Been there, done that, wasn’t that bad. Although, granted, this was after a few semesters of mixed-language Chinese instruction.
Almas John - Millions of ESL students are already using television programs and movies to learn English. My purpose is to teach them how to do it more efficiently. It is not a simple undertaking and if you somehow imagine it is then you must be genius, because I think it is the most complicated thing I have ever done.
Don’t forget the “rule” I mentioned. They can say it in Chinese if they want but it has to be translated into English. That will weed out the bu zhi daos and the zhege shi shenmes in a hurry.
thank God I teach kids! good for your mental health.
Got to agree, Why does an adult shell out shed loads of hard earned cash every week and not bother learning new stuff?
I’ve had this adult student for months, never wants homework, never bothers to learn new vocabulary, never wants to talk about anthing really.
:fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume:
Why?
Head and brick wall once a week, ESL causes brain damage. F##KIN’ right it does!
But it also pays the bills!
They’re not there to learn. They’re there to goof off under the guise of pretending to learn. English class is their social life. You are their hobby. So when you try to engage them in conversation they have nothing to talk about because they don’t have lives outside. Who needs vocabulary or grammar when there is nothing to talk about?
That’s just the bad side. I teach 5 adult classes a week, and one 1-1. The only one I don’t enjoy is the Thursday night maroons, and I will prevail there too. I have done in the past. If you beat your head against a brick wall hard enough you can bash a hole right through and say hello to the people in the next room. Think of it as demolishing the box.
My other classes can be very lively and lots of fun. I can honestly say that I mostly enjoy teaching. You just have to find their hot buttons. It’s a sales job and you are an edutainer. Get your head round that concet before beating it against the wall and you’ll be fine.
Now to the real business of the day:
Talk is cheap, and words are worthless until you can show people that you can do something worth talking about.
I was thinking about this while clinging to a rock in a fast-moving river with one hand a few weeks back. My other hand was holding a student who had floated past a moment earlier, after learning experientally the meaning of the word ‘teamwork’. He now understands how important it is to be able to rely on the people around you in any difficult endeavour. He learned that all that talk about how great you are is worthless if you can’t work together to reach your goal. It was a fun, educational weekend for all and I’m jolly pleased I managed to make it happen.
I too wish that there was some way to teach more courses like that one. They pay better than the conversation classes I usually teach on a Saturday, but I’ve only managed to schedule one a month for the time being because I too have no-one else to rely on, no team. There is no-one taking care of the marketing, there’s just me making things happen while others talk.
I thought about that some more on Friday afternoon, standing on a 50-foot yacht in the sunshine. There was a fresh wind in my face and I was watching the water sluicing around the bow at 5 knots, reflecting that the owner of the boat would like to see it being used for teaching. What a pity, I thought, that I can’t make any headway with that project because I don’t have the resources to bring in the students. I’m sure I remember meeting someone who talked big about making that happen, but changed his mind.
A ship is safe in harbour, but that’s not what ships are for. You get to where you want to be by getting out there and imposing your will on your environment, not by sitting on your arse in your cubicle talking about what would be nice.
I thought about it more a few days ago, after talking to a Canadian riding instructor with a stable full of horses at her disposal. All she needs is someone to bring in the students, just like the rest of us who have great courses to teach. Maybe Bob could show them some John Wayne movies as part of that program? A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and all that.
What the man’s gotta do is stop butting into other people’s threads with “wouldn’t it be nice”, and open some bloody courses. Until then he’s making a fool of himself and should shut the fuck up.
I had promised myself not to waste any more time on Toe’s misadventure because I have better things to do with my time: masturbating, playing diplomacy, lying comatose under the table, for instance. But sometimes this pointless shit-stirring is too much to take. If you want to work with bob then open a class for him. If you don’t want to work with him then fuck off and leave him alone. The post above amounts to needless taunting.
I’ll stop now, as I have to write a proposal for a multi-national company that has just set aside a budget for a course that is almost the same as one that Toe apparently turned down recently. (It wasn’t one of mine, btw) Life’s full of little coincidences, eh? Wouldn’t it have been cool if Toe had seen the potential, engaged the teacher, and been in the right place at the right time to ride a wave that will have national publicity and a big budget? Instead it’ll be just me, trying to get my foot in the door without any support, and nothing will probably come of it.
But I got my adventure weekends, I got my sailing, I got the pay rate I asked for, I got my schedule back to what I want it to be, another course that I proposed a while back will run next week, I get a massage with every drink I buy at my fave pub, and I enjoy my work. I’m prepared to try and get the next thing I want.
It beats sitting in your cubicle saying “wouldn’t it be nice”.
Feeling you there Strag but I am not sure you should be quite so hard on Toe. There are a lot of us that want a chance to design and run our own programs and Toe has at least started on finding a way to make that happen. If he ran out of steam on it though he should tell us. That’s my only concern so far.
Consider my alternative. Today I dropped by an adult language school. The receptionists did not speak English, so while they went looking for someone who did, I had a look around. I observed one teacher standing in front of a class reciting contractions. I am, I’m, You are, you’re… Another teacher I met was a twenty three year old Taiwanese guy who had lived in Newfoundland for a few years so was delighted to run into another Canadian. He was a nice enough guy but dumb as a bag of hammers. Finally met the administrator and was told that there was some flexibility in terms of how I taught the class but that I would pretty much be expected to “stick to the book.” Stick to the book. I’d rather soak my nipples in battery acid.
Yes. Just see how your English skills will have deteriorated when you go back home and can converse with native speakers again.
I once taught an adult class where most of the students answered “Nothing” to the question of what they were interested in. How can you be interested in nothing? I can understand not having enough time to pursue you interests, but to actually have none seems awfully pathetic.
They have interests, but expressing opinions is taboo.
Would that get them talking? The students, that is?
Teacher: “Hi class, what have you done this week? I’ve soaked my nipples in battery acid.”
Students: “Er…”
It’s an interesting approach, but I think I’ll stick to “My name’s Chuck Chang.”
I’ve given up trying to make sense of how or why Taiwanese ‘learn’ English, or anything else. I met a student recently who actually had a hobby. He was learning ‘social dancing’, by which he meant tango, polka, ‘jeev’, and something else I couldn’t figure out. The interesting bit was that he’s afraid of making mistakes, so he does ‘social dancing’ alone.
It seems that when you finally beat a hole through the wall with your head you come to a place where all the furniture is in the wrong rooms.
Me?
Why?
Just agreeing with the frustration mentioned by others.
Strag, please clarify
Cheers,
L 
Limey - He was refering to Toe’s post I think.
They have interests, but expressing opinions is taboo.[/quote]
Then what do they talk about? And what do they want to learn how to talk about in English? And if the answer is still “Nothing,” then what do they want the teacher to do in English class?
I guess you could ask the administration.
They have interests, but expressing opinions is taboo.[/quote]
Then what do they talk about? And what do they want to learn how to talk about in English? And if the answer is still “Nothing,” then what do they want the teacher to do in English class?[/quote]
This is surely culture clash. Their “nothing” is expediency, not honesty. Taiwanese learners are generally sheep, used to being told exactly what to do by authoritative local teachers. Many (most?) have no idea what they want to learn because wanting is not part of the the education system here. Most Western English teachers must straddle a huge paradigm shift if they are to work successfully here. If you want students to freely share ideas, several lessons of hard groundwork are needed to inculcate a western-style learning environment and habits.
There are plenty of extremely interesting Taiwanese out there, with a lot to say on a range of issues. Granted, they’re usually more interesting in their native language. For those of you who are bi- or multi-lingual, you’d probably say the same about yourself.
I’ve had more than a few profound discussions with my Taiwanese friends and associates, on topics ranging from philosophy to metaphysics to sociology, but I rarely speak English with them.
There are also a lot of interesting students here, but they tend to use less conventional means of finding teachers and are less likely to show up in a generic conversation class. Having said that, I tend to be optimistic and think most people, in every class, have something to contribute.
When teachers are forced into an unnatural environment (classroom) with a book that is largely irrelevant to students’ lives, and are more concerned (often subconsciously) with keeping the boss happy and business going than being fully engaged as a person and educator, then sure, the class may be stilted, unproductive, and boring for everyone.
Try finding means to reach your students, by giving them articles to read or topics to discuss that they actually care about, such as issues related to their lives and culture. If you’re forced to stick to the book, then that’s difficult, no doubt. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. By and large, the conditions in which an ESL class operate are the determining factors of a class’s success, not the intrinsic ability (or lack thereof) of students to hold an interesting conversation in their second (or third) language.
What I’m reading here is a lot of burnout, brought on by having to teach too many classes within the confines of systems/businesses that can be frustrating for everyone.
Yes, it is possible to create ideal classroom settings, but you may have to create them on your own, beyond the confines of a classroom in a company that is solely concerned with profit.
Thanks Gubo. I think you summed it up pretty well. I’d just like to add, before this thread sinks to the bottom of the pile, that my original post was written on a very bad day. I certainly don’t always feel like that and if I did I would try to find something else to do. Actually I 
love a lot of my students. They are basically pretty warm hearted people trying to make their way in an extremely complicated and demanding world. They don’t know a lot about language learning and so sometimes act in ways that are contrary to their best interests as language learners. It is my job to point out the error in their ways and help them find a method that will actually work. So far I have been allowed to do this since most of my classes have been small and private. In that kind of situation you are free to experiment quite a lot. The only people who have ever had anything to say about the way I teach have been my students. This is the way it should be I think. However the money hasn’t been much good so recently I’ve been dropping by a number of language schools. To be honest I was expecting that they would be fascinated to hear about all of the devilishly fun and effective techniques I have developed over the years. Needless to say that has not been the case. I noticed that the students in these establishments somehow look bored, nervous and confused all at the same time. So, it looks then like there are students who are at least willing to show up, but are disappointed that the school doesn’t have some fun and effective way to help them improve their English. And there are teachers who could correct this situation. The problem it seems is that there are a lot of administrators standing in the way. Their job should be to provide a space for students and teachers to come together. It would be great if they could just do that, but instead we have managers and owners telling teachers how to teach. That’s the problem. Anybody got a solution?
pjdrib wrote that repeated exposure to hitting the same problems over and over while teaching might cause clinical depression. i can tell you that it hit me my third year of teaching here for a big chain. the problems you face, from rich snobs who think they can run your class, to counter girls who tell you that the class you just taught where everyone was happy and chatting they didn’t really like at all, to the standard answers that i’m supposed to smile to every time,i.e., “what’s your hobby?” answer -“sleeping”. over and over, day after day, “you didn’t teach tevery word in the book so it doesn’t count” plus understanding the TV news and knowing what the establishment REALLY thinks of us… yeah, clinical depression. it’s no shame. know the symptoms. exercise and eat right. take the medicine. feel better.
going to the ocean, where you face no one but God, yourself, and the sea, where the only questions you have to answer are those which are most meaningful to you, that helps.
ran the man
P.S. change up your schedule to accomodate time for fun. do something different one day just for the heck of it. buy yourself something you’d like to have if it’s not too expensive.go see a movie or get out of taipei spur of the moment spontaneous. this kind of engaging my life, becoming a choice player in it, brought me back to reality.
[/quote]
Rantheman: Very thoughtful post. Thanks.
I agree. Thanks rantheman.
you might wanna look at moving somewhere else too, in terms of work. i realize that all places are pretty much the same, in terms of only caring about $$$, but sometimes a switch can help for a while. at least the bs will likely be of a different sort in a different place.
and you gotta get enuf fruits and veggies as well - instant noodles or other empty foods will kill you. getting sick is almost unavoidable (my home doc said 5 years to get your system used to the pollution), which is another drain, but the vitamins and fruit help this too. do not just go and eat whatever the doc gives you in terms of medicine - find out what you have and how serious it is.
sleep, a luxury for most newbies, and vets, who wanna go out and party it up (as we all did). lacking it runs you down, and gets you more rundown as you try to control a twisted bunch with no help from any of the people who tell you what a lousy job you are doing. and then trying to talk to those same people, who don’t speak a lick of english (what would one expect in an english school?) it’s a little less aggrevating when you actually can speak the language to some degree, but not much.
having your bonuses taken away because you switched a class from one day to another once in a three month period, so you didn’t show up at your scheduled hours!! get outta the city where you teach for a weekend … or a week. fly somewhere where you can take a break. every four to six months get out for a few weeks is a great system, if you have that luxury.
personally, i think that picking up a teaching book can also help. learning a little about what you are doing from those who have done it before gives you some insight to the problems you might encounter, and solutions that may or may not work. but it’s better than having no reference for the “what do i do now?” problems that creep up every once in a while.
just don’t forget yourself. the likelihood is that you are mostly on your own here, so you gotta keep yourself going.