Teacher Discussion Forums

I'm teaching at a English language cram school in Taiwan. I'm having problems with this one class. 12 students, ages range from 13 - 16 (i think) and none of them participate. They have that "too cool" attitude towards English. They should be at an intermediate level with the book that has been provided, but they're barely past "hello". It's a rather narrow class room, so there's no room to make a circle. They don't like role-playing, don't like speaking in English but can't shut up in Chinese, (no Chinese teacher with me) and they hate songs or dances.

My lesson for today should be on "appearances" like "he's cool, he's handsome, etc...". The vocab for today is: Pretty, cute, handsome, cool, dirty, ugly and Superman.

I can't think of any other activities, games or anything for them.
Any suggestions for this type of class?
Thanks!

I'm sure they won't thank you however much hair you pull out or sleep you miss worrying about how to motivate them. I presume that they are the spoilt brattish offspring of rich, ambitious parents.

Is there an exam that they simply have to pass (under the supervision of the school), or does your responsibility for their ultimate English language fate more or less end when the bell goes and they make a dash for the door? If the latter, then I suggest you take a good book (for yourself) or an entertaining video to help pass the time.

I hope your boss is not in the habit of asking every class you have how things are going, and believing everything they hear ("We really want to study English, but nothing this teacher does is any good.").

Thanks for the reply!

Yes, my job is definately over when they start the countdown (in Chinese) and make a mad dash out the door!

I work with a 6th grade group of boys here in Seoul, Korea at SISA Hakwan. I try to motivate them by doing activities that allow them to talk to each other, not just to me. A good game to play is, He is my friend... They can start of by describing their partner from what their wearing to what they like to do..... (and let them say some words in their native tongue if they don't know the equivilent in English) They will get so caught up in talking about each other, they will forget their actually learning! Then they will grow comfortable in speaking and you can start doing other activities too. (the key is, always make them they're not doing something they don't want to do when they actually are!!!)

It is really difficult to get along with teens sometimes.

We have to face the truth: they've got something sweet to do all the time!

Trying to know what sort of things they really need to learn is a good beginning.

Sometimes they feel like completely idiots by having either to play games or to sing. For them, they are being spotted by the others - usually in a negative way.

One idea is to get uptodate songs - those playing all over the place.

If you feel they don't fit the book their working, try to bring extra stuff to help them to improve. Remember it is easy to give up one thing we don't understand!

Ihope this help! See this situation as a challenge.

i found that the "too cool" kids are often also kind of show-offs. if you can get them talking or doing some activity that can make them feel like they're being funny and therefore impressing their classmates but ALSO has them doing the work you want them to do, this is good.
with my class of ALL 16 year old boys, i showed them clips from james bond films. then i asked them specific questions about what they saw. 'what gadget did Q give to james bond? (*vocab: what is a gadget?)" "what was special about the car?" they got pretty into it.
another game i found they could get pretty into without making them feel too "uncool" (like songs and role playing might) was dividing them into small groups and giving each groups two pictures (usually a magazine ad). they had to make up a story connecting each picture.
another thing that got the teenagers really into it was making everything we did a competition. they were in teams of two or three, and for each activity they got a score. at the end of the class their scores were totalled up and someone won. even though it had nothing to do with their grade, they all wanted to win!
i taught conversational english in france, and i'm not sure if any of these activities areapplicable to your students, but i hope they help!

Some nice ideas and good points there, amanda! I'm going to maybe try out your magazine ad pics idea (I don't always have enough time to draw usable pics, and I like the idea of trying to match almost random beginning and end pics).

Yeah, asking kids to do roleplays could be tricky; at that age many of them lack the self-confidence, and would be too self-conscious to get into it enough to start enjoying it and not feel too embarrassed.

A very efficent and effective approach is to put yourself in their shoes. Just ask them what they did on the weekend.... where they went, what movies did they see. Once you get them communicating with you and their classmates... you shock them by doing something they would never expect.

Bring a stereo to class and pop in some hip hop, because boys at that age who think they are "too cool", will most likely idolize the biggest names in the rap industry. So you play a game with them, you play a song by a bigstar rapper like Jay-Z or Snoop. When you play the song randomly turn the volume off and see if they know the english words to the song and ask them if they even know what it means?

Also boys that age only care about learning some slang, so why not fill them in... atleast it will get there attention and their respect.

I agree with Empyrean Ru Lee.
I think it's important to get and work from stuff that they are interested in. For instance parties, some famous people (Taiwanese rockstars, good for adjectives btw, take some ugly ones too), popular music in general is great to use.

I also think you could deal with more mature topics, like drugs, sex, teenage problems (Discussions and presentations).
Then also they could choose the topics to work from.
Assign projects to groups, they can choose, plan, make and present it.
You could have a self-study period during the lesson in which the groups work on it. Make sure they have control over the project, give responsability away, but monitor and help if necessary.

Do drinking games, converted to language games.
Try it, almost every drinking game in existence can be adapted for ESL.

If you can, take them out on a friday night.
I wish I'd done it more often, was a slamming succes when i did that in Beijing. Ss can't exit the campus on their own you see, so going to the KTV with a couple of classes together was really nice for them.

One more tip then: Use authentic materials.
It good to do that in any case, but if you have stuff from the US or any other place that makes it much more real than otherwise, it will be taken more seriously by students.

Good luck.
Da Jiang

Try Deal A Word. It is a "word/card" game that these "too cool" students might find both enjoyable and educational! Info can be found at www.dealaword.com. They will learn while really thinking they are cool because they are playing a card game. That is why my students like it so much...and they have no idea how much they are learning.

Sometimes students don't speak because they are shy and the questions too personal or outside their experience.

I find that just saying, "Don't worry, it's just an academic exercise;" "Make it up," often works.

Then maybe, "We're practicing the language that we just learnt." (Are you doing this btw?)

Also a little metalanguage, "There are 4 skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking." "Now we're practicing speaking."