I have been here for quite a while now and, up until today, had thought I had seen everything. However, today I was teaching an intermediate class of ten year old children when a man in his early twenties walked in. I thought he was there to observe or was looking for a secretarial job at the school. But no; It turned out he was a new student in my class. I asked the Chinese teacher how in the Hell this is happening and she said it is because he is a college student with about the same English abilities, wants to improve them, and this would be the only time he has time to study.
How on Earth am I supposed to teach English to an adult using activities that might involve TPR or running up and touching the correct answer on the board. How am I going to motivate my other students to do an activity, if an older student doesn’t want to do them, because they are things that are too embarrassing for a twenty year old to do and I would never make a class full of twenty year olds do? And what am I supposed to do with this guy when it comes time to checking homework? Am I to write ‘Good job’ when he does his homework and give him reward cards? Am I to punish him when he doesn’t have his mother sign his communication book 
? I can’t believe this is actually happening. What am I to do?
Considering the maturity of some 20 year olds I have seen, you just need to offer him some treats. 
Yes. It is true we are in the culture of ‘cute’ here.
Make him a T.A. and carry on.
EDIT: Sorry, that sounded too flippant. What I mean is that make him a teaching partner so that he doesn’t lose face and the kids will respect him as an adult. He could help with lesson planning and and would learn English by helping you. Be creative. He obviously wants the same goal as you.
Why couldn’t you use TPR with adults? TPR is used with adults all the time.
Having a 20-year-old run to the board might be problematic, yes. But I assume that he would be mature enough to realize why he might need to be asked to sit out for some of the activities. For most, I’d just have him participate anyway, provided it would not cause any physical risk to the smaller children.
I popped by a school the other day to meet a friend and while I was waiting for him to finish his class, happened to glance in the window of another classroom. A foreign teacher with a class of middle-aged and older students was playing sticky ball games with them. 
The youngest student must have been at least 40.
I still remember the Class From Hell I taught in a kindy way back in the 90s. 5 students: two aged 5-6, two aged 12-13, and one aged 50. All of different abilities. One 12-year-old was fluent in English, and one 6-year-old and the 50-year-old were absolute beginners.
No idea what the school’s rationale was for lumping these students together. I protested the idea at the outset, but the school just said “It’s OK”.
[quote=“ironlady”]Why couldn’t you use TPR with adults? TPR is used with adults all the time.
Having a 20-year-old run to the board might be problematic, yes. But I assume that he would be mature enough to realize why he might need to be asked to sit out for some of the activities. For most, I’d just have him participate anyway, provided it would not cause any physical risk to the smaller children.[/quote]
Actually, you’re right. TPR is used with adults all the time. It is just used in a different way. Adults might feel insecure about jumping up and down and saying “I am jumping up and down” to teach present continuous tense. I use it for role plays and other situations where I have more kinesthetic learners in class.
And I am also a bit of a hypocrite for bringing this up. When I was learning beginner Japanese, our teacher brought in actual materials that are used in Japanese kindergartens to help their younger students learn to write. I thought this helped the material stick better, since she was giving me something visual to learn by, even if it had cute teddy bears on it. The children’s material also went slow enough to help all of us beginners keep up with the teacher.
By way of contrast, my first Chinese teacher just zoomed right along when I was a beginner. We used adult material that just had us memorizing whole dialogues and she always went on to the next page, whether we felt we had mastered the previous page, or not. I felt that I had to take the class over again as her way of teaching was too fast for beginners.
I’d imagine being in a class of 10 yr olds would make him insecure enough, so jumping up and down shouldn’t make much a difference.
I would just hold class as is, if he doesn’t feel comfortable, well, he’ll drop it. If he thinks its super fun, you got a friend for life :hubba:
[quote=“Whole Lotta Lotta”]
Actually, you’re right. TPR is used with adults all the time. It is just used in a different way. Adults might feel insecure about jumping up and down and saying “I am jumping up and down” to teach present continuous tense. I use it for role plays and other situations where I have more kinesthetic learners in class.[/quote]
What?
We use TPR in precisely that way – doing an action in response to a command (not usually by outputting, since I am an input-centric teacher) all the time. I think people are often overly cautious of what adult learners “will” or “will not” do.
(Just so we’re clear – you do mean actual TPR, not just “having students move around in class”, right?)
It’s obvious what’s going on, both in this class and those other bizarre classes others have taught before.
A laoban never says no to a buck.
[quote=“ironlady”][quote=“Whole Lotta Lotta”]
Actually, you’re right. TPR is used with adults all the time. It is just used in a different way. Adults might feel insecure about jumping up and down and saying “I am jumping up and down” to teach present continuous tense. I use it for role plays and other situations where I have more kinesthetic learners in class.[/quote]
What?
We use TPR in precisely that way – doing an action in response to a command (not usually by outputting, since I am an input-centric teacher) all the time. I think people are often overly cautious of what adult learners “will” or “will not” do.
(Just so we’re clear – you do mean actual TPR, not just “having students move around in class”, right?)[/quote]
Yes, I am referring to actual TPR and not just having adults moving around in class. I may be being a little overly cautious with this guy. I think sometimes people confuse TPR with walking around in class doing a survey. I said that I had planned to have a group of junior highers move around the class one time and the Chinese teacher said, “What? These are junior highers. They are too old for that sort of thing. You shouldn’t use TPR with this group.” I wound up just having them walk around the class and do a survey. Some people say that is TPR is any sort of movement at all, but it really isn’t.
We played a bunch of games that would’ve been similar to ‘run up to the board and hit the right answer!’ in first year uni here, so I’m sure he’ll fit right in 
I think you’ve got to take pretty much anything that’s thrown at you here. Consider it as a challenge. If you succeed, it shows that you can teach in any situation, which will only work in your favour. Having said that, it pisses me off that schools pull off this kind of shit. A teacher at a school that I would consider professionally run told me that he had to teach a young teenager in one of his IELTS classes. Now that’s just wrong.
Ah, the Nietzschean school of EFL: That which does not kill me makes me stronger.