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dee
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Birmingham
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 Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:38 am Post subject: Losing the will to teach - what now?! |
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Hey, I'm Dee. I'm a newbie in despair.
Things aren't going well at all, not as bad as some folk, but I gotta talk this through or I'm going to crack.
I work at a hogwan. My boss is an arsehole, but that's another story. My problem right now is that, hands down, my teaching sucks and my classroom management has all but disappeared.
I've been here for a mere 3 months. It's my first time teaching, so it's really been up and down all the way. I came in pretty strong, but with little support from my boss or the K-teachers, my confidence (when it comes to discipline), and patience, has dwindled. Let me be more specific...
One particular class is a group of 9, 8-9 year old boys. To say they run me ragged is an understatement. Typical 50 minutes with them...60% of the boys turn up early and run around like maniacs before class, getting them overexcited and mischievious. I try to tell them to calm down, be quite, sit down, etc, but it always fails. The boss couple rarely opens their mouth. I've resorted to sitting them in single seats where I want them, so I eventually get them seated and start my lesson. I'll just be at the point where they're listening when the other 40% rocks up causing a little wave of disruption that grows like a tsunami. Imagine 9 boys each making their own distinct little noises, 2 of them are crawling on the floor, 1 is standing on his chair, 2 are milling around like it's an after dinner party and the rest are shouting, squealing, banging, talking, you name it.
There are the usual suspects, who see how far they can push it, and how much of a reactin they can get from me and everyone else in the class, every time, and then there are the followers - usually good lads who jump on the bandwagon. Today, not one of them took notice of me. I tried not to yell, but it was really tough, I tell you. I really don't agree with corporeal punishment, but I could have beaten them all senseless this afternoon, seriously. I admit. I'm doing a terrible job. They have me squirming.
Discipline is a difficult issue. If I could, I wouldn't hesitate to send the first boy who steps out of line to the boss, or outside for a few minutes, or just sit him facing the wall for a little while, but here's what the boss said:
"If you send a student out of your class again we'll dock your pay."
Actually, in my first few weeks here, I did send a lad out. He was being his usual noisy, rude, naughty self, so, after several repremands, I said 'enough's enough's' and sent him out with his book to work next to the K-teacher at the front desk. After class, K -teacher brought him to me to apologise, through his exaggerated tears and snotty nose. Next hing you know, Mommy's on the phone blowing a gasket 'cus her little angel was humiliated and my boss is threatening me with a wage-cut for enforcing discipline. Then, when the boy quit the school last week, I get another bollocking for the incident (basically blamed), and I'm asked "what do you have to say for yourself?" like I'm the deliquent!! I told her that I stand by my decision.
My bosses attitude toward discipline - "you should deal with your students by yourself." So, how do I do that? I'm scared to react as I normally would in case it doesn't fit with the bosses idea of 'dealing' or I make a kid cry and get another complaint.
This whole thing is making me wonder whether I'm even cut out to teach. I know I don't enjoy being around kids as much as some people on this forum, and I may not be as patient as some, but I see this as any other challenge and I know I'm not an entirely bad teacher. So how do I get back on track?
Oh, and that's just one class's story, by the way... |
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I-am-me
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Location: Hermit Kingdom
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:33 am Post subject: |
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| haha!! He will dock your pay? You need to get out of their quickly and find something better. Hagwons are a dime a dozen and you might find a better one. |
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polonius
Joined: 05 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:01 am Post subject: |
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Well, until you make your decision to be the boss of the class, nothing is going to change. You need to come in clean one day, and start anew. Walk in assertive. Write some rules down on your whiteboard or black board. I generally use 3 rules. #1 Be Nice, this includes pretty much everything from noise, to listening to respect other students and the teacher. #2 Do your work, #3 Do your Best. I try to make all my rules positive rather than negative. We as humans respond better to someone telling us to do this, rather than don't do that.
You need to have a reward system in play. Work something out like a stamp system. If the kids follow your rules, you will give them a certain number of stamps. Once they collect a couple hundred stamps, they can trade it in for a pencil case, or crayons, something relatively cheap. They really don't care what the prize is. Koreans are so competitive that all they care about is besting their classmates.
Write all the students names up on the board. Divide and conquer. Use smiley faces for students who answer questions or are behaving they way they should. Sad faces for students who are not acting the way they should. I tell my kids that 3 smiles equals 1 stamp. I generally don't take stamps away from students, because to them it is like money. They did something to deserve it, and just because they made a mistake doesn't mean you can take it away. Just like you boss wanting to dock your pay. Instead, give the other students extra stamps for their good behaviour, and make sure they thank the bad students for the stamps. (A little shame works sometimes.)
Never raise you voice in class. Once you do, all the kids will do is try to get you to do it again. It is not worth it. If needs be, write a word list on the board, perhaps keywords that they are studying. Remember that when a child is acting up, it's because they want attention. YOU must decide how you give them that attention. Is it the way they want it, or the way you want it. Make the student come up in front of the class to write the word list 5 times. The next student who acts out, 6 times, and so on.
Perhaps you could also bring them up to the front of the class to be your helper. Again, focusing the attention elsewhere.
I also do not believe in sending a child out of the class. They are there to learn. I will however take a child outside and chastise them for bad behaviour. I rather not do it in front of the class.
Use positive reinforcement. If Johnny is doing what you want him to be doing, praise him on it. Relate it back to your rules. If Billy isn't doing what you want, relate it back to your rules. And explain calmly that this behaviour is unacceptable.
You might need to write the rules up for a couple of weeks, but in the end it will pay off. Most importantly, do not hold grudges against your students. Let everyday be a brand new day. Let them all start fresh. Rather than yelling, bring your voice down low, or stop talking altogether. Tell the students that whatever is not covered in the lesson will be for homework.
If the stamp system doesn't work, you need to find their currency that they deal in. Perhaps it is their free time. If a child keeps acting out, take away his breaks, make him/her stand in the teachers office with you during that break.
I hope this helps. Remember, they are just little people, and if you treat them with respect, they will return the favour. If you treat them like kids, then they will act like kids.
Let me know how it works out for you. If you need anymore tips, I would be more than happy to give you some more. But this should be a good starting point.
Good Luck |
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merkurix
Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Location: Not far from the deep end.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:24 am Post subject: |
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| There is a lot of good advice here about dealing with discipline. However have a slight problem with what your hagwon boss told you. If a kid makes you upset, send him out. Your boss gave you a threat of not paying you. Test him. If he docks your pay, ask for a release letter and the pay that is owed to you. Unless your contract which you both signed says that he is allowed to do that to you then he had better pay you. If he carries through with this, take it to the Labor Board. Quit. And work for a decent and SUPPORTIVE hagwon. You dont need this crawp. |
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Qinella
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:10 am Post subject: |
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Hey OP, you just need to chill out a little bit. Your post reminds me of when I was a kid I always noticed how out of touch all the adults around me seemed to be. If it's possible, take a look at your post again but from an objective perspective. Just read it, and it's pretty funny! Especially this part:
| Quote: |
| 2 are milling around like it's an after dinner party |
That had me laughing out loud for real. Aren't those kids so funny?!
Okay, so it sounds like your boys are just being kids. I mean, what kid at 4 in the afternoon doesn't feel like goofing off and having fun? A kid can only take so much of regimented education. They've been restraining themselves all day, and they're tired of it.
What you need to do is get on their team. I know, a lot of people like to be big shot authoritarians and tell you about discipline and blah blah blah. I hated those people when I was a kid and I hate them still. What a base perspective. Please tell me, which teachers from your childhood stand out most: the crotchety old ladies always yelling QUIET!!! and wearing ankle skirts or the ones who inspired you and really got you? Okay, so which do you wanna be?
So you're saying to yourself, enough with the bs, Qinella, get to the point! Alright. Here is what you do, if you want success. It's a process, and yes I've used it successfully at two hagwons now.
1. First of all, like I said initially, chill yourself out. For real. It's not that big of a deal. You aren't that important, learning English isn't that important, whether or not a nuke drops on Seoul now isn't that important. Get some perspective.
2. Repeat step one. Seriously. Don't get upset about stuff like this. You need to be happy or else the kids are gonna trample you because trust me, happy people trump grumps in group dynamics, and those kids are happy while they have a support team blasting out one another's endorphins at hyper speed.
3. Now that you are relaxed and hopefully happy, you need to start class with TPR. TPR!!! You know TPR, right? These kids are 8 or 9? Okay. TPR.. it can't be easy like 'point to the door'. It has to include something more difficult. What are you 'studying' in the book now? Turn it into TPR. Make it challenging. Maybe 10 minutes.
4. Now work on listening and speaking. Ask them anything. Who cares, they are 8, right? They aren't writing doctoral theses any time soon. Ask about what was at lunch today and what they'd rather have instead. What's the worst food? How about pizza every day? Not pizza? Well, what western food would they want every day? ANYTHING. Just talk a few minutes, let them chill like you already are. (also, riddles work great here. What is white, is a plant that grows, and is very small? What does everyone have, can never see, but can see on everyone else?)
5. Check the homework. They don't check their own homework. Give it to a friend, let them check it and make very obvious indications of wrong answers. If a kid didn't do his homework or did a lax job, you have to rag him about it. "You don't know how to do this? Really? You don't understand xxxxxxx ??? Guys, isn't it so easy?" Nip that in the bud. (Of course, if a child has actual learning disabilities, offer outside help.)
6. I don't want to make a damn lesson plan for you, but here is my last tip: COMPETITION. Korean kids looooove competition, by and large. I won't expound now but if you want me to just ask. I have a million and one ways. I'm telling you, the kids go berserk if their friend does better than them, even if it's at something as pointless as butterfly netting. Also, photocopy some Korean money (size it down to like 60%) and use that. The kids go nuts over fake money.
Whatever you do, don't try to bribe them with candy, don't pretend to smile, don't threaten them, don't (overtly) punish them.. just remember they are kids and want to have fun. They've been in school all day by the time you see them. Have empathy. Laugh at their juvenile jokes. If a joke wasn't funny, though, just make an exaggerated gesture of being disappointed in how lame it was. Trust me, it won't encourage them to try harder. But what you have to do first is make them think your opinion counts. Believe it or not, they already think it does. Just not quite 100% yet.
Now, once you do have them, do not be afraid to give the disappointed look. That's the best tool in my kit. A kid acts up, I just look at him, sigh, and shake my head (no more than 3-4 secs or you risk tears). Problem solved.
As I said, this method has brought success to me at two hagwons of 15/8 max student capacity, respectively. I know my post was long, but glean what you can.
~Q. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:06 pm Post subject: |
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Q ,
I have nothing to add....you said it all and more...Yes, we have to see past all the drama, the student's and teacher's alike.
DD |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 3:15 pm Post subject: Re: Losing the will to teach - what now?! |
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Hello, Dee!
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| Typical 50 minutes with them...60% of the boys turn up early and run around like maniacs before class, getting them overexcited and mischievious. I try to tell them to calm down, be quite, sit down, etc, but it always fails. |
Your mistake might be in telling them what NOT to do.
Rather, try telling the overstimulated child what to do instead.
Find a picture book, a song, a game--anything to share with the child.
A similar thing happened to me last week.
I have a difficult class of 10 first-graders.
Last week, they all arrived 10 minutes early.
They were all sitting around talking to each other in Korean.
I figured that they weren't misbehaving, so I didn't do anything until classtime.
But once classtime started, they did not understand that my expectations were different.
The next time, I prepared a stimulus for the students showing up early, and the disciplinary problems diminished.
If you show one child something which they have never seen before, you might be pleasantly surprised at how many other children crowd around to see the exhibit.
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| here's what the boss said: "If you send a student out of your class again we'll dock your pay." |
Your boss is making the same mistake--telling a subordinate what NOT to do but not what to do.
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| The boss couple rarely opens their mouth. |
That's probably because they don't know any more than you do about teaching.
Most English school directors in Korea don't know any more about education than the Rabbit in the Moon.
Anyone who can come up with enough money can operate an English school in Korea.
When I first came to Korea, I was slow in realizing that.
I once asked my first director which university he attended to study ESL and he pretended not to understand the question.
Don't go to the boss.
You're doing the right thing by coming to us.
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| I'll just be at the point where they're listening when the other 40% rocks up causing a little wave of disruption that grows like a tsunami. |
Jacob S. Kounin, author of Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms might have the answer to your question. This fellow observed teachers who were considered good managers and teachers who were not considered good managers. He wanted to find what the difference was. He found that the best managers were not necessarily the meanest, not necessarily the nicest, but the ones who were the quickest in nipping small disturbances before they had time to grow into large disturbances.
See how many "little waves of disruption" you can treat without interrupting the class lesson. Try giving the offender the evil eye. Try walking over to the offender and towering over him. Try calling on the offender to answer your next question.
| Quote: |
| Imagine 9 boys each making their own distinct little noises, 2 of them are crawling on the floor, 1 is standing on his chair, 2 are milling around like it's an after dinner party and the rest are shouting, squealing, banging, talking, you name it. |
Rudolf Dreikurs, author of Logical Consequences might have the answer to this one. According to Dreikurs, most gaegujaengi's misbehave not out of malice toward the teacher, but out of desire for attention. Many teachers assume that it is out of malice toward them, so they fight back.
See how many ways you can give the children attention. Look around the classroom for the members who are repeating after you as they should and say, "Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Shane."
See if you can incorporate their misbehavior into the class lesson. Everyone shout, "The tree is green." Everyone squeal, "The egg is white." Everyone bang on the table to the rhythm of "The bear is brown." Crawl on the floor in whichever verb tense you are studying("crawl", "crawled", "will crawl," "would crawl").
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| after several repremands, I said 'enough's enough's' and sent him out with his book to work next to the K-teacher at the front desk. |
What are some alternatives?
I can think of a few:
■ whisper
You have heard of people who "laugh to keep from crying"?
I sometimes "whisper to keep from shouting."
When children make noise, it is tempting to fight fire with fire, but it is usually more effective to whisper.
Besides, that demonstrates how quiet you want the student to be.
■ threaten to integrate the class
If there are any girls in the class, say, "There are four beautiful girls over here. Wouldn't you just love to sit with them?"
■ threaten to move the child next to yourself
In a mood of motherly affection, ask the student, "Would you like to come over and sit next to me?"
If you can present misbehavior as a mark of childishness, that will help curb misbehavior.
■ stand over the child
If you stand close enough to the child, that will make the child feel uncomfortable. The child will stop the misbehavior just to make you go away. If the child misbehaves again and you move over to his place again, he will see the pattern.
■ repeat until the child stops interrupting
"The cat sat on the mat."
Harold misbehaves.
"Let's say that again: The cat sat on the mat."
Harold misbehaves again.
"Let's see if we can get through that without Harold interrupting: The cat sat on the mat."
By this time, the class will be tired of repeating "The cat sat on the mat" and will join forces against Harold.
I hope this helps.
If you have any more questions, write again. |
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mj roach
Joined: 16 Mar 2003
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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Lots of good advice already.
The hardest part of dealing with kids is....trying to be just a little smarter than they are. If you are playing their game - you lose.
There is also the fact that you are outside of their "culture" . "HI" and them calling you by your first name dosen't help.
When the students arrive, have them stand up, bow and say "Good afternoon, teacher".
Their mothers have pushed the back of their head and said "Insa" (sp?) to any and everyone since forever.
If you offer fun, interesting ways to keep them busy learning/using language, classroom management will be much easier.
When making lesson plans, think about the t.v. programs the kids watch and don't make the segments too long.
Keep a "bag of tricks" (photocopies of related activities/games) at hand for those times when things just don't go as planned, or to use a reward
for good behavior.
As Polonius said....let us know how things work out. |
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faster
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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Tough situation. It's almost impossible to grab authority back once you've ceded it. Best to start with it, then inch toward them as they deserve it over time.
To the main question, though: if you're losing your will to teach (and it's not just about one bad class), then maybe another profession will be more satisfying to you. |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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| faster wrote: |
Tough situation. It's almost impossible to grab authority back once you've ceded it. Best to start with it, then inch toward them as they deserve it over time.
To the main question, though: if you're losing your will to teach (and it's not just about one bad class), then maybe another profession will be more satisfying to you. |
Or go and do a tefl and start somewhere anew |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Work for a public school. If you discipline the students there...mommy will just have to lump it. |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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That's standard procedure in hagwons, send a kid out to stand in the hall, hands up, or on their knees with their hands in the air.
Maybe try this (by the way your boss threatening to dock your pay for a standard disciplinary technique is telling). Put the kids names up. When they act up put a check beside their name. After five checks (or three) then they are at risk of having a Korean authority phone their mom. A Korean to tell them this, in Korean, before you get going.
Their biggest fear is being disciplined by Mom/Dad. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| "If you send a student out of your class again we'll dock your pay." |
Quit, pure and simple. Get out of there as fast as you can. If a boss said that to me I'd be on the computer typing up my resignation letter the next minute. I'd have no will to teach at such a place, either. |
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dee
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Birmingham
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks for the practical advice everyone. I just hope I haven't completely screwed up my relationship with these kids and can turn it around. |
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dee
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Birmingham
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, and I am looking into quitting - my boss has been a jerk on other issues too - but it's complicated by the whole LOR thing. For now though, I think I ought to find out if teaching is something I can get a handle on before I move somewhere else and repeat my mistakes.
As for doing a TEFL course - I'm thinking now that that might have been a good idea before I came here (I only did a dummy on-line one). So, how would I go about doing that here in Korea? Can anyone give me a link on this site? |
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