Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

What do you do with students who simply will not do any work unless they're forced? Today I had a grade-two HS student who just wouldn't write down any answers, either by trying to come up with the answers on her own or merely writing them off the board as we checked them, or practice in pairs or do anything else but try to kill time. First I woke her up after she fell asleep, then I moved her to another desk closer to the front where she couldn't distract her deskmate at the back and then after telling her several times to start writing down the answers finally kicked her out for the rest of the lesson.

After class I took her next door to the doksa-sil (study hall) to make her do the lesson again. I sat her down and she started whining like a baby, stamping her feet, squirming and throwing a little tantrum like a 2-year-old for about a minute (she's seventeen bloody years old). I resisted the urge to smack her and patiently waited her out til she was ready to do part one. Then part two of the lesson and another tantrum as she whined about the next class being about to start and needing to go to the hwajangsil. 'That's too bad' I replied and waited for her to get on with it. And, when she finally realised that there was no way out was able to complete what we were doing with not too much difficulty. I made her promise to pay attention and do her work next time and sent her off so she could explain to the social studies teacher why she was late.

This particular student isn't horrific, she's not rude (apart from tending to ignore teachers when they're talking to the class), she's not ill-natured, but is just a model of complete and utter indolence in the classroom. And it seems I have a couple like her every class. I'm not even that concerned about trying to make vast improvements in the English skills of students who obviously have stopped caring about it, but simply can't let a couple of them get away with doing nothing and set a model for anyone else who doesn't feel like paying attention to a particular lesson to follow. Bear in mind that this is an academic, not vocational, class and the students are supposedly in their seventh year of studying English at public school.

The thing I hate is having to 'force' students to learn a language. I guess that's better than being at a school where you're unable to force students to do anything but it's such a drag. Last term I had two students in another class try to put on a show of defiance and as a result they got to spend an forty-five minutes kneeling outside the staff room and then deal with their homeroom teacher. Now they'll do something if they know I'm checking up on them but most of the time they sit there with expressions that couldn't make it more obvious how much they hate learning English. The majority of my students thankfully aren't like that but when I have a class that's really tired to begin with and then have a few of them who just won't do anything except on fear of punishment it can get pretty depressing. What do you do with older students who will not make any attempt at learning unless threatened with some sort of punishment?

[D.D.]

It' s almost the end of the year so don't worry about it.

[samcheokguy]

You can lead a *beep* to culture but you can't make her think. Da bang her.

[yingwenlaoshi]

Why's this your job?

[jvalmer]

Just let them be. As long as they are quiet and ain't causing a ruckus, I just let them be.

Also, 3rd year middle school and high school students, this time of year are basically done all their academic work. Anything taught is extra. Being the native english teacher, you're classes don't matter at all to them.

Korea has really got to re-think this native english person in the classroom thing.

[Xuanzang]

They have senoritis. Just leave em alone and let the future sort them out.

[bogey666]

that's the story of my life with multiple examples in EVERY class, each and every class, 5 days a week.

welcome to life in a technical high school.

I've pretty much given up on even trying "pair work" activities, which annoys me because it's a great way to practice learned conversation, for e.g.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

So five 'Why-give-a-shit's and one perv. I guess that's reflective of our 'profession'.

[Seoul'n'Corea]

[Xuanzang]

Well what can we possibly do? Can`t beat them for being petulant. Can`t possibly change this adolescent attitude towards English. In the future, they`ll either buck up and fork over millions of wons for hagwons or trips abroad or work as any of the low scale jobs we see everyday.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Ha! Just had 45mins X 40 of that student. It really does suck if you care about your job. I would kill for only having one in each class. It's getting to the point where I would love to have 5-6 students in each class who actually want to do the work and let the rest sleep. Unfortunately the 30 or so others won't let that happen.

My advice would be to focus on the students who do want to be there.

[mnhnhyouh]

The backbone of my years teaching in an academic high school is paired conversation creation.

I give students a topic and they write a 10 sentence conversation in pairs. I quickly correct them, and they memorize their conversations. I generally have 15 minutes at the end for me to call pairs out to recite their conversations from memory.

Slow pairs go first.
Anybody talking when others are reciting stands up for the rest of the class, and they go next.
Lazy kids are always picked on.
Those who like it, will generally write funny conversations, and they always get a go too.

I guess the ones who miss out most are those in the middle, but I haphazardly select a few pairs to pull them out as well.

Some classes are not so good, only boring conversations. Some write brilliant ones, clever, funny and all the students are keen for these lessons.

Lazy students, like the one you are talking about, who dont memorize, get to spend their 10 minute break in the cold empty classroom next to my office after class while I go for a smoke.

h

[Faunaki]

Like you said already, you can't force a student to learn a language. I don't see how leaving someone alone if they don't want to learn is unprofessional.

The professional thing is to do your job as best as you can and if there is a student who doesn't want to learn you should leave them alone.

[BrianInSuwon]

Either the lesson is too hard or too boring for the student.

I had one student like that today. His English was too low for the lesson so what's he going to do? I can't really blame him. I gave him a short story to read (10 sentences). I asked him to read it twice then I gave him a copy of the story that I had cut up. I asked him to put the story back together again. He was working but it was too hard so 5 minutes later, I gave him the story again to study/read for 5 minutes. Then he went back to solving the puzzle.

Some people like to be challenged with something they can solve.

On a side note, I usually have students write things like "I need to bring my notebook to class" 300 times. So, when I gave him the puzzle instead of making him write, I'm sure he was a little happy because he didn't have to do the mind numbing repetitive writing.

Its hard to find a lesson that is entertaining, interesting and yet easy enough to understand.

For teaching, I think that courses in Psychology are more useful than courses in Linguistics or English Literature.

[Yu_Bum_suk]