New job; scary situation

[Erin1431]

Hi everyone,
I got a job exactly six days ago teaching in my home city, Vancouver. Being a new teacher, I am already nervous and took the job at this school partly because there are only six people in the class, and the school seems prettly laid back. So far, so good.
Today the director takes me aside and says "Just so you know, tomorrow a student will be joining. She is extremely difficult to work with...she hates being here, she wanted to leave after she got here but the school wouldn't give her money back so she stayed. She yells, she throws tantrums, she picks on other students. And she won't speak English in class."
Then one of the other teachers says this woman apparently really liked the previous ESL teacher for the class, so I might have an especially hard time with her because I'm not Sonia...what am I supposed to do? I feel queasy typing this! I think the school is sort of throwing me to the lions, I don't want to be whiny but I think it's unfair because it almost seems like their attitude is "oh well, just expect the worst." Am I being reasonable here? I don't think it's fair for the other students either. Also, any advice on how to deal with this type of behaviour while teaching would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

[LarryLatham]

Of course, Erin, you'll have to deal with this in your own way. You are unique, and so is your situation, so any advice you receive will need to be passed through your own particular filter.

Thinking about it, here is how I imaginge I might approach it: Welcome the new student and go right on with your lesson just as you planned before she arrived. See what happens. The director's warning to you may be greatly overstated. (That's happened before to me.) But if your new student misbehaves in class, you might ask her to stay for a moment after class. Tell her you can see that she's not happy. Ask her why. Then be silent and wait for her to tell you. If she seems reluctant, suggest that she may want to think about it and talk to you tomorrow. If you approach her with an open attitude, she may be willing to work with you. But you ought not to allow her to disrupt your class on any regular basis.

Good luck.

Larry Latham

[Sally Olsen]

Great advice Larry. It is always a new situation for every student and teacher and I always try to be honest about my feelings of being nervous, new and of course taking over from a teacher they usually loved. It is the step-mother syndrome. You can never take the place of their teacher but you can add your own flavour to the stew. I hope it went well and as Larry said, you can't take other people's assessment of the situation. I personally like the disruptive students the best because they have spirit which I try not to break but to channel. It seems that this student has a legitmate complaint and hasn't found a way to solve it other than make herself so miserable that she is punishing "the school". It might be an idea to sit down and help her figure out her options. I imagine there are some kind of rules for these schools about business issues like this and you could help her to go to people above the school to work it out. The Better Business Bureau can help probably. If it is impossible to break the contract you can lead her to do other things as long as she is in beautiful Vancouver. If she doesn't talk about it with you privately and keeps on, you might want to bring it up as a class topic - how they want the class to progress and what they want done in the next little while and how they are going to do that if someone is holding them back. The others are paying for their education as well. You can also take her to other classrooms and have her see how other students behave. You could also enlist help from the other teachers to take her privately for a bit in their off times and you will pay them back or bring in an aunt or cousin who will do that for awhile. Just until she is sorted out.