead of being out swinging on swings and sliding on slides they're nose to hagwon bus windows en route to a box hosted by a foreigner. but separating a shy, good girl from another girl is too much. that kind of kid is just sitting comfortably. so what if they girltalk and chortle; it isn't the fine points of a theorum requiring rapt absorbtion. and the 'dysfunctional/disruptive' classes?chances are they aren't going to study in a 'maximizing their, and your potential as a teacher' mode, anyway. the good students go to learning with a sense of play, and make play of it. the 'wild mustang' kiddos, they just want to be there, do the hang out vibe with teacher and keep it congenial. in that mode they'll get to doing what's required of them, the couple of pages book/workbook, anyway. gotta slow down and keep it friendly in spite of the urge to shock them/shake them up (to 'catch up' with the other classes). it's said 'one can't change another person'. accept the students who kick back like they're on a beach for who they are, and they'll do what's required to keep the status quo 'knowledge input' rate on track. same for middle school classes, i guess. but they're hard. especially since they come after the delightful kids classes(and i mean that; teaching kids is wonderful in comparison; lots of hootful reparte). with middle school, maybe forget ploughing through a book that's a little too difficult for them, and 'chat' the first half of class. but those are 'mean streets', those frigid middle school pond classes (frogs temporarily dormant sleeping in the mud asking for a break, when 'i've got a job to do' (husky voice); like a cop handing out tickets, but what's the alternative? 'nap time'?)

[captain kirk]

"people may not recall exactly what you said to them, but they'll remember how what you said made them feel, and never forget that". the 'dysfunctional/wildcat' kids are perhaps, 'just kids'. and trying to make them feel ashamed by speaking to them in a 'hurry along/you ought to know better' tone of impatience....they 'hear' this loud and clear in context of the above quote. and are more likely to freeze up. maybe they're getting tons of this kind of abuse, if you want to call it that, already. when a foreign teacher has an uncommunicative boss who only communicates when he's in a rage and talking down, it can make you 'want to be effective'. but the kids who drag their butts and don't/won't focus...no amount of berating them is going to 'smarten them up'. you may laugh and think this is obvious, but what if a kid doesn't bring his book/pencil day after day. is flicking bits of eraser or nose candy balls. taking care of these violations of classroom decorum can put teacher in a mood for some payback; 'you don't respect me as a teacher; i don't respect you as a student'. it happens. the wildcats don't give a rip. they horse around like colts at play. that's the main thing for them. they've heard the barking.

[flutieflakes]

you slam it...............you hate it.............but in the bottom line you shoud have been looking at EPIK............so much time off, so little stress..........really feel for you hagwon workers......

[Saxiif]

Well there's too kinds of bad students that I've run into, the unresponsive kinds and the disruptive kinds. If they really really don't want to learn and they don't bother me I'll more or less keep the truce and don't bother them too much and let them sit with their friends...

[captain kirk]

hey, flutieflakes beside the pool sucking back on a c*cktail straw...yeah, you! i worked in taiwan in the public schools teaching grade one and grade four. so 'all i had to do' was deliver the same lesson to a different room of 35 students and do you know what? i felt like a friggin' parrot. same lesson for grade ones all week following the curiculum; so maybe 15 times. i don't know what EPIK is like, exactly. but being on stage doing a horse and pony show is what that taiwan job felt like. 'you slam it', 'you hate it'. yeah, sure. because there's possibility for advancement in overcoming varying difficulties depending on varying situations. compared to being on 'autopilot' and delivering 'an english show on stage'. they're different critters.

[flutieflakes]

thats my job mate, full time cartoon character..............half of my time is teaching middle school students with a korean teacher in the room, the rest is teaching english teachers...................so go on you hagwon slaves, if you plan to stay here, you should seriously consider it..........

[captain kirk]

every hagwon situation is different, mr flutieflakes, but i appreciate you are on top of the world and having a blast being very entertaining. gosh, if only i had your whatchemacallit and then i could be as cool as you; mojo, is it? is it your birthday, or something?

[Gord]

"I beat you to teach you!"

[Juggertha]

TIP: love them. It may sound corney but honestly show them that you love them. that you care about them and that your interested in them and thier futures. I've always found that 99% of the time if i'm "battling it out" with a given student, I should take the higher role and show them how much i care. That doesnt exclude discipline... thats "tough love". lol

[mack the knife]

Hmmm...about the "love" solution.

Try that with middle/high school kids. You will fail, young Jedi. The vast majority of those pupils have already turned to the Dark Side.

[ratslash]

jeez, thought that was common sense. move the trouble makers next to the good ones. or boy-girl-boy-girl is always a good one. making the trouble makers stand in the corner of the room for 15 minutes holding a book above their head usually shuts them up too!

[some waygug-in]

[Mosley]

I can assure all and sundry that EPIK is not quite the utopia that flutieflakes suggests. That's quite an understatement in fact. But I will concede that teaching older students in a public school does take some of the heat off of the waygookin. I do almost all of the planning for the middle-school students, co-teach classes of up to 40 students and for all that I've had very few problems-many less than when I co-taught high schoolers in Japan. The kids at my school are damned glad to see me, and who can blame them? Am I a rock star/ dancing bear? Hardly. I'm a bland middle-aged guy. But when you consider the meatgrinder of an education system they're put through is it any wonder they're thrilled to see a Westerner in the classroom evey second week? Teaching the Korean teachers, however, well... that's where I've had some problems....