This is just a basic issue that all teachers face, regardless of discipline being taught. You complain about their bad English, while a math teacher would complain about their inability to grasp the most basic concepts of math after repeated examples. That’s the life of a teacher.
Students don’t live in your world. They’re busy with other things all day and don’t have time to spend on a ‘carefully designed listening program’. They show up to class unprepared because they can.
Try relating to them not as students, but as individuals. This may sound crazy, but try to look at each of them as someone you truly love: a brother, sister, mother, father, whatever. What we do in class, ultimately, doesn’t really matter. What really matters is how we spend our time together.
I’ve come to think that all the ESL and otherwise educational theory is all crap. From a linguistic perspective, your points with regards to listening before speaking are 100% valid. But linguistic theory is not reality. Free yourself! Give yourself a break. Who gives a shit if they really learn or not? Do you? Do you really care about their English, or are you really concerned about how their English reflects on your teaching? Are you upset because they’re not improving they’re English or because they’re not following your program? It’s their choice, after all. What I care about is forging good relationships. I try to prepare everything as best I can, but the rest is up to the student, and if s/he doesn’t care to take advantage of my preparation with regards to a particular lesson or ‘learning objective’, fine. We can still grow together day by day.
Maintain your self respect by continuing to prepare well, demand the most of your students, and act professionally, but accept the human element of it all.
thanks to x train for the tips! you’re right about being careful about medicine. i don’t like Zoloft so much. it takes the edge off my motivation. not sleepy, but i find it much too easy to watch TV all day. of course i make up for it by kicking ass later in the day, but that’s not good when you’ve got deadlines to keep and quality counts.
to be frank, i have OCD . and the repetitiveness of teaching english is not helpful to it. however, zoloft makes you feel like the doors to the “rooms” you used to go to in your mind (obsessive rumination topics) are kind of closed or not interesting.it’s not like you’re being controlled by the medicine. it’s something else. i can observe myself with all clarity, and i choose whatever i want to do, but it’s strange how it makes you not want to go into those rooms and worry.they’re just not interesting.
ran, the man with OCD
Hoedad - Thanks for the generous and well considered reply. It would be difficult for me to agree with everything you said but I certainly appreciate the sentiment.
Rantheman - Glad to hear you got things sorted out.
These two statements look a little contradictory to me.
If I turned up to tai chi chuan without having practised between classes I would expect Sifu to pretty much ignore me and spend his time with other students. I would then learn the art at an abysmally slow rate, or not at all, and in the the long term get my arse royally kicked by my fellow students. So why should it be any different for English classes? If I wanted to learn something I would make time for it.
Sorry to hear that it’s affected you like this. I don’t mean this to sound like a platitude but I wouldn’t take the job too seriously and there are reasons for saying this. If your school or students display that all too familiar ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude I wouldn’t worry too much about anything. I know it’s depressing but it’s not your fault. Just try and focus on the one or two enlightened members of your class (I know you’re probably lucky if you have any) and ignore the rest.
The thing that really gets me sometimes is that some students just plain ignore me. In fact, if they could find some way to practice their listening with fun, interesting materials for an hour or so a day, their converational ability would improve quite quickly. They can listen to things on their walkman while riding the bus or taking a bath etc. They do not need to focus so intently all the time. What they do need to do is make sure that English from a variety of sources is coming in their ears regularly. It is a lot better if that English has been carefully chosen and studied a bit in written form. This “works” in that their listening improves, they learn a lot of vocabulary, and eventually they become more confident about joining the conversation because they can understand what is going on. These days most of my students are coming around to understanding this because I have become more committed to the idea that my main purpose is to help them build listening environments. If there is any resistance on this I try to take my frustration out on them rather than myself. I didn’t study all this time so that I would be ignored.
Some (er…make that many) people here just won’t speak unless they think their English is word perfect. Gain face = will speak; remote possibility of losing face = sudden interest in the subtle textures of the floor covering.
It is apparent to any sane person that if you don’t practise something you will be crap at it, unless you are to languages what Ali was to boxing. As you say bob, exposure to the language through reading and listening is essential, but do most of them do it? Do they fuck.
They think you’re David Copperfield about to perform some kind of linguistic reverse telepathy operation “I can see into your miiiinnnddd…there’s nothing there…oh wait up a sec I think I’ve found the shopping channel…baaacckk to business…I will now upload the entire Oxford English dictionary (plus audio-visual CDrom)” cue lions jumping through flaming hoops and fit lady flashing her gnashers while pointing her arms in scissor type configuration towards creepy bouffanted magician.
The ‘not exposing yourself to the language’ thing goes back to their education where they are given everything on a plate. If only some
of your students are ignoring you sounds like you’re doing alright bob.
The thing is I make it just about impossible for them to ignore me. Lets say for example that I have asked them to go home and listen to Carolyn Graham’s Grammarchants. They know for sure that if I have done this I will test them on it next class or the class after that or at least sometime for sure. I want them to listen to it and read the lyrics and look up any words they don’t know. The more times they listen the more comforatable and happy we will be next time we see each other. The less they do it the less happy we will both be. If they are not doing what I ask then they are wasting my time and I tell them that. I am not quite masochistic enough to continue teaching with no hope of progress.
The other thing they are guaranteed of is a chance to talk about whatever they want. The only hitch is they have to talk about something, and I don’t care if they do it in Chinese even although the “rule” is that anything that is said in Chinese is translated into English. We tape record the entire lesson to so we can be sure that an attempt is made to translate at least. Every student is on the translation team. They all make their own tapes and they are encouraged to listen to the entire class at least once more. With their tapes from class, Grammarchants, DVD etc. they can build an interesting, effective listening environment. All they need is a bit of motivation and they can improve. A suprising number of students come around when I lay it out in black and white like this, and once that happens I do my best to provide them with a fun, interactive experience.
[quote=“stragbasher”]I’ve been enjoying reading this thread, but today I stumbled across THIS!
I will never ever complain about my students again. How the hell do people put up with that crap? I would walk out after the first couple of classes.[/quote]
These two statements look a little contradictory to me.
If I turned up to tai chi chuan without having practised between classes I would expect Sifu to pretty much ignore me and spend his time with other students. I would then learn the art at an abysmally slow rate, or not at all, and in the the long term get my arse royally kicked by my fellow students. So why should it be any different for English classes? If I wanted to learn something I would make time for it.
[/quote]
First, many students in English classes in Taiwan, both children and those at the university level, aren’t there because they want to learn English. They may be there because their parents want them to be, because they’re required to take the course, because they don’t know what else to do, or for any number of any reasons. So although I agree with your tai chi example, it’s not a good analogy.
Second, I don’t see anything contradictory about expecting the most from my students while at the same time trying to understand their reasons for being there. If I didn’t expect (better phrase might be ‘do my best to facilitate the willing learner’) the most from my students, I would end up hating my job very quickly; likewise, if I demanded the most from my students (i.e., if they don’t master everything I put on their plate, we’re all failures), I’d end up being very frustrated.
my former chain had classroom spies. i guess a form of quality control is in order, but they were using it to make sure we used the crappy textbook that some of our “sell out” brethern had written or edited. you know what i mean. there are foreigners in taiwan who will do anything for a buck and to be liked by the establishment:
supervisor: “can’t we just say ’ i am sick yeasterday’?”
ass kisser: " well, yesterday is spelled wrong and am should be was"
supervisor: “yes, but the boss’s mistress wrote this. we like it like this”
asskisser: “you know, it looks rather nice.”
supervisor: “you’re a good ass kissing foreigner who’ll do anything for a buck. you’ll go far in this company. mind if i call you lao wai?”
asskisser: oh no! go ahead. anything to be more successful than i could be in my own country, loser that i am!"
supervisor: “if only ran the man would get with the program”
asskisser: “that guy? he’ll never bend or snitch. he’s got honor… and a dick”
supervisor: 'well we don’t need any of that in taiwan. by the way, we have a TV show where you can play the part of a smiling, spineless, mindless ah dogah. interested?"
asskisser: “oh yes! i could never be on TV in my own country. how lucky i am!”
these kinds of mindless, ass kissing snitches make it impossible to form a teacher’s union. we tried. we died. snitches always spoiled the pie.
I don’t know how you guys take it. I’ve always taught private classes so no administrator has ever had a thing to say about the way I teach. A couple of agents have tried but they didn’t get very far. An experienced teacher should be open to suggestions, but absolutely closed to being “told” how to do his job. These days my students love my classes and that is because I did nothing but focus on developing something that would still be effective and fun for them given their low tolerance for focused effort.
i didn’t take it. i quit teaching and started taking Zoloft instead(no joke). actually i got muscled out by politics. a couple of classroom walkouts didn’t help. but those bastards in tien mu had it coming. they didn’t laugh at any of my jokes, and i keep em’ rolling usually. this was a cold crowd to say the least. yeah some people appreciated me and i hated dissapointing them, but the house was against me.
tien mu students don’t even make their own bed in the morning. their maid does it. they talk about their maids in class. some of my students were VIPs. others were friends and relatives of VIPs. many times i wanted to teach words like " rich moron", “politician fucker” and others but my nothing would get me transfered. tien mu was my last stop on the " i used to teach for X chain" circuit. they were trying to make me quit.
Ran (may I call you ran?) most of us teach rich people, and most of us at some point realize that despite the fact that these students are richer than us, they are not neccesarily smarter, more ethical or more creative than us. Heck they may not even be as good looking or good in bed. They are however still people and may have their own sensitivities about a whole range of issues. They may even feel guilty about consuming a dispropotionate share of the world’s resources. And they may feel a bit insecure in the knowledge that their influence in the world far outstrips their wisdom regarding how to make the world a better place. Given these sensitivities it is better to make your point in a more subtle fashion. Their money is frequently the only thing they have going for them as human beings. If you are going to be the one to point that out, it is best to do it compassionately. I had a twenty year old who made use of “every” opportunity to point out that she was rich and I was poor and that for this reason I was almost beneath consideration. One day the whole class was doing a little sensitivity/awareness exercise in each we took turns slapping each other in the face. Of course everyone was really careful about not hitting each other very hard but when it came time for me to hit her I put a little muscle behind it. Still not enough to really hurt much but there wasn’t a person there who didn’t get what that slap was about, and her behaviour improved substantially after that. I’ve given more than a few verbal slaps over this issue as well but I didn’t do it in an insulting or even joking manner. I simply let them know that when they look down on others in this way they only degrade themselves. It was painful for them but one of the best lessons they ever learned I’m sure.
I think the sun’s got to you mate. I don’t want to point out the obvious but here goes anyway. Check your quotes above. If they’re not there to learn English then they have no business being in the class and there is therefore no point in trying to understand their reasons for being there because they don’t have any. You could talk about understanding their reasons if some wanted to learn for business, others for study etc. but this would assume that they do actually want to learn in the first place.
You seem to have absorbed the Taiwanese version of education which is, for those of you unfamiliar with the Ministry of Education’s own definition, Anything at all as long as it takes place in an indoor space resembling a classroom
Christ bob, you’ve just opened up a whole new world of teaching to me there. You should document these bleeding edge techniques for Scrivener’s next edition of Learning Teaching, I think he’s into the more touchy feely stuff. Might try it with some of the xiaojies, but it won’t be their face I’m slapping.
I really think I do. Your Tianmu entry bears more than a passing resemblance to a chain school (and I use the term school very loosely here) with which I myself am acquainted. If we’re talking about the same place you have my deepest sympathy for having to waste your time in the company of these clueless nouveau riche scum.
Spot on. If we are talking about the same place, then money is the only possible reason for remaining at that excuse for a school (although you’re probably not going to get it at the right time of the month or even in the same month you were promised and there will almost certainly be some inexplicable deduction). I think their long term ‘teachers’ are immune to feelings of shame or embarrassment because those are the reactions of any normal person when being forced to pretend their wretched magazines are genuine teaching materials.
ha ha! very good. One of my conversations with the muppets went like this:
Student (middle aged woman): teacher, you’re quite tall.
Me: er…oh.
Student: you’re taller than the Americans, they’re quite short.
Me: er…(wondering where the fuck this is all going).
Student: Yes, but the French are even smaller you know.
Me:er…yeah they’re all descended from Napoleon and he was a short guy.
Student: Yes, yes I know and the Canadians they’re the tallest, they’re always tall.
Peasants. Fucking unbelievable.
There’s no need to mention the h word now is there? Thats just uncalled for. Nor dignity, nor professionalism. We may be talking about the same place and we may not. If we’re not it just makes it worse.
