Summer School has been better this year. Teaching on a higher floor makes a whole lot of difference - this is Thailand in April after all - and the class sizes are smaller. Smaller classes are easier to teach as the teacher can dedicate more time for each student. However, it's a sign that business is not going so well. I often say that class sizes are a teacher's paradox; bigger classes mean your job is secure, smaller classes means you can do your job much better.
Summer School students tend be a mix of old, new and vaguely familiar faces. This year there are plenty of very familiar faces who will be going into grade eleven next year. The poor blighters have studied with me for nearly three years. I've tried to be sympathetic to the students (how would you feel if your parents sent you to school during the holidays?) and I've employed the KISS principle. I've been arming the students with remarkably basic classroom language ("Excuse me, how do you spell this in English?") that newer students may not be familiar with. It's screamingly easy and it's been successful and well received. One class has presented a real challenge though.............
Class 10 C caught me by surprise. Twenty five new faces looked up at me as I walked in. At least, they should have looked up, but half of them were talking to each other, talking on the phone or running around the room. When students are doing this with a brand new teacher, it's always a sure sign of a "challenging" class. Still, I figured it was best to keep things light. I went into a comedy routine that caught their attention and then began a basic activity (students had to design their own "passport") that distracted them enough for me to suss them out a little more.
It was painful though. At least four students - including twin brothers - could not speak a word of English, and I mean not one word. At their age, it was going to be extremely hard to catch up, and they showed no interest in even trying. Soon they would be learning about world religions, and today they didn't even want to learn "How are you today?".
Two other students presented an even greater challenge. One dressed in a pink shirt depicting Hitler in sunglasses presented himself as Simon. Simon spent his time chasing a girl around the classroom. Both showed no interest whatsoever in the class and over the next two weeks turned up late every time, usually just as I had got the class settled. Eventually they stopped coming altogether.
It seemed my problem had been solved, but then two more students stepped up to the plate: Fern and Joy. Joy took a liking to Fern in week 2 and decided to move next to her. I wouldn't have minded except the conversations distracted them from working. Every time I warned them with a smile, Joy would promise to listen. She'd then wait for me to return to the whiteboard and begin her conversation again.
Today Joy really pushed her luck. First by moving around the room three times, then trying the: "we both need to go to toilet right now" trick that usually is lost before sixth grade, followed by the equally pathetic: "we both need to go and drink water right now" gag. Fern helpfully tells me "my friend need to drink water" seven times over in case I couldn't understand English.
When this fails, Joy starts purposely trying to get herself thrown out of class by drumming on her table, shouting across the room in Thai and generally being obnoxious and disruptive. And in case I hadn't made myself clear, it is disruptiveness that is the problem. If a student wants to be ignorant, that's his or her choice and I will respect it. But when a student arrives late and starts telling her friends why, or starts shouting in Thai across the room or talking so loud his friends hear him rather than the teacher, it's just not on and any decent teacher has to resolve the issue in some way.
Such behaviour presents a challenge because the teacher has to strike a balance between taking action to deal with the problem, yet not doing so in a way that does not cause the teacher's action to distract from the lesson itself.
So when Joy is purposely drumming away on her desk, trying to be disruptive so she can be thrown out, with twenty or so teenage students awaiting your reaction, what do you do? In my early days I would probably have become very nervous and lost my way in the lesson or overreacted by yelling at Joy. But now I have a little experience under my belt. I've had this stunt done to me a whole bunch of times before, and in much smarter style, too. I simply continued on with the class until a stage where the students needed to copy what I wrote on the board.
Had Joy still been going then, I would have quietly taken her outside - discipline should be done out of sight of a student's friends for a variety of reasons - and either spoken to her myself or - as I do with students who cannot speak English - taken her to the year head. As it happened, I didn't need to, I had managed to pull the students through to a part of the lesson they found interesting. With their attention caught, Joy had given up on getting the attention for herself, and decided to copy the work.
As the clock ticked down Joy finished her work and began to ask me a slew of questions about myself - my age, my home town, my family and so on. This is not that strange; students who play up are sometimes - but not always - just expressing a need for attention. It's unusual for this age group (15-18) to behave like this though; but this whole class seems very immature. Perhaps it's because most of them come from a government school, perhaps it's because their English is so weak, perhaps it all ties into one. I don't know.
I score another minor victory with one of the twin brothers, too. Today I actually managed to get him to speak a few words of English. When he does so, I shock him by smiling and praising him. My gamble is rewarded as he turns to his brother with a triumphant grin. He's given himself a sense of achievment, and his brother looks annoyed enough by this to try and copy him next class. Everyone's a winner.
In any case, I must confess I am relieved that most of them will not be learning with me next semester. Whilst it would be a challenge, it might just be one challenge too many right now.
Showing posts with label teacher's diary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teacher's diary. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Teacher's Diary: back to basics
If my previous month's teaching was like playing football, then I would have been a scrappy, unskilled third division player suffering from fatigue.
In my defence, that slump has been due to yours truly working seven days a week. That's a lame defence though, since I do so voluntarily.
The month was already going badly enough, with me trying to engage students about different forms of tax and taxation in a foreign language, but it was compounded by 'head office'.
Last semester, 'head office' rejected an exam I wrote because: "the questions weren't from the book". I explained to my boss that I designed the exam that way to test students' understanding of the concepts I taught, rather than just have them reciting from the book. My boss understood, but like the rest of us, she cannot argue with 'head office'. Teachers are forbidden to contact our counterparts at HO, who get to judge their own exam against ours and 'decide' which is better.
So anyway, this semester I did as bid and used questions based on the course book. A prize to the first person who can guess the reason given by 'head office' for throwing out all of my work once again and using the HO teacher's exam, full of waffle about Justine Timberlake and complete with smiley faces. He claims he was a lawyer, you see, and by ranting on about an American pop singer well past his popularity peak with teenagers, he's connecting with the students.
I could feel the burnout coming on and I decided to take action. I sat down and looked at what had gone missing from my lessons. I decided to restore an exercise I call the 'two minute chat'. The two minute chat is where I set a class some questions loosely based on the topic we have studied, each student chooses a partner and for two minutes they speak only in English about the topic. Before we start, I always give a pep talk about how important it is not to use a single word of any language except English for those two minutes.
Indeed, two minutes is a short time, but not when speaking a foreign language, especially for weaker students. My philosophy behind this activity is that it gets a 'foot in the door'. By encouraging and showing students that, yes, they really can speak only English in a conversation, that achievemet becomes a stepping stone. Next month we can talk for four minutes, then eight, and so on. The activity also uses meta-cognition. By reflecting and verbally using the things they (hopefully) learned, students are far more likely to retain the information rather than just mentally sweeping it away when the bell rings.
But it was no use getting the students on form if I was still off. I took a conscious decision to be more laid back in class this month. In my opinion, classroom discipline is all about balance. Balance between being likable and being in control, between fairness and firmness and about realising when a student really is out of line and when a teacher is just getting frustrated. In other words, if my class is going well and a student is intentionally disrupting it, I'll come down damn hard. But when I myself am not doing a great job, I can't raise my voice to a student who is doing the same.
Now I don't know if one or both of my changes had an effect or if I just got lucky, but this week was close to spectacular. Not one, not two, but three classes produced the best spoken reports they have ever done for me in two years.
Students lined up to tell me about their own 'home made' super hero story (grade eight) , the different types o f taxes and how they work (grade nine) , and the difference between starvation and malnutrition (grade ten).
It might not see like much for a private school student to speak in English for a few minutes, but believe me, it's a moral victory.
My opening question in speaking tests is "what did you learn in this unit?". It's designed to get the student to talk about ideas, rather than just recite vocabulary. Stronger students will always give me some ideas but I take equal pleasure in weaker students giving me any ideas at all. This week, a student whose name I couldn't even recall told me "Now I know about the different parts of food and how they work in the body".
He seemed bemused by the effect he had on me. AS a student, he couldn't understand how those few words bought such a smile to my face and help me to keep going
In my defence, that slump has been due to yours truly working seven days a week. That's a lame defence though, since I do so voluntarily.
The month was already going badly enough, with me trying to engage students about different forms of tax and taxation in a foreign language, but it was compounded by 'head office'.
Last semester, 'head office' rejected an exam I wrote because: "the questions weren't from the book". I explained to my boss that I designed the exam that way to test students' understanding of the concepts I taught, rather than just have them reciting from the book. My boss understood, but like the rest of us, she cannot argue with 'head office'. Teachers are forbidden to contact our counterparts at HO, who get to judge their own exam against ours and 'decide' which is better.
So anyway, this semester I did as bid and used questions based on the course book. A prize to the first person who can guess the reason given by 'head office' for throwing out all of my work once again and using the HO teacher's exam, full of waffle about Justine Timberlake and complete with smiley faces. He claims he was a lawyer, you see, and by ranting on about an American pop singer well past his popularity peak with teenagers, he's connecting with the students.
I could feel the burnout coming on and I decided to take action. I sat down and looked at what had gone missing from my lessons. I decided to restore an exercise I call the 'two minute chat'. The two minute chat is where I set a class some questions loosely based on the topic we have studied, each student chooses a partner and for two minutes they speak only in English about the topic. Before we start, I always give a pep talk about how important it is not to use a single word of any language except English for those two minutes.
Indeed, two minutes is a short time, but not when speaking a foreign language, especially for weaker students. My philosophy behind this activity is that it gets a 'foot in the door'. By encouraging and showing students that, yes, they really can speak only English in a conversation, that achievemet becomes a stepping stone. Next month we can talk for four minutes, then eight, and so on. The activity also uses meta-cognition. By reflecting and verbally using the things they (hopefully) learned, students are far more likely to retain the information rather than just mentally sweeping it away when the bell rings.
But it was no use getting the students on form if I was still off. I took a conscious decision to be more laid back in class this month. In my opinion, classroom discipline is all about balance. Balance between being likable and being in control, between fairness and firmness and about realising when a student really is out of line and when a teacher is just getting frustrated. In other words, if my class is going well and a student is intentionally disrupting it, I'll come down damn hard. But when I myself am not doing a great job, I can't raise my voice to a student who is doing the same.
Now I don't know if one or both of my changes had an effect or if I just got lucky, but this week was close to spectacular. Not one, not two, but three classes produced the best spoken reports they have ever done for me in two years.
Students lined up to tell me about their own 'home made' super hero story (grade eight) , the different types o f taxes and how they work (grade nine) , and the difference between starvation and malnutrition (grade ten).
It might not see like much for a private school student to speak in English for a few minutes, but believe me, it's a moral victory.
My opening question in speaking tests is "what did you learn in this unit?". It's designed to get the student to talk about ideas, rather than just recite vocabulary. Stronger students will always give me some ideas but I take equal pleasure in weaker students giving me any ideas at all. This week, a student whose name I couldn't even recall told me "Now I know about the different parts of food and how they work in the body".
He seemed bemused by the effect he had on me. AS a student, he couldn't understand how those few words bought such a smile to my face and help me to keep going
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Teacher's Diary: final day
The "big" news that hits me as I turn up for breakfast (yes they provide breakfast! not a bad place, this!) is that last night there was an accident right outside school. A power cable had been knocked out by a swaying tree and had been ripped right out. It fell down through the hammock - luckily nobody was in it at the time - and the resulting power surge blew various pieces of equipment in the serviced apartments. The apartments in question have a very high teacher occupancy rate. It turns out the swaying tree had been an obvious threat but the local authorities had only cut it down yesterday after the accident, and apparently there is no buildings insurance to speak of. It remains to be seen what will happen in way of recompense.
Today is a 'marking day', with no classes for me. I get my marking done fairly quickly and once the peer checking is completed, I announce scores to the students. On the whole, I'm delighted. Scores were far higher than I expected for many students. Either they, or I, or all of us have exceeded ourselves. It gives me a boost for the rest of the day.
The school is eerily quiet though, as only the upper grades are here. Now I have nothing to do, I take some time watching other teachers finish their work. With no classes to attend, the teachers become more talkative and the room echoes with three distinct languages.
There are three "groups" of teachers in our establishment: Thais, Filipinos and westerners. It would be nice and idealistic to think of it as a multicultural working wonderland, with everybody happily mucking in together but this is not how life works, at least not in any country I've been to. Each staff room can be almost literally zoned off by the three groupings, despite the fact most teachers can sit where they wish. Naturally perhaps, each group tends to stick together and have the occasional whine or spat with the other groups. That's not to say it isn't harmonious mind you, on the contrary, Englishman especially are often happiest when they are complaining. We sit and moan about the noise from the Thai staff, who sit and moan about the laziness of the westerners, who moan about the cliques of the Filipinos, who sit and moan about the arrogance of the westerners and the bossiness of the Thais.
For the most part, it's pretty harmless and I can honestly say that nearly every teacher will put petty differences aside when it comes to doing anything to help the students. On occasions such as Christmas, everybody works and has fun together. What's more, there are plenty of relationships that cross the imaginary divide.
Working in Thailand is rarely boring (though today comes close due to lack of work) and often rewarding. Some teachers become so bogged down in day to day grumbles and gripes - just as we all do - that they forget the bigger picture. We are the guests, and we can be grateful or get lost.
And that's all for the teacher's diary, bar the occasional 'one off' perhaps. Thanks for reading!
Today is a 'marking day', with no classes for me. I get my marking done fairly quickly and once the peer checking is completed, I announce scores to the students. On the whole, I'm delighted. Scores were far higher than I expected for many students. Either they, or I, or all of us have exceeded ourselves. It gives me a boost for the rest of the day.
The school is eerily quiet though, as only the upper grades are here. Now I have nothing to do, I take some time watching other teachers finish their work. With no classes to attend, the teachers become more talkative and the room echoes with three distinct languages.
There are three "groups" of teachers in our establishment: Thais, Filipinos and westerners. It would be nice and idealistic to think of it as a multicultural working wonderland, with everybody happily mucking in together but this is not how life works, at least not in any country I've been to. Each staff room can be almost literally zoned off by the three groupings, despite the fact most teachers can sit where they wish. Naturally perhaps, each group tends to stick together and have the occasional whine or spat with the other groups. That's not to say it isn't harmonious mind you, on the contrary, Englishman especially are often happiest when they are complaining. We sit and moan about the noise from the Thai staff, who sit and moan about the laziness of the westerners, who moan about the cliques of the Filipinos, who sit and moan about the arrogance of the westerners and the bossiness of the Thais.
For the most part, it's pretty harmless and I can honestly say that nearly every teacher will put petty differences aside when it comes to doing anything to help the students. On occasions such as Christmas, everybody works and has fun together. What's more, there are plenty of relationships that cross the imaginary divide.
Working in Thailand is rarely boring (though today comes close due to lack of work) and often rewarding. Some teachers become so bogged down in day to day grumbles and gripes - just as we all do - that they forget the bigger picture. We are the guests, and we can be grateful or get lost.
And that's all for the teacher's diary, bar the occasional 'one off' perhaps. Thanks for reading!
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Teacher's Diary: day five
It's Saturday, and Saturday means two things: one, my favourite team will slide further down the Coca Cola Championship and two, it's private school day.
Yes, on Saturdays I work at a private language school. The most expensive one on the "shopping mall" market in fact. I was offered the post of Head Teacher at this school about eight months ago. I accepted the job and then changed my mind, causing problems for some staff there that I liked and admired very much. Since then, I've done my best to do whatever I can to help without complaint. Whatever they ask me to do (on Saturdays), I do. I don't mind, I'd just be out spending money otherwise and extra cash is always welcome.
My first class is hardly a break from the strains of teaching teenagers: it's a small group of eight and seven year olds. The usual pattern for this class is that in period one, the students will arrive throughout the fifty minute class and we will do some speaking. In period two, we will do some activities from the workbook to keep them calm and in the final period, we will play some games.
One girl turns up late and in tears. It transpires another boy ran up behind her and pulled her skirt. She spends the rest of the class interrogating the boys in the room who all profess innocence and I believe them. As I try to resolve this, another girl decides that today, the fun should start early and decides to beginning hitting me with her metal pencil case. This is regular occurrence from this student and she certainly enjoys inflicting damage, I sometimes wonder if she has been paid off by an ex-girlfriend or something. After I have persuaded her to disarm, we return to the topic. Today I'm teaching the kids about disabilities.
"So students, if I cannot see, I am blind, If I cannot hear, I am deaf. But if I cannot walk, what am I....?" is my question.
One student jumps up out of his seat and is bursting with pride as he belts out his answer...."A FISH!" he yells at the top of his voice.
We continue on. The first two periods go well and the third is typically rowdy. At this age, children have natural concentration spans and the lessons go beyond that time. The trick is to save something fun for the final period and find a way to reward them for speaking English during that time.
The afternoon class is very similar. A group of ten children. The only difference is that this class has a hyper confident girl named JJ. JJ is an only child who has been taught English since she was born. She can speak English better than any of her friends and she knows it, and frequently remind her friends of it. JJ will often talk over me in class and demand that I do certain things at certain times.
The best response I have found is to give her extra responsibility. I periodically remind JJ in private that she is my "super student" and that if she speaks English, the other children will copy her and she can help me so much by setting a good example to the others. This ploy typically works well for some time before it wears off towards the end of a class. Today, I call JJ over for our regular chat:
"JJ Are you going to be a good girl today?"
"Teacher I want play Bingo!"
"Later JJ, but are you going to be good today?"
"I love mum and dad a lot but I love teacher little bit" (I guess this is her way of telling me mum and dad have already warned her today, but they aren't here to warn her now! This kid is smart!)
"OK but if you are good today and help the teacher, we can play bingo in period three, OK?"
"OK But I can I do one thing now?"
"OK JJ, what is it?"
"Give me a chewing gum"
She saw the pack of gum in my shirt pocket!
The class survives without any casualties and I'm done for the day except my final, adult class.
My adult class are brilliant. If you could design your own class, you wouldn't go very different from what I have here: two university students and two working adults. All excellent at English, all with great attitudes and all seem to trust me, which makes it easier when introducing new ideas or tasks.
I have to consciously stop myself from teaching too much grammar: it's good for me because after a day of crowd control, I want to get into something semi-academic, but it's not what the students want from me, they want to study pronunciation and vocabulary. Today's class includes the classic "balloon debate", the scenario is several characters are on board an overloaded hot air balloon, the students must debate who is to be thrown out. They vote for the politician (naturally) and the priest.
And so my day is done. Working a six day week is a little tiring but I'm so lucky to do a job that I nearly always enjoy and is not physically demanding. I ave my areas for improve marked down: these days, I should perhaps spend less time working and more time preparing lessons and thinking up new concepts and ideas. Apart from that, things are going well. I'm looking forward to my holidays though.
Yes, on Saturdays I work at a private language school. The most expensive one on the "shopping mall" market in fact. I was offered the post of Head Teacher at this school about eight months ago. I accepted the job and then changed my mind, causing problems for some staff there that I liked and admired very much. Since then, I've done my best to do whatever I can to help without complaint. Whatever they ask me to do (on Saturdays), I do. I don't mind, I'd just be out spending money otherwise and extra cash is always welcome.
My first class is hardly a break from the strains of teaching teenagers: it's a small group of eight and seven year olds. The usual pattern for this class is that in period one, the students will arrive throughout the fifty minute class and we will do some speaking. In period two, we will do some activities from the workbook to keep them calm and in the final period, we will play some games.
One girl turns up late and in tears. It transpires another boy ran up behind her and pulled her skirt. She spends the rest of the class interrogating the boys in the room who all profess innocence and I believe them. As I try to resolve this, another girl decides that today, the fun should start early and decides to beginning hitting me with her metal pencil case. This is regular occurrence from this student and she certainly enjoys inflicting damage, I sometimes wonder if she has been paid off by an ex-girlfriend or something. After I have persuaded her to disarm, we return to the topic. Today I'm teaching the kids about disabilities.
"So students, if I cannot see, I am blind, If I cannot hear, I am deaf. But if I cannot walk, what am I....?" is my question.
One student jumps up out of his seat and is bursting with pride as he belts out his answer...."A FISH!" he yells at the top of his voice.
We continue on. The first two periods go well and the third is typically rowdy. At this age, children have natural concentration spans and the lessons go beyond that time. The trick is to save something fun for the final period and find a way to reward them for speaking English during that time.
The afternoon class is very similar. A group of ten children. The only difference is that this class has a hyper confident girl named JJ. JJ is an only child who has been taught English since she was born. She can speak English better than any of her friends and she knows it, and frequently remind her friends of it. JJ will often talk over me in class and demand that I do certain things at certain times.
The best response I have found is to give her extra responsibility. I periodically remind JJ in private that she is my "super student" and that if she speaks English, the other children will copy her and she can help me so much by setting a good example to the others. This ploy typically works well for some time before it wears off towards the end of a class. Today, I call JJ over for our regular chat:
"JJ Are you going to be a good girl today?"
"Teacher I want play Bingo!"
"Later JJ, but are you going to be good today?"
"I love mum and dad a lot but I love teacher little bit" (I guess this is her way of telling me mum and dad have already warned her today, but they aren't here to warn her now! This kid is smart!)
"OK but if you are good today and help the teacher, we can play bingo in period three, OK?"
"OK But I can I do one thing now?"
"OK JJ, what is it?"
"Give me a chewing gum"
She saw the pack of gum in my shirt pocket!
The class survives without any casualties and I'm done for the day except my final, adult class.
My adult class are brilliant. If you could design your own class, you wouldn't go very different from what I have here: two university students and two working adults. All excellent at English, all with great attitudes and all seem to trust me, which makes it easier when introducing new ideas or tasks.
I have to consciously stop myself from teaching too much grammar: it's good for me because after a day of crowd control, I want to get into something semi-academic, but it's not what the students want from me, they want to study pronunciation and vocabulary. Today's class includes the classic "balloon debate", the scenario is several characters are on board an overloaded hot air balloon, the students must debate who is to be thrown out. They vote for the politician (naturally) and the priest.
And so my day is done. Working a six day week is a little tiring but I'm so lucky to do a job that I nearly always enjoy and is not physically demanding. I ave my areas for improve marked down: these days, I should perhaps spend less time working and more time preparing lessons and thinking up new concepts and ideas. Apart from that, things are going well. I'm looking forward to my holidays though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
