Students with a terrible attitude are ruining my class

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I have a night class full of students with a terrible attitude. Most of them come just to listen, and the class is two hours long. Just about any question is met with silence. If I push them to do any sort of speaking or activities beyond repeating vocabulary words or reading out of the book, they won’t come back to class.

I learned from a student recently, and I’d heard a rumor about this before, that students come to this class ONLY because they think I won’t make them talk. There’s another teacher with the same exact class at the same time as mine, and his students love to talk. My students are the people that went to his class, saw that they had to talk, and ran away to mine, basically to ruin it (Zombies outnumber non-zombies, Taiwanese hive mind (sheep mind?) goes into effect, previously talkative students now look at the floor all class with the zombies).

So… (I’m trying so hard not to ramble and rant here but I can’t help it.)

  1. My students suck and won’t talk

  2. Sometimes they do, a little, class is okay in that case.

  3. Zombies from other class come to sit like zombies and ruin the class because people in Taiwan can’t think for themselves and the zombies make the other students silent because they have to follow them, or whatever nonsense causes this herd behavior.

  4. I try damn hard to come up with activities and opportunuites for these “shy” students to talk. It works and they talk, but they don’t come back.

  5. My class is now tiny (like 1-2 people) and I can’t really do activities due to lack of groups but these people will talk a little and show signs of life, even if they’re shy, so life is ok. They try. Kind of. I don’t expect huge conversations here, but TRY, do something… SOMETHING to show me that some gears are turning in your brain, even if it’s very slowly.

  6. Zombies hear I’m not doing activities or just test the waters maybe and come back in and ruin class again. Sometimes zombies get bored because they sucked the life out of the class and they walk out in the middle. I can’t ramble about things for two hours and make it fun when nobody will laugh at a damn joke (the same ones that work great with other classes on the same lesson) or even look at me, you zombie idiots.

  7. GOTO 4, repeat forever.

  8. I learn (today) that the reason for all this is simply because they DON’T WANT TO TALK IN THE OTHER CLASS AND WILL NOT TALK IN MINE… they’ve decided this is the class where people don’t talk.

This class is 100% voluntary. They are not assigned to this class. They don’t lose money by not going. They don’t lose any opportunity (aside from time) to go to a different class. They can go to any other class they want to, or just not go to anything at all and the money is the same. They don’t have to pass it for any particular reason (there are no grades or progress tracking of any kind). They DO waste their time by coming and staring at the floor. There is a CD they could listen to for each lesson if they wanted to just listen. It has the whole damn lesson on it, explained fairly well from the few times I’ve listened to it. I see no reason for them to come to my class other than to learn my extra vocab/phrases/idioms that I’m pretty sure they don’t pay much attention to. What the hell do they want? They look at the floor if I try to talk to them. They won’t ask questions. They won’t answer questions.

I’m about at the end of my rope with these people. I really want to just start asking them to get the hell out of class if they won’t talk. I’m pretty sure this will just get me into trouble with the school, and my one problem class isn’t worth getting in trouble over.

My other idea is to just tell them that if they want to just listen, they can listen to the damn CD and I can save my voice. I have the CD, I’ll play it for them. They’re not asking me questions, they’re not looking up to even see my body language or what I’m writing on the board most of the time. They’re just there to try to eat my soul, I think.

The class is two hours long and if people have questions and are human beings and not zombies, that amount of time isn’t that bad. If they’re silent, then that is an eternity. I can make lesson plans that use up the time (not just use it up, but make them DO SOMETHING), but I’ll lose nearly every student if I do it, so they control the class, essentially.

I really do not understand what they want. I have a couple days to figure out how to deal with the next class without really losing my temper with these people. I’ve heard stories about the previous teacher having some problems with students, and also that he literally stormed out of the school in the middle of THIS class because he couldn’t deal with these people anymore.

I’ve put so much energy into this particular class that hearing that they’re just shitting all over my work with this attitude really pisses me off. I find it incredibly disrespectful and don’t want these people in my class and don’t want to waste my energy trying to HELP them if doing anything other than babbling on and on for two damn hours will make them leave the class.

The other part that burns me up is that I have private students knocking at my door but my schedule is too full to take them right now. I have people that WANT to learn… friendly people… EASY classes… hell, more money even… but I’m stuck with zombies with a bad attitude instead. Unfortunately those people can’t do classes during this horrible class or I’d just cancel it and teach them instead.

2

[quote=“TaiwanVisitor12321”]
The other part that burns me up is that I have private students knocking at my door but my schedule is too full to take them right now. I have people that WANT to learn… friendly people… EASY classes… hell, more money even… but I’m stuck with zombies with a bad attitude instead. Unfortunately those people can’t do classes during this horrible class or I’d just cancel it and teach them instead.[/quote]

Given it seems you have some flexibility in your situation, and really are desperate to shake things up, how about some variation of the silent treatment? Make it clear a verbal response of some type is expected, and wait for a response, conspicuously sitting back, sipping tea or something, making an occasional comment about the cost of the class perhaps.

3

I say run with it. Maybe they just want to improve their listening and not their speaking? Give them listening tests and and vocabulary tests and more listening tests.

Another idea would be for them to do translation activities. Gap-fill activities. There are lots of books with activities specific to listening (and not speaking).

And, while I hear you about the CD, sometimes it is better to listen to something unrecorded. Read the script from the book, say something wrong, and have the Ss correct you (or have them raise their hand when you say it incorrectly). It will get them involved and at the same time look like you’re doing something productive if say your boss were to walk by.

It might not be that they don’t want to learn. It might just be that they’re brain dead from work. Or, they just don’t see the value in speaking, when the only reason they need English is to have listening and reading comprehension.

One thing: Are you sure they don’t want to speak at all, or do they just not want to speak to you? Do they do group work? Since you have two students, why not just let them talk to each other?

4

I don’t know your students, but I can share a couple generalities that has proven true in most of my classes:

You have to find topics they can relate to before they will have something to say about it. You can’t talk about business with someone who has no business experience. This was really difficult when I was teaching jr/sr high school because kids have such little life experience. Their life experience was limited to tests, homework, basketball and computer games. Few were able to to share outside of those areas. If you can find out what interests your students, then find related material, you might have more luck.

People generally like to talk about themselves. The most effective material I’ve used to generate conversation has been that which gets students to share about themselves. One of the best text books I’ve used for this is Touchstone.

5

[quote=“Tempo Gain”][quote=“TaiwanVisitor12321”]
The other part that burns me up is that I have private students knocking at my door but my schedule is too full to take them right now. I have people that WANT to learn… friendly people… EASY classes… hell, more money even… but I’m stuck with zombies with a bad attitude instead. Unfortunately those people can’t do classes during this horrible class or I’d just cancel it and teach them instead.[/quote]

Given it seems you have some flexibility in your situation, and really are desperate to shake things up, how about some variation of the silent treatment? Make it clear a verbal response of some type is expected, and wait for a response, conspicuously sitting back, sipping tea or something, making an occasional comment about the cost of the class perhaps.[/quote]
that won’t work, they don’t care what is expected, they can wait you out…remember in their regular class, the teacher will sometimes do that, they are fine with that…doing that won’t get a response…these shits are used to responding with silence, han culture my friend!
those type of students drive me up the wall…they are usually in the jr/sr high range…
if they don’t want to talk, then you are wasting your time trying to get them to talk…they know this is a bs class anyways, just come in sit down and sleep with their eyes open…forget yelling at them, the silent treatment, etc…you are just raising your heart beat for a sack of hammers.
a few years back i was blessed with one of these, a grade 8 conversation class at a private junior high, which meant no one was going to save me from this…
after a few classes of trying different things, i just had the same response as you are getting, the stone face.
i just started writing one day, a lengthy story, about 200 words initially. but i left out words, made spelling mistakes, etc…those quiet fucks started peeping up…those students may not like speaking, but when it comes to grammar and vocabulary, they pay attention…long story short…a few more of these stories, less words, more conversation and within a few weeks there was no more writing and i had better participation in the class.
but i still dread getting classes like those.

6

All the latest SLA theories emphasise the importance of input over forced output, so I wouldn’t worry too much about silence in class.

It’s a strange set-up you’re teaching in. Is it a language centre attached to a university or something? My take on this sort of situation is that the customer is king and if they want a lecture, give them a lecture. As long as they understand the words coming out of your mouth they’ll still gain something from each lesson. You can’t teach students who choose not to attend class.

7

It sounds like a GVO class, seriously. I’ve classes which are sometimes the same. Let it be. It is obvious you care about them learning, and as tomthorne mentioned above at least they are listening. If you really do push them, then the chances are good they’ll leave and never come back. What will management say then? I know the situation isn’t ideal, but at the VERY least they are getting exposure to the language in your class.

8
  1. Wear a gas mask.
  2. Block the exit.
  3. Throw in tear gas.
  4. Do not let anyone leave until they tell you one fascinating aspect of their personal life.

Otherwise, just tell them you know they are paying for a class to not talk. Stand in front of the class with a Taipei times and read it out loud for 2 hours. Make an occasional smart ass comment.

Ask, at the end of class, if they want that.

9

I feel for you. I know exactly where your coming from. Be happy that they are at least zombies and not completely out of control and disruptive.

I really don’t know your boss/school situation but I can make a guesstimate based on my experience.

Sadly…

Your not going to win. period.

It’s highly doubtful that your boss will support anything beyond absolutely coddling these punks. They have the advantage and they know it. Most anything you do will be wrong.

Your best bet is to get out of this school/this class or just do the Taiwanese thing.

I have witnessed numerous times how Taiwanese ‘teachers’ handle their classes. It’s all about the face or surface and nothing about substance or learning. The teachers will simply get up and talk. The majority of the students will completely ignore the teacher, play games, sleep, draw, etc… The teachers simply keep on teaching regardless of whether or not anyone is listening. There is ZERO expectation placed on the students. Often in Taiwan, just the act of showing up and being there is considered adequate. When they grow up, many will have jobs where they put in long hours and produce in 14 hours what could have been completed in one hour. This is considered a good employee/student. Welcome to the twilight zone.

They don’t have to speak, they don’t have to learn, and anything you do will likely backfire on you. The good news is that with only a few students left in the class it will be ending soon because it’s not profitable to pay you for such a small class.

This all being said, you can absolutely make progress with these students. Small steps, slowly and surely. Ironically, the less you actually care, the more successful you will be with these kinds of classes. Try your best to have a little less attachment. Open up to the students, tell them stories about your life and challenges you faced. One day, they will surprise you and want to jump right in and tell about their own experiences. They are learning. Listening skills are important and often happen almost unconsciously in the background. Lower your expectations and try to find a way to enjoy spending time with them.

10

[quote=“Puppet”]1) Wear a gas mask.
2) Block the exit.
3) Throw in tear gas.
4) Do not let anyone leave until they tell you one fascinating aspect of their personal life.

Otherwise, just tell them you know they are paying for a class to not talk. Stand in front of the class with a Taipei times and read it out loud for 2 hours. Make an occasional smart ass comment.

Ask, at the end of class, if they want that.[/quote]

I was drinking some water when I read this and almost spat it out laughing.

Anyway, I think everyone is coming at this from completely the wrong perspective. I bet you could actually do drama with these guys. I know you’re thinking that’s crazy, and that the students won’t possibly be able to do that.

This is when you tell them you’re going to do a class production of an adaptation of one of George A. Romero’s films and everyone will have a starring role. It will be set in an English classroom in Taiwan. You will read all the parts of the humans and the students will read the rest. At the end of the lesson, really make a big deal about what a fantastic job they did. In fact, ask the school director if you can put on an end of semester performance because you’re so happy with their efforts.

11

That’s what I generally do. I get no response and don’t have enough material for the class (and my school doesn’t want you bringing in outside material actually, so even copying handouts would have to be done by me at my own expense), so, I tell them every story I possibly can that’s related to something from today’s lesson. They don’t care. Once in a while someone chimes in, but it is really rare.

In any other class, groups, stories… all that works fine. This class is just a black hole.

Losing my students isn’t as bad as it might sound. Class sizes fluctuate a lot, and it’s actually when most of them leave (it’s happened 3-4 times now) that the remaining few talk a little and open up. Later though, the people that have decided I have listening class return and those same talkative people clam up.

I’d really rather just scare off the zombies and work with the few people that are willing to try (if the zombies sat in the back not bothering anyone I wouldn’t mind, but they kill the mood of the entire class), and hope that more good students show up later. If I can get a good group of regulars I think that alone would fix most of the problems with the class.

I could just do the Taiwanese way, as explained above but that’s a complete waste of time in my mind, really disrespectful to me, and I’ll be pissed off every night after this class because it was so mind-numbingly boring. All my other classes are more or less fine. I have quiet people in other classes too of course, but not like this.

Sometimes in other classes people are quiet, and I resort to stories, but generally those classes laugh and have reactions and do SOMETHING to show me they’re alive, even if there’s not a lot of talking going on. That’s not ideal, but I can live with it. This class is just dead the whole time. I can get them to laugh once in a while, but the energy just gets sucked away into the black hole right away, it never lasts.

This class simply doesn’t want to do anything. If I do groups, they will walk out in the middle of class sometimes. I can easily set up a class where I just go through the motions and don’t really interact with them a lot (at least they’re not required to speak directly to me, just do whatever they need to do in the games/activities), but I keep them busy the whole time with something or other. That’s when they don’t come back. I’ve used that at other schools for zombie-ish classes and it was fine.
They only stay if I ramble somewhat incoherently to use up time.

Listening activities would be tough because anything we’re talking about is already in their books, and I’m not encouraged to bring anything else into class. I doubt they’d listen anyway.

There’s another teacher with enthusiastic students, teaching the same exact class, in the same building. He’s been there longer than me, and is pretty popular. Most of my good students (in other classes, not this one) actually left his classes when they decided I explain things better and am more willing to answer questions than that teacher, so while I’m sure he’s a good teacher, I apparently have some good points myself…

But his class is one of the main problems (I have nothing against him, it’s just the situation) because all the good students go to his, and are always in groups and talking and doing activities… I get the people that just feel like that’s too much work and think they can just sit around. I always thought that was the case, but recently several students at the school confirmed that to me. That doesn’t fly with me, because I’ve been wasting my time for months caring about these jerks that actively hate it when I try to help them.

People from the other class occasionally wander into mine to check it out, and you can tell who they are because they actually speak to me, but I think they get burned out when they’re the ONLY people willing to speak, and just the overall environment in the class is so boring that I usually never see them again. Some of them like me and have joined my other classes, but this one class is just poisoned.

The other teacher’s class is known as one where you MUST speak, and it’s a popular class, meaning I don’t see why I can’t have the same reputation for my class. Not everyone likes that, clearly, but the ones that do outnumber the ones that don’t. I’m not very interested in the ones that don’t. I’m not really okay with being given the job of babysitting the rejects from his class that were upset about having to practice English in an English class.

I’m doing plenty of groups and activities tonight, and explaining to them that they’re just wasting their time if they want to go to class with this attitude, so I can expect a low turnout next time I think, but hopefully the bad apples will go rot somewhere else after this.

12

[quote=“Homey”]Your not going to win. period.

It’s highly doubtful that your boss will support anything beyond absolutely coddling these punks. They have the advantage and they know it. Most anything you do will be wrong.

Your best bet is to get out of this school/this class or just do the Taiwanese thing.

I have witnessed numerous times how Taiwanese ‘teachers’ handle their classes. It’s all about the face or surface and nothing about substance or learning. The teachers will simply get up and talk. The majority of the students will completely ignore the teacher, play games, sleep, draw, etc… The teachers simply keep on teaching regardless of whether or not anyone is listening. There is ZERO expectation placed on the students. Often in Taiwan, just the act of showing up and being there is considered adequate. When they grow up, many will have jobs where they put in long hours and produce in 14 hours what could have been completed in one hour. This is considered a good employee/student. Welcome to the twilight zone.

They don’t have to speak, they don’t have to learn, and anything you do will likely backfire on you.[/quote]

I can really relate to everything that you have said. I have two classes of “Basic Level” engineering students at a university. The classes are large and, as far as I can see, they have never been given a communicative language test in their lives - it’s all been grammar, vocab and comprehension. Needless to say, that after learning English since junior high, and in some cases elementary school, most of them can’t utter a sentence in English. Sad, isn’t it. When they actually need to communicate with me, most of them speak Chinese.

Of course, most of the normal communicative activities that you do with “normal classes” have failed. They just couldn’t do them. They could do choral repetiton though, and a lot of class time is still taken up with getting them to repeat after me. Then I put them in pairs to practice what they have just been repeating. They think they are learning to speak.

Because there are so many of them (60 in each class) I decided that instead of assessing them by actually speaking to them, I would ask them to record a video of them using the language of the textbook and giving me a copy. This has not worked. Most of them read a dialogue from the book and record it. (I should mention that this has not been the case with my Intermediate Level classes - I have had some great monologues of people talking to the camera and telling about their peeves, their hopes and dreams, movie reviews, etc.)
So I have decided that I have no choice but to interview these punks one-to-one. It’s going to take 3 or 4 periods but I see no other way. They do appear to want to pass, but they don’t want to speak. They are very concerned about being marked absent (which is what I do to any student who dares to but his head down on the desk in class.) I know other teachers give points towards their final grade for simply turning up, and they are under the impression that I will do the same. No way.
Teaching and assessing listening skills is impossible. I can’t even get them to listen to the CD that comes with the Student’s Book. I devise listening tests that are very similar to the listening activities in the textbook, but most of them fail because they don’t have the textbook (they don’t want to spend $255) or, if they do have the book, because they never listen to the CD. I even post transcripts of the dialogues on Blackboard, but they never bother to read them. If they did, they would pass the listening tests easily.
These are the real hard-core no-hopers who have given up on English completely. Yet somehow their previous teachers have found a way to pass them.

My last hope is that my new policy of one-to-one interviews will actually encourage those who do want to pass to show me that they can use the language in the book. I don’t care about grammar, as long as they communicate. I’m sick of this idea that speaking means memorising a dialogue, or worse, simply reading it aloud. But if I have to fail most of the class, so be it.

13

This is one of those threads where I can both feel the pain of other posters and find great amusement in the whole thing. There are times in this country when I really wonder how many people ever learnt to speak their first language, how they ever made any friends, and how people ever met their mates and ended up having kids because people seem so incredibly socially inept. Then there are times when Taiwanese people are so ridiculously raucous and everyone is talking at a million miles an hour over the top of each other that I can barely hear myself think. There are so many contradictions here and when I’m not in the midst of this insanity myself, it’s quite hilarious to see how other foreigners react to it.

14

If they walk out, lock the door behind them. That way they can’t get back in, and all the other students go OMG.

Otherwise… I’m not sure. Peer pressure? Maybe use a balloon or a beach ball, and throw it at random. Whoever it lands on has to answer the question. A geography teacher used to use this in Japan.

But yeah, the going to sleep for two hours thing is completely true. I have a chemistry class which could be fairly interesting, but 90% of the class is either asleep or doing homework so the teacher is flicking through the slides and talking a little bit too much and not quite clear enough for it to be engaging. For two hours. I wonder how he does it.

15

Of course you shouldn’t ever strike a student, but I wonder what others think about making them lose face. I had a case recently where one of my engineer punks would immediatly switch-off and start talking whenever I played the audio. (I insist on their undivided attention while I’m speaking, and I expect the same when I play an audio track.) So I stopped the CD, singled him out, and demanded that he stop talking and listen. Then I noticed that he didn’t have his book open at the right page, not even the right unit, and when I pointed that out in front of everyone, I think he must have been embarrassed, because for the rest of the lesson he sat there in a silent sulk with his book closed (at least he wasn’t disturbing the class by talking, so I didn’t care.) When I related the incident to someone else later, I was told that I shouldn’t have made him lose face in front of his classmates. Did I do the wrong thing?

16

Walking out in the middle of a teacher’s class is completely disrespectful. So is sleeping. I really don’t know how these things pass in classrooms here. It’s weird in that in some ways, there’s a much higher level of respect for teachers than in the West, but in some ways, there’s absolutely atrocious behaviour sometimes.

17

Don’t rock the boat. It’s not worth it.

18

I’m of two minds about it. The first is, as cretzor said, not to rock the boat. The second, which I usually subscribe to, is screw these clowns. I have students who pull this kind of shit on me on occasion, and I really make them lose face in a big way. I don’t pick on students who are slow or make mistakes or anyone else who is being sincere, but people who are being blatantly disrespectful, fuck 'em. If they don’t want to lose face, there’s a very simple solution: don’t be disrespectful to the teacher or anyone else in class for that matter. So no, I don’t think you did the wrong thing. Sometimes ya gotta learn 'em, as they say.

19

If a kid is feeling ill, and he lies on his arms and falls asleep in your class would you leave him alone?
Now, answer honestly. Would you leave them alone if A) It was a good student you liked and B) It was a bad student you didn’t like?
If you have two different answers, why?
How is a good student feeling ill any different than a bad one.
I think sometimes we take ourselves way too seriously.

20

heimuoshu: If a kid were feeling ill in my class, I’d send him or her to the school nurse with a classmate, and have done so on many occasions. I wouldn’t expect a kid to sit through my class and be annoyed at the kid. I understand the Chinese for when a kid is feeling sick, so other kids can tell me if the sick kid can’t tell me himself or herself. Additionally, on the wall of my classroom are some large pieces of poster paper with English and Chinese for a whole lot of such situations, so the kids can show me if there’s an issue that needs to be dealt with. If the school nurse later sends the kid back to my class, then obviously, I don’t expect the kid to be all perky and engaged most of the time. Indeed, this happened on Monday and I let the girl just rest quietly with her head on the table.