STARTBODY

Teach English in Cuizhao Zhen - Qingdao Shi

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Cuizhao Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Qingdao Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.

Teaching can be a demanding profession. There are times when students can seem uninterested in learning and disruptive to the classroom environment. There are plenty of studies and educational strategies for improving student behavior. But personal experience may be the best way to show how to turn a difficult student into a dedicated pupil. I had such and experience one where I was able to help change a student. Vishal was enrolled in my class for a semester, followed the second semester . He had impulse control and anger management issues. He had been suspended many times in previous years. When he entered my class in his senior year, I assumed the worst. Vishal sat in the back row. I had never used a seating chart with students on the first day when I was just getting to know them. Every time I talked at the front of the class, I would ask questions of students, calling them by name. This helped me to get to know the students. Unfortunately, every time I called on vishal, he would respond with a glib answer. If he got an answer wrong, he would become angry. About a month into the year, I was still trying to connect with vishal. I can usually get students involved in class discussions or at the least motivate them to sit quietly and attentively. By contrast, vishal was just loud and obnoxious. Vishal had been in so much trouble through the years that it had become worst. He expected his teachers to know about his referrals, where he was sent to the office, and suspensions, where he was given mandatory days to stay out of school. He would push every teacher to see what it would take to get a referral. I tried to outlast him. I had rarely found referrals to be effective because students would return from the office behaving worse than before. One day, vishal was talking while I was teaching. In the middle of the lesson, I said in the same tone of voice, "vishal why don't you join our discussion instead of having one of your own." With that, he got up from his chair, pushed it over, and yelled something I can't remember other than the inclusion of several profanity words. I sent vishal to the office with a discipline referral, and he received a week's out-of-school suspension. To this point, this was one of my worst teaching experiences. I dreaded that class every day. Vishal's anger was almost too much for me. The week vishal was out of school was a wonderful , and we got a lot accomplished as a class. However, the suspension week would soon come to an end, and I dreaded his return. On the day of vishals return, I stood at the door waiting for him. As soon as I saw him, I asked vishal to talk to me for a moment. He seemed unhappy to do it but agreed. I told him that I wanted to start over with him. I also told him that if he felt like he was going to lose control in class, he had my permission to step outside the door for a moment to collect himself. From that point on, Vishal was a changed student. He listened, he participated. He was a smart student, something I could finally witness in him. He even stopped a fight between two other students one day. He never abused his breaktime privilege. Giving Vishal the power to leave the classroom showed him that he had the ability to choose how he would behave. At the end of the year, vishal wrote me a thank you note about how good the year had been for him. I still have that note today and find it touching to reread when I get stressed about teaching. This experience changed me as a teacher. I came to understand that students are people who have feelings and who don't want to feel cornered. They want to learn but they also want to feel as if they have some control over themselves. I never made assumptions again about students before they came into my class. Every student is different; no two students react in the same way. It is our task as teachers to find not only what motivates each student to learn but also what motivates them to misbehave. If we can meet them at that point and take away that motivation, we can go a long way toward achieving more effective classroom management and a better learning environment.


ENDBODY