Teacher Discussion Forums

I have a student who's your classic "earnest" type* and is always trying to hijack the class with obscure questions about phrases she's heard or read e.g. "Please, Lol, when I do my oral exam can I say This thing isn't really my cup of tea?" or "When can I say Antidisestablishmentarianism?". While I like students to be interested and enthusiastic, this is getting on my, and everyone elses nerves as it distracts the class from whatever it is we're trying to do. It's getting to the poinjt that other students' eyes start to glaze over as soon as her hand goes up.

Just out of interest, how do other teachers handle people like that?



*EARNEST
Earnest types have a great deal of energy and are always first to arrive and last to leave, trailing along behind the teacher as s/he staggers back to the staffroom desperate for a cigarette or a leak. Earnest students collect questions about language in small notebooks or palmtops and bring these to class, where a great deal of lesson time is taken up asking for the meaning of obscure words picked up while the student was reading a dictionary the night before.

These learners are perhaps the most problematic for the English teacher. On the one hand, their questions take up a great deal of time and allow the teacher to pontificate. On the other hand, their questions are often so obscure that you have no idea how to answer. Occasionally the earnest student enters cyberspace and plagues the teacher with emails asking for explanations of grammar.

http://www.englishdroid.com/learning_styles.html

Sometimes I just say, "That's a very good question. I can see you are thinking about English, but we don't have time to discuss it in class. See me after class."

Yes, I'd like to be able to do that but I teach two classes back to back. Any other ideas?

Tell her to come back after the second one? Maybe she won't bother .

You wouldn't recommend saying "Look, just f*ck off and stop hogging my class!" then

"Antidisestablismentarianism" and "antidisestablishmentarianist" might be regarded as the longest non-chemical words in English that are actually used. Chemical names can of course be of any length that you like - just keep adding new chemical groups.

"Antidisestablismentarianism" means the doctrine of one opposed to the disestablishment of the church (usually refering to the Anglican church.) i.e. the doctrine that the monarch should be retained as the head of the church. An "antidisestablishmentarianist" is one who holds this view. So you could probably find an essay with the title, "The history of antidisestablismentarianism in the Anglican church," etc. Just tell them that and be done with it. I suppose it could be used to show how words can be built up from their elements, but the politico-religious nature of the word makes that a bit dodgy. I've used the word for anagrams - how many words can you make from this... A good warmer/filler exercise.

"Floccinoccinihillipillification" also exists and means the act of estimating something as worthless. This word isn't much used, though.

But how do you handle your "earnest" students, Andrew?

Easy - he talks to them like he posts.

It just got worse. I have just been showing my group of CAE students how you need context to establish what verb forms are referring to e.g.
I've lived here in Cambridge for 6 years (and I still do) vs
I've lived in Cambridge before, that's why I know where to find the best pubs. (but I live somewhere else now)

The response from one earnest student? "What does I've lived mean on its own?" (yeah, right, when was the last time someone stopped you in the street, said "I've lived" and walked away?)

I'm losing my will to live...

Hmm, lol, you gotta be quicker with the comebacks methinks:

Nerdy student: Can I say 'I've lived'?

Sardonic teacher: Not if you're still asking questions like that.

Easy - he talks to them like he posts.

Oh, now come on, this time I've got an excuse for using long words.

But you're not wrong. I try to talk very simply in plain English in class except when answering irrelevant questions. Then I hit them with precise but obscure words. Trust me, it works.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Whatever is said in Latin, sounds profound.

lolwhites wrote:It just got worse. I have just been showing my group of CAE students how you need context to establish what verb forms are referring to e.g.
I've lived here in Cambridge for 6 years (and I still do) vs
I've lived in Cambridge before, that's why I know where to find the best pubs. (but I live somewhere else now)

The response from one earnest student? "What does I've lived mean on its own?" (yeah, right, when was the last time someone stopped you in the street, said "I've lived" and walked away?)

I'm losing my will to live...

You know, if the questions this person asks will draw you away from the points you want to make and affect your teaching, and if the other students in the class are tired of this person doing that, then you just shouldn't answer the question. Here are some possibilities :


I'm glad you are thinking of questions, but it would take me too long to answer your question and it would take away from the lesson for the other students.

That's a good question, but the explanation is beyond this level. Wait until you get into a higher class.

It would take me a long time to explain the answer to your question, and when I finished, you probably wouldn't understand it anyway, so it's not worth it

Incidentally, Andrew, I couldn't resist asking you; when you say "A good warmer/filler exercise" do you mean a good time-killer exercise?

Lol -

Get her to submit her questions in *writing*.

Put them into a file, together with similar questions from other *earnest types*. Say that you( or somebody else, for that matter) will be prepared to address the question if and only if she writes a response to another, arbitrarily chosen question from the files, based on her own research on the internet.

In other words, get it through to her that answers don't come free of charge, and that she'll have to do something in exchange, something from which she benefits in the long run, too.

Well, that's how I handle these things, anyway.

Wow, what a great idea, serendipity! One question, though: does this process not run the risk of encouraging a proliferation of such questions? More than the file can "contain"? The student would want you to look at their research on the unrelated question, for a start...and you'd still have to answer their original question too. Hmm just had a brainwave...you enter the questions into the file and get two earnest students to get in touch with each other ('Offer to answer a question from another student whilst giving them your own question, which they must in return answer, to return the favour you're doing them'). You could sell it to them as extra communication practise, peer-teaching etc.