Help! Adult class is like pulling teeth!

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
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Students do talk when provided with a task with clear guidelines. My bookshelf is filled with a range of photocopiable teacher resource books - excellent for small group and pair-work.

Here are some of the ones I have:

The books cost quite a bit - more than NT 1 500 a shot, but this way I can always find engaging activities to match topics or grammar points. After using tasks like these often, you’ll get to the point where you start to create your own. (I’ll search for it and post the address of a bookstore where you can find these books later.)

Besides using the teacher resource books mentioned above though, most decent textbooks have pair-work activities in the back or books of games and activities to go with the textbook (e.g. American Headway), and some even have reasonably decent video components (e.g. TopNotch). It’s nice if you can start off with a decent series that provides the teacher with lots of extras. If you are a beginner teacher who doesn’t have access to the teacher’s manual and all else that goes with a book, there is little hope.

I’d stab myself to death with a pen if I relied on my students to keep the class interesting, so - for me - as much of an adult class as possible is taken up by keeping them busy and speaking.

I use songs in almost every class - but only for a few minutes as there’s usually so much to get accomplished in any one class. But it would be easy to use up half an hour with a song - do a listening exercise, then listen to the song, then have selected students read the lyrics verse by verse and discuss it, and then watch it on YouTube. Everyone’s up for a bit of music. For examples of listening exercises, I might provide a cloze (having erased some of the words from the lyrics - easy to do: just find the lyrics online, check them with the song, and provide spaces for students to fill in the blanks), I might cut up numerous copies of the lyrics so groups have to rearrange the lyrics, I might provide students with the lyrics in the wrong order and have them number the lines, I might place mistakes in the lyrics that the students have to find, the students might have to circle the correct word - it just takes a little bit of prep using Word. If you need to play the song more than once for the activity, it’s great - they get into it. In more relaxed workshops I’ve taught students dance moves to songs or divided them into groups to practice selected songs karaoke-wise (Admittedly, I’m a bit gayer than most teachers).

Halo - if you are keen, pm me and I can hand over or mail a few copied activities to you (ones that will be perfectly usable with straight students).

Just don’t bore your students - they learn best while awake.

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My modus operandi. :smiley:

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Loretta: :bravo:

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Guys I failed to mention we do have material we have books with topics and exercises. Say like the earthquake in Japan is a topic, we do vocab fill out some questions and then they need to answer questions verbally. Some have those yes, no, I don’t know responses, but more often the students well some, or most are kind of flat in their answers and really lacking knowledge I find. Anyway I read through each post and will try some different things. It is a big adjustment going from one place to another (country) teaching English. Thanks.

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This, and it can be a big problem. You generally need to bring in ANY information that they may need for the discussion - assume zero background knowledge, and at least that way you won’t be disappointed. Absolutely forget about trying to start a conversation that will be intellectually stimulating to YOU. For that matter, few of them even want to be intellectually stimulated.

Tangent: often adults do know other material, but it seems like they try their best to hide it, and knowledge often seems “compartmentalized” here; they vaguely remember stuff from high school or university science classes - or from their literature class two hours ago - but it doesn’t even occur to them to use that same bit of knowledge in present circumstances. I like to blame it on the testing culture, but then again, I blame everything on the testing culture.

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[quote]Tangent: often adults do know other material, but it seems like they try their best to hide it, and knowledge often seems “compartmentalized” here; they vaguely remember stuff from high school or university science classes - or from their literature class two hours ago - but it doesn’t even occur to them to use that same bit of knowledge in present circumstances. I like to blame it on the testing culture, but then again, I blame everything on the testing culture.
[/quote]
I said this in another post. It is the culture as you guys say. Too much about TV, movies and our shallow focused news.Worldly knowledege is lacking I used to take adult classes and was one of the students that spoke out. A few students did not like it. But I wanted to share my ideas and improve my conversation skils. If it was shopping or HBO or something about local stories. (18yr old kills parents cause they said no to money for $9,000 phone). They were into it. most of us are taught to be passive and mostly listen. Anything deeper you need a special group.

Also I will do my own tangent. We had a few English teachers that said Buddhist practices were very stupid. Hitler was a good guy , and gays should die, all comments seriously! I would challenge them (This I learned in the USA) others students would not but just sit there. I eventually quit anyway. Do your best Halo I am sure you are trying.

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Ouch… good for you for challenging them. I HOPE those teachers were just playing devil’s advocate and trying to get some kind of reaction, but of course any profession has its share of idiots.

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lostinasia they were serious! Anyone could tell because of the follow up statements. besides even if they were not they are crossing a line.

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GROUP work is the key! Takes the spotlight off them, gives them an identity as a unit. Pair work, 4, 6. Set up the work needed to be done and they’re as happy as 2/4/6 peas in a pod. Only way I can do my 45+ classes. Also gives me time to circulate and give each group some ‘teacher time’, and they definitely talk more when they’re not forced.

Role playing is a winner. Sharing photos too. Topic discussion works well too, but it helps to keep it flowing, not sitting on a topic for too long - I use 30 hot topics for an hour, 2 minutes per student.

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Baas Babelaas: I think group work is great at giving the impression of a lot of English being spoken, but these days, I really question how two non-native speakers who are not really at an advanced level, can be put together and expected to produce even vaguely accurate English. At best, it will lead to reinforcement of Chinglish. The large conversation class is a fundamentally flawed concept and navigating one’s way through it is a dog and pony show. Short of putting the students in a bubble and not letting them encounter English outside of the classroom (and thus, running an experimental group and a control group), I don’t know how we can really say that it is effective. I suspect that those who develop good conversational skills do so because of factors outside of the group conversational class setting because the success rate of these classes is really low.

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I try my best. With groups of 45 there’s no real chance of them advancing their language. But at least I make it fun (worth their time) to come to class. It’s uni, and they get a point for coming and passing my class.

The serious ones are a different breed, and a few of them meet with me after class to ACTUALLY improve their English. It doesn’t happen overnight and I let them know that. But we have fun in my class, with some English spoken.

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Baas: I’m not criticising you. I’m saying the concept of putting 45 students of fairly low ability and enthusiasm in a class with a single native speaker is really poorly thought out. I have one class of ninth grade students that has thirty students. We barely all fit in the room, the kids have to get extra chairs and the whole thing is a logistical nightmare. Even if I try to get them to do non-verbal things such as TPR, there’s no way I can actually position the students or myself so that they can all see my face at the same time and I can see theirs at the same time. There are either kids hiding behind other kids or if I make a large circle, at some point, I have my back to some kids. So even if I put them in groups and try to move around between them (which I don’t think is that effective anyway), there’s little time I can spend with each group, so the effect is minimal at best. The people who put these things together don’t even consider these really basic logistical issues.

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You’ve summed up my job at the uni.

Need I say more? I want out, back to small classes, where I can give my students face time.

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You’ve summed up my job at the uni.

Need I say more? I want out, back to small classes, where I can give my students face time.[/quote]

Partly sums up my one of my uni classes, too. Except that I’ve got 60, most of whom have made a definite decision that that do not need English in any way shape or form. Not even to pass GEPT - three quarters told me so in the survey I gave them in week one.
It’s week five and half still haven’t bought the textbook.

Unless I stand in an aisle in the middle of the room where I can see them and get them to repeat what I say, they will just sit there talking to each other in Chinese. I find it disrespectful to say the least. I go to the trouble of preparing interesting materials and activities, but, as I said, a large proportion of them have made the decision that they will not learn English. It’s tiring.

I think, as the newest teacher, I have been given the worst class. My other classes are a joy by comparison, though in actual fact they are rather ordinary.

How did they get to be this way? What is it with electronic engineers? How do you develop any rapport with them when you want to teach but they just don’t want to learn?

Some of them just accept that they’re going the fail, but turn up to class anyway. Perhaps its just so their parents can’t blame them for failing due to non-attendance. Most, however, think they’re smart enough to figure out how they can do the absolute bare minimum to pass. Only a few actually want to learn anything.

Another 13 weeks of the semester to go … [sigh]. Electronic engineers, never again.

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People having a conversation in Chinese I will not tolerate. Okay, some people are shy and don’t want to talk. Fair enough. People who talk while the teacher is talking are rude cunts, plain and simple. Adults, especially, should know better. If kids do it in my class, I get really fucking angry at them and embarrass the shit out of them in front of everyone. Then I send them out. Then they have to do a punishment later. Fuck 'em. They want to be disrespectful, two can play at that game. If it were university students, I’d tell them that people who talk while I talk will leave or I’ll have them removed from the class. By leaving (or being forced to leave), they will be marked as absent. Too many absences mean failure. Fuck 'em.

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[quote=“tomthorne”]FFS it’s not that difficult, and I call bullshit on anyone who claims that Taiwanese adults won’t talk.

  1. present the topic and the vocab they will need
  2. model the question and answer forms they are going to use
  3. give them time to think about what they are going to say
  4. let them practice it in pairs
  5. then they feed back[/quote]
    That, my fellow forumosan, is a cunning plan indeed. I call it, ‘Programming the automatons’. Give the illusion of conversation yet avoid the risk and deep psychological trauma associated with talking normally. :bow:

If I didn’t understand I would say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’ If I understood the question but didn’t know how to reply I would look confused for a second, then mime charades style :happybiker: :flowers: :beer: :kiss: :hubba: :banana: :snore: .Or I would dramatically raise one index finger in the air to indicate, ‘One minute!’ or, ‘One moment!’ and then I would consult my electronic dictionary for a one word answer. I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, ‘lose face’.

A few weeks ago I got fed up with protecting one adult student’s face - a retired KMT schmuck who was always at least five minutes behind the rest of the class. I had always rescued him with tactful answers or replies but it was getting ridiculous - no one else in the class could understand him and he didn’t understand anyone else yet he was trying to dominate the ‘conversation’. So, the other day when he interrupted with something completely incomprehensible I simply said, ‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’ He repeated it again and again I said, ‘I don’t understand’. A pretty young student asked him in Chinese and then she gave me the translation. He has never come back and I can’t help but think that there is something profoundly childish about his behavior.

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I don’t think I can go kicking uni students out of class just for carrying on a conversation when I’m trying to teach. I’ve already had pissed off students confronting me for marking them absent when they put their heads down on the desk and go to sleep. Doziness I can tolerate, but not blatent sleeping.

When they are talking I usually just stop teaching, and just say that I will continue when those who are talking stop. In my other classes, when I do that, all the others immediately turn around and say Shhhhh! It works pretty well. But my electronic engineers don’t care. They would be happy if I stopped teaching althogether so they could get on with other more important things like chatting to each other in Chinese, texting messages or sleeping.

Last week I had one student at the back who just would not stop talking, even when I singled him out. Turns out he wasn’t even in the class, but it was so important that he talk to his friend that he came into my class to do it while I was trying to teach. Actually, it was kind of funny …when the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be there became clear, some of the weaker students, who normally say nothing, took great pleasure in saying with gusto one of the few phrases they know - “Get out!”

Hate to generalise, but I have to say that based on my experience, students who go into engineering seem rather short in the social skills department.

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antarcticbeech: Haha. I am loving your cynicism today.

adikarmika: Maybe you’re not allowed to kick them out because of the powers that be, but it really just shows how unprofessional the university is then. I remember some lecturers ripping into some students – I mean really ripping into them in a very angry way – who were talking or listening to music in a very large lecture of almost 500 students when I was in my first year of university. University lecturers are professionals. They’re not dealing with three year old kindergarten kids. They’re dealing with adults who have rights and responsibilities and need to participate in society in an acceptable way. I know these guys are engineers, and my experiences have been that many are pretty clueless socially also, but so what? Maybe someone needs to give them some clues. Because you teach at a university, you’re obviously not some backpacker wannabe blowin. You’re a professional and should be treated accordingly.

I’ve figured out now that if I want to be seen as somewhat similarly to the Taiwanese teachers at my school, then I need to brook no bullshit. Of course, I’ll never be seen the same way, and there’s all sorts of stuff I’m sure kids get away with simply because I don’t speak Chinese fluently. I’m not a foreign clown though (I will ham it up and the kids can have a laugh at me if it’s all in good fun and part of what we’re doing, but not if it’s disrespectful) and my classes are not for fucking around. There’s a very real difference between getting a little silly and fucking around. I’m not afraid to be a hard arse on my kids now. I don’t care if they don’t like me for it. Some of them are finally starting to get it into their thick heads that I will knock their thick heads against a wall (in a figurative sense) if they fuck around in my class, but if they’re good, they will have the world lain at their feet.

Yesterday, in a seventh grade class, I was giving instructions to a group, pointing to something on the board, and one of the girls in the group wasn’t even looking at the board the entire time I was giving the instruction. I stopped and called her name. I always do these hand signals and say, “Look and listen!” I do it so much that as soon as I do them, some of the other kids chime in because they all know them so well now. It’s like a mantra. She still wasn’t taking me seriously, so I broke out my garbled Chinese and did an imitation of her talking to her friend or staring at the floor, then one of all the other kids working, and then one of her talking in an exaggerated voice with an exaggerated blank look on my face and saying, “Shen me? Wo bu dong!” and then did my hand signals and “Look and listen” again. She went bright red, and I embarrassed the fuck out of her in front of the entire class who were laughing at her, but fuck her. She does this all the time and I’ve tried to be nice to her and she’s just continued to take the piss. So I took the piss.

As fucked up as that all sound, many of my students are actually beginning to realise that the less time I spend raining fire down on some little prick in class, the more time we have to do something interesting and/or fun. I generally don’t have this problem at all with my eighth grade students. Both classes seem to have already been really respectful from the get-go. We have an excellent relationship and there’s a lot of leeway because we all know where to draw a line and treat each other well. They’re pretty rare though. Some of the ninth grade students can be little cocks and I’ve brought the hammer down on a number of occasions. In this country, often you won’t be respected for trying to be reasonable or appeal to reason. You just have to be a mean, authoritarian son-of-a-bitch to gain their respect.

At Christmas last year, I drew up Santa’s Good List and chose those students whom I considered to be really nice, polite, respectful students (the eighth grade students were disproportionately represented). I had a tree in my room and all of the presents (some pretty nice stuffed toys that had been donated to the school) were gift-wrapped. I told them at the start that they were getting a present because they had been such lovely students (the implication being the other kids had been mediocre to rotten little cunts which is why they weren’t getting presents). The kids who got the presents looked like they were in pure bliss when they opened their presents. I’m sure it got back to the other students (I hope it did). In my world, not everyone does get a Christmas present just for turning up and having a pulse.

Likewise, during the winter camp, I singled out a couple of girls in the eighth grade who had really been putting in a lot of effort over the previous semester, despite not being the best English students. I really talked them up and gave them an award. I later found out that one of them actually has minor learning difficulties.* The other kids were a little shocked that I would mention them because they’re not the smartest students. From that day forward, the girl with the minor learning difficulties, who was previously kind of shy, has always said hello to me and waved at me whenever she’s seen me. The other girl does too, but she already spoke to me before.

  • This is actually kind of interesting because I’ve seen her in the special education room (where the kids receive special tutoring) next to mine and she’s been with one of the English teachers. This means she doesn’t test well on all of those inane tests they do, but when I communicate with her and ask her to do TPR, she’s quite good at it. They are obviously really barking up the completely wrong tree in terms of this kid’s learning style at this school. Am I the first person to have noticed this, or is it that the school is still locked into the testing culture despite realising it also? Very interesting question that I think I am going to investigate further today.
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[quote=“Halo”]I have been teaching adults now for 2 moths 3 classes per week. The material is OK but in my 2 conversation classes the students don’t ask questions much are very passive and only respond if I make jokes, tell stories and let them watch videos! This works but it wears me out like I have to be a white Dave Chappelle or something! :smiley:

I am still a new teacher here and It is a shock. I taught English in Germany before I came here for a bit. I thought Germans were a bit conservative ahem,until coming to Taiwan. Taiwanese students are nice but they make Germans look like a The greatest conversationalist on earth. I saw another old thread about ideas for adult classes but I am hoping someone can enlighten me with something new.[/quote]

I didn’t read the other replies, but it sounds like you are doing all the work. This type of class should begin , continue and END with the students practicing English between each other. It not only lessens the nervousness of talking to the master, but it also gives them a social life in the classroom. Make sure to match the shy male engineers with the hottest girls in the class. Don’t let niches form.

Us A/ B questions that relate to text to stimulate these conversations. They should be doing this 50% of the class and not sitting there silent while you do all the talking. How do I know this? Because I used to use all the methods I personally was familiar with learning Chinese and Spanish. In Taiwan it’s not education, its edutainment, and therefore crucial that they are able to pair off into groups of 2 or more. Just make sure they aren’t speaking Chinese in the classroom.

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This is good advice!