6th grade teaching troubles

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I’m a new teacher here. On the whole classes have gone well. 3rd grade is a lot of fun, 5th grade is too, 1st grade is fun but a little difficult to stretch the lesson. But 6th grade just plain sucks. The students don’t talk much, and when they do they whisper or answer in Chinese. They seem completely uninterested and bore the hell out of me.

But, I seem to bore them too. I don’t know why, but I just can’t connect with the 6th graders. I can joke around with the 1st and 5th graders pretty well and the 3rd graders extremely well, but for the 6th graders, most everything is met with silence. So today, while walking around the room after having them write two sentences in their notebooks, one of the students kept saying “I wish we had our old teacher” in Chinese. Fuuu. Talk about confidence killer, haha. It just seems so puzzling, because all of the students in my other classes are always so happy to see me and talk with me.

So, how the hell do I teach the 6th graders?

Also, another question I’ve wanted to ask before today, how do you make the reading and answering exercises more fun? For example, read a passage, then answer multiple questions. This part bores me and I’m sure it bores the students too. Read, answer, check answers. Any tips?

2

No advice at 3:30 in the morning, but the sixth graders are just sixth graders. It’s like a sickness or syndrome here. They have just taken huge exams that determine where they’ll be studying next year. Up until now, they’ve been with the same classfull of kids from third grade on. This is exciting and frightening for them, as well as very stressfull just in the testing bit, without the relational stuff.

Plus, they’re pubescent, hormone laden creatures with no outlet for all kinds of frustrations.

The last place they want to be is in your classroom. It has NOTHING to do with you.

If you were in their shoes, how might you behave? How could your teacher make you care about some English classes?

3

That age through high school and even adulthood is just like that.

They become useless zombies, and don’t give a fuck about anything. I have a boring class topic tomorrow, which I can’t drone on about for two hours, so I’ll need the useless robots to actually use their brain and write something or answer some questions. It will be incredibly basic because I know they can’t handle anything, because they don’t apply themselves in class at all and therefore have little to no ability.

I fully expect to lose about 80-90% of my students after this just because I made them try. They’ll come back in a week or two hoping that I can be boring and not make them do sentences or anything useful.

I’ve tried being nice, telling them they’re idiots, playing games, being serious, telling jokes… not a damn thing works.

They run away from any “real” work (anything other than sitting there doing nothing), and seem to like it best when I waste as much time as humanly possible, and complain about them being really boring since I’m the only one talking pretty much all the time. They come back when I do that. They leave my class when I try to help them.

4

[quote=“shengou”]I’m a new teacher here. On the whole classes have gone well. 3rd grade is a lot of fun, 5th grade is too, 1st grade is fun but a little difficult to stretch the lesson. But 6th grade just plain sucks. The students don’t talk much, and when they do they whisper or answer in Chinese. They seem completely uninterested and bore the hell out of me.

But, I seem to bore them too. I don’t know why, but I just can’t connect with the 6th graders. I can joke around with the 1st and 5th graders pretty well and the 3rd graders extremely well, but for the 6th graders, most everything is met with silence. So today, while walking around the room after having them write two sentences in their notebooks, one of the students kept saying “I wish we had our old teacher” in Chinese. Fuuu. Talk about confidence killer, haha. It just seems so puzzling, because all of the students in my other classes are always so happy to see me and talk with me.

So, how the hell do I teach the 6th graders?

Also, another question I’ve wanted to ask before today, how do you make the reading and answering exercises more fun? For example, read a passage, then answer multiple questions. This part bores me and I’m sure it bores the students too. Read, answer, check answers. Any tips?[/quote]

This is why I enjoy (overall) my jobs teaching Adults at night and kindergarten (gasp) in the day. Adults goes without saying is a lot more fun and rewarding and it also goes without saying it’s impossible to find hours teaching adults. Kindy of course sucks in that the kids go crazy all the time and parents are a pain-but at least they kids somewhat wanna be there. I stopped teaching elementary level kids because I know being in there shoes-the last thing I would like to be in is another class on top of a whole heap of other more important things to do. At least with adults and kindy’s there is a bit more motivation displayed by students.

5

[quote=“James651”]

This is why I enjoy (overall) my jobs teaching Adults at night and kindergarten (gasp) in the day. Adults goes without saying is a lot more fun and rewarding and it also goes without saying it’s impossible to find hours teaching adults. Kindy of course sucks in that the kids go crazy all the time and parents are a pain-but at least they kids somewhat wanna be there. I stopped teaching elementary level kids because I know being in there shoes-the last thing I would like to be in is another class on top of a whole heap of other more important things to do. At least with adults and kindy’s there is a bit more motivation displayed by students.[/quote]
I teach kindergarten and university students. What I like most about it is that I can use the same lesson plan for both.

6

[quote=“shengou”]I’m a new teacher here. On the whole classes have gone well. 3rd grade is a lot of fun, 5th grade is too, 1st grade is fun but a little difficult to stretch the lesson. But 6th grade just plain sucks. The students don’t talk much, and when they do they whisper or answer in Chinese. They seem completely uninterested and bore the hell out of me.

But, I seem to bore them too. I don’t know why, but I just can’t connect with the 6th graders. I can joke around with the 1st and 5th graders pretty well and the 3rd graders extremely well, but for the 6th graders, most everything is met with silence. So today, while walking around the room after having them write two sentences in their notebooks, one of the students kept saying “I wish we had our old teacher” in Chinese. Fuuu. Talk about confidence killer, haha. It just seems so puzzling, because all of the students in my other classes are always so happy to see me and talk with me.

So, how the hell do I teach the 6th graders?

Also, another question I’ve wanted to ask before today, how do you make the reading and answering exercises more fun? For example, read a passage, then answer multiple questions. This part bores me and I’m sure it bores the students too. Read, answer, check answers. Any tips?[/quote]

At this point in your teaching career I consider this to be the best advice: just relax. Don’t try to teach anything. Choose an activity and go with it in a really positive way, regardaless of any negativity you get from the students. Just bound around like a daft enthusiastic dog. Try it and see. You really shouldn’t lose these Taiwanese students, they aren’t too cool for school yet.

Don’t worry, you’ll get it. You show an interest in your teaching which is basically 95% of the battle.

With regards to making the reading comprehension exercises more interesting there are a load of ideas available on google. Cut up the reading passages and stick them on the walls of the class, running dictation etc

7

Housecat, this is basically true. However, I have had situations working with junior high school students were the students didn’t want to be in my class and complained it was boring no matter how hard I tried to make it interesting. The administration doesn’t see that the junior highers are just being junior highers and blames me for their lack of response.

8

If I may make a suggestion (and it’s not one often used I guess), try to stick some structure in your classroom. I’m not a master of teaching by any stretch of the imagination, but I find that this makes the class a lot easier to manage.
The first thing I do as an opener in my class is ask a question. It can be a basic question like “What is something you did this weekend?” or it can be one focusing on the lesson plan we learned the previous day. In any case, make every student stand up and have to say something before they can sit down.
I know it’s the last thing that will seem to appeal to make the class interesting, but in a way, it will provide stability, predictability, and make students more comfortable saying something in English.

9

[quote=“aahz”]If I may make a suggestion (and it’s not one often used I guess), try to stick some structure in your classroom. I’m not a master of teaching by any stretch of the imagination, but I find that this makes the class a lot easier to manage.
The first thing I do as an opener in my class is ask a question. It can be a basic question like “What is something you did this weekend?” or it can be one focusing on the lesson plan we learned the previous day. In any case, make every student stand up and have to say something before they can sit down.
I know it’s the last thing that will seem to appeal to make the class interesting, but in a way, it will provide stability, predictability, and make students more comfortable saying something in English.[/quote]
Not to be a devil’s advocate here, but I have tried to start off with warm up questions. If I ask something like "What is something you did this weekend, I may get complaints that it is not related to what we are teaching that day. You can be a structured as possible and some people will find ways to complain about it.

10

You see what I did there?

Anyway, I’m teacing in an elementary school. This next two weeks I’m finishing up the last lesson with the sixth graders who will be graduating in a few days. Nothing we do now matters and they know it–and they show it. It’s not fun for me and I have just one class with each group of sixthgraders–the other teachers still have four or five classes per group! They (Taiwanese teachers) all complain about them, too. In fact, the worst of the classes have been really very bad this year and the regular English teacher has opted not to even allow them to have the last class with me. She knows it will do them no kind of good and will just be a headache for all involved. In return, I’ve happily given her my personal materials and many ideas so that she can do something else with them. I’m very happy to avoid them.

Now, the most successful sixth grade class I’ve ever taught has been bringing in music. I usually choose something like HOUSE by Elton John because the words are repetitive and simple, and the tune is relaxing and nice. We listen once or twice and write down as many English words from the song as we can. Anything we hear, or think we hear, don’t worry about spelling. Then we each tell one word we heard and everyone gets a chance to check their list for that word and add it, or check it off. No one has to say if they heard it, too, or not. Then we listen some more, but with me stopping the music every few words, going over it, talking it through, maybe repeating that bit if needed.

Usually, the kids really like this activity.

You can try something similar with video of movies or cartoons, but I’ve not has as much success with that. One, everything here mostly has subtitles, but two, I don’t watch a lot of anything myself, so I don’t know much of what’s out there. But you could get a cartoon like Iceage, or Snow White, or the like. They might like doing the same kind of thing with that. And actually, I think adults would really love this, too.

@Jimmy–I used to find that adults loved stickers as much as the little one’s, too–especially when you make them really earn them!

11

I agree. Reading a passage and doing multiple choice questions is boring. If I were them about the only thing that would interest me in such an activity would be a sense of acheivement in getting the answers right. (That’s the only thing that sustained me in maths classes at school.)

The thing that concerns me most about your post is the thought that if their interest in learning English has been killed by 6th grade, can it be ever revived? Or is it already too late?

And is there anything that we are doing in the lower grades that causes this lack of interest by 6th grade? Are we relying too heavily on games in the lower grades to disguise the fact that what we want them to learn (grammar, vocab and other easily testable stuff) is intrinsically boring?

Should we perhaps be providing them with more interesting material, despite that fact that it may not fit in with the testing regime?

Some of the ideas already mentioned (e.g. music) look good. How about free voluntary reading without exercises or tests? When I read I book (no matterwhether it’s Chinese, English or any other language), it’s because I’m interested in it, not because I want to do comprehension exercises.

12

[quote]The thing that concerns me most about your post is the thought that if their interest in learning English has been killed by 6th grade, can it be ever revived? Or is it already too late?

And is there anything that we are doing in the lower grades that causes this lack of interest by 6th grade? Are we relying too heavily on games in the lower grades to disguise the fact that what we want them to learn (grammar, vocab and other easily testable stuff) is intrinsically boring?
[/quote]
I think teachers can instill interests in many subjects (not just English) by telling the students where these things apply in their real lives and by showing them. Math and science would have been a lot more interesting if people had taught me how to apply the concepts taught in real life and use them. We can do this with English by showing the students examples of where they will need English in their futures. Hopefully, by showing them the importance of thinking about their futures they will find more interest in English.
Yes, Housecat. I saw what you did. I wasn’t quite sure what you meant by it though.

13

Sorry. I meant that of course they blame you. They can’t blame the system, they can’t blame the students, they can’t blame the parents, surely THEY’RE not part of the problem. The teacher is ALWAYS at fault here. I felt like you’d addressed your own issues.

Anyway, yes trying to get students to relate their curriculum to their lives is always good, but this apathy is just part of being a sixth grader here.

14

Sorry. I meant that of course they blame you. They can’t blame the system, they can’t blame the students, they can’t blame the parents, surely THEY’RE not part of the problem. The teacher is ALWAYS at fault here. I felt like you’d addressed your own issues.

Anyway, yes trying to get students to relate their curriculum to their lives is always good, but this apathy is just part of being a sixth grader here.[/quote]
If they can accept responsibility for their apathy, I understand what you are saying. If they can’t, somebody needs to teach them to.

15

Sorry. I meant that of course they blame you. They can’t blame the system, they can’t blame the students, they can’t blame the parents, surely THEY’RE not part of the problem. The teacher is ALWAYS at fault here. I felt like you’d addressed your own issues.

Anyway, yes trying to get students to relate their curriculum to their lives is always good, but this apathy is just part of being a sixth grader here.[/quote]
If they can accept responsibility for their apathy, I understand what you are saying. If they can’t, somebody needs to teach them to.[/quote]
Sorry to sound mean, but your comment is exactly what I have against the education system here. A sixth grader is 12 years old. How do you suggest we teach them responsibility for their apathy? They are just kids. The High School entrance exam is taken by students when they are 15. This determines who will go to which school and then who will follow which career. Do you really think a 15 year old is mature enough to realize the importance of this? There is a good reason the law considers them to be minors. They do not have that kind of responsibility. It is not taught. It comes with time, patience and life experience. I wish more people will accept the fact that kids are kids. they do not think like adults and as much as you think they are immature irresponsible hateful little shits, I actually enjoy working with them for precisely that reason.

16

This is a little confusing for some reason, but I don’t think Lotta meant that the sixth grade kids should have to take responsibility for their apathy–the school admin/society that built the system that causes the apathy is what I took him to mean.

And yes, at 15 they take another huge test, but as graduating sixth graders they’ve just finished a like test that determines their Jr. High placement. They may not understand or care how important these tests end up being in their lives, but their parents do and push them like wild under crushing pressure. All this apathy may be nearly impossible to deal with, but it’s completely understandable.

17

Sorry. I meant that of course they blame you. They can’t blame the system, they can’t blame the students, they can’t blame the parents, surely THEY’RE not part of the problem. The teacher is ALWAYS at fault here. I felt like you’d addressed your own issues.

Anyway, yes trying to get students to relate their curriculum to their lives is always good, but this apathy is just part of being a sixth grader here.[/quote]
If they can accept responsibility for their apathy, I understand what you are saying. If they can’t, somebody needs to teach them to.[/quote]
Sorry to sound mean, but your comment is exactly what I have against the education system here. A sixth grader is 12 years old. How do you suggest we teach them responsibility for their apathy? They are just kids. The High School entrance exam is taken by students when they are 15. This determines who will go to which school and then who will follow which career. Do you really think a 15 year old is mature enough to realize the importance of this? There is a good reason the law considers them to be minors. They do not have that kind of responsibility. It is not taught. It comes with time, patience and life experience. I wish more people will accept the fact that kids are kids. they do not think like adults and as much as you think they are immature irresponsible hateful little shits, I actually enjoy working with them for precisely that reason.[/quote]

I disagree entirely. Bad people don’t just materialise out of thin air, fully-formed when they’re eighteen years old. Adults who are bad people were probably teenagers who were bad people who were probably kids who were bad people. Certainly by the age of adolescence, kids definitely have an understanding of right and wrong. They’re at that stage of cognitive and moral development. I wish more people would accept the fact that kids are not innocent little creatures.

The state, the school, the family may all contribute to the problem, but ultimately, the buck stops with individuals.

18

I had a bunch of 6 graders who would misbehave, talk in Chinese etc etc.

One day I took a tape recorder into the class and told them that I would record the class and would give the tape to the principal after each class.

Good as gold now. The only time they talk now is when I ask them a question.

Try it out.

19

I’d go one better and have a video camera in there. Obviously, you have to do it every lesson though. Of course, it still doesn’t address the underlying issue, i.e. that the foreign teacher doesn’t get respect because he or she is not seen to have any real authority (hence having to defer to the threat of bringing the principal in).

20

Sorry. I meant that of course they blame you. They can’t blame the system, they can’t blame the students, they can’t blame the parents, surely THEY’RE not part of the problem. The teacher is ALWAYS at fault here. I felt like you’d addressed your own issues.

Anyway, yes trying to get students to relate their curriculum to their lives is always good, but this apathy is just part of being a sixth grader here.[/quote]
If they can accept responsibility for their apathy, I understand what you are saying. If they can’t, somebody needs to teach them to.[/quote]
Sorry to sound mean, but your comment is exactly what I have against the education system here. A sixth grader is 12 years old. How do you suggest we teach them responsibility for their apathy? They are just kids. The High School entrance exam is taken by students when they are 15. This determines who will go to which school and then who will follow which career. Do you really think a 15 year old is mature enough to realize the importance of this? There is a good reason the law considers them to be minors. They do not have that kind of responsibility. It is not taught. It comes with time, patience and life experience. I wish more people will accept the fact that kids are kids. they do not think like adults and as much as you think they are immature irresponsible hateful little shits, I actually enjoy working with them for precisely that reason.[/quote]

I disagree entirely. Bad people don’t just materialise out of thin air, fully-formed when they’re eighteen years old. Adults who are bad people were probably teenagers who were bad people who were probably kids who were bad people. Certainly by the age of adolescence, kids definitely have an understanding of right and wrong. They’re at that stage of cognitive and moral development. I wish more people would accept the fact that kids are not innocent little creatures.

The state, the school, the family may all contribute to the problem, but ultimately, the buck stops with individuals.[/quote]
And in another thread you mentioned how you think the education system here is better than in the West because people don’t come out of it as ill equipped as in the West. Doesn’t add up.
Do you honestly think a bunch of six graders, three weeks away from summer vacation and two months away from high school need a lesson in responsibility, or could it be that they are both excited and scared about big changes to come. How does that make them bad people and where is the causality in the reasoning.
Maybe I am just blessed with good students but I never seem to have all these problems every one else has.