Dear Teachers,
I am a new EFL teacher. I started teaching English one year ago. Teaching English is my interest but sometimes things in class do not go well as I expected. I am looking for a forum where I can get advice from experienced teachers. I looked on website and here I am to write to this letter. I am writing to ask a question about student's discipline. Say, I gave my students some writing assignment. It always happens that on the due day, there will be some students come to tell me that they can not submit thier papers because their computers break down, or they can not print out thier papers, or they were sick the day before,...I was thinking to tell them that its's your business. But I was afraid of confronting their bad or even aggressive reflection after hearing this. I hope I will not be too silly to ask question like this. I will be glad to hear how other teachers handle this. Thank you very much.
Grace
Re Student discipline
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Grace Chen
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:52 pm
- Location: Taipei Taiwan
While I haven't experienced this situation, as yet, I always find it helpful to speak to other teachers in my staffroom to find how they handle any problems. They have the years of experience to deal with such situations and could probably offer solutions you haven't thought of.
In my opinion, why not talk to the students outside of class, if you have time, to find out what went wrong. Perhaps they are not lazy, maybe their English is so poor that they are unable to complete the assignment? Find out and go from there.
Good luck!
In my opinion, why not talk to the students outside of class, if you have time, to find out what went wrong. Perhaps they are not lazy, maybe their English is so poor that they are unable to complete the assignment? Find out and go from there.
Good luck!
Hello Grace,
It's not a stupid question - sometimes there are students who just know how to take advantage of nice teachers, they like to 'test the water' and see how far you will go. One thing you could do is when you hand out the assignment, clearly state that it must be handed in on time or there will be a penalty. I take off 5-10% of the grade for every late day - and tell students in advance that I will do it. The exceptions are sickness (with a doctor's note) or other serious circumstances (and I check with other teachers to make sure the story is true.) Basically you need a penalty system, put in place and stick to it. Once students know you are serious, they don't even try.
Best wishes,
Rania
It's not a stupid question - sometimes there are students who just know how to take advantage of nice teachers, they like to 'test the water' and see how far you will go. One thing you could do is when you hand out the assignment, clearly state that it must be handed in on time or there will be a penalty. I take off 5-10% of the grade for every late day - and tell students in advance that I will do it. The exceptions are sickness (with a doctor's note) or other serious circumstances (and I check with other teachers to make sure the story is true.) Basically you need a penalty system, put in place and stick to it. Once students know you are serious, they don't even try.
Best wishes,
Rania
Hi, I'm one of the lucky ones who rarely has problems such as students turning in late work but I think that part of the reason is that I tell the students at the beginning of the course what my expectations are and what their responsibilities are. I also make sure I put it on the syllabus so no students can claim that they "didn't know". The nature of the institution also aids in this--it's a pre-academic intensive language school in the U.S. where the students are highly motivated. They are trying to get into U.S. universities and through my classes, they learn what will be expected of them once they get into the university.
Good luck!
Good luck!
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moonchild7903
- Posts: 35
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2005 2:25 pm
Hi Grace, I understand where you're coming from and I used to have similar problems. I solved this by coming up with teacher-student negotiation/agreements. I usually use a dialogue similar to the one below:
"Alright, I would like this writing assignment in by Thursday, are you okay with that? (usually the students will negotiate and say something like, may we submit on Monday) Monday is too late, but I'm willing to compromise. May I have those papers in on Friday. (My students usually agree to the new schedule). Alright, good. Then it's a deal. What should our penalty be for late papers? (another round of negotiation). Alright, it's agreed then, late papers will be penalized 5 points each day past the due date. Tricia (or any student), could you repeat our class agreement for the class?"
Tricia would then say, "Our writing assignments should be submitted on Friday. Late papers will be penalized five points for every day past the due date."
I use this negotiation and class agreement technique because I feel that it gives the students some control over their own assignments. Second, because the rules are a consensus between students and teachers, they students will more likely honor the deadline and will less likely contest the penalties given them because they decided on it with you.
This always works for me. I hope it works for you too.
"Alright, I would like this writing assignment in by Thursday, are you okay with that? (usually the students will negotiate and say something like, may we submit on Monday) Monday is too late, but I'm willing to compromise. May I have those papers in on Friday. (My students usually agree to the new schedule). Alright, good. Then it's a deal. What should our penalty be for late papers? (another round of negotiation). Alright, it's agreed then, late papers will be penalized 5 points each day past the due date. Tricia (or any student), could you repeat our class agreement for the class?"
Tricia would then say, "Our writing assignments should be submitted on Friday. Late papers will be penalized five points for every day past the due date."
I use this negotiation and class agreement technique because I feel that it gives the students some control over their own assignments. Second, because the rules are a consensus between students and teachers, they students will more likely honor the deadline and will less likely contest the penalties given them because they decided on it with you.
This always works for me. I hope it works for you too.