ambtraveler

Today, I had my most trying teaching day yet. I only had two classes, back to back, since my junior interest class had not yet been decided. I was looking forward to the classes because last week they had been very good. I realized I should never get my hopes up. Both classes were dreadful. 

The first class I had a student tell me to “speak in chinese, speak in chinese” meaning to teach in Chinese, which I replied this is English class, I will only speak English. He then proceded to talk in Chinese while I was trying to teach American greetings like hello and goodbye. Then he told me goodbye and pointed for me to leave the classroom through the door. That was it. I yelled for the whole class to be quiet and proceeded to say if you refuse to speak English in my class than I will send you outside, no chinese. I told them I would tell them to leave the classroom if that kind of behavior persisted. The little boy than sat sullenly at his desk the rest of the class. Another student of this class sits by the lights and fan controls in the room and continuously was turning them off and on. Had to stop class again to yell and him and tell him to stop. This class also got scolded for doing other homework during my class time. It was rough.

The next class was a bit better, but not much. I had to basicly threaten to write a bad grade in their class journal, the book their head teacher reads, in order for them to remain somewhat behaved. I had to confiscate roles of tape two boys were throwing back and forth. Then I had a student say he didn’t understand English, in English. I felt bad for the good students and the ones who like to speak English, because their classmates were ruining it for everyone else. 

I may have to think of another way to keep the students on task. They understand my grading system and moan and complain when they get a bad grade and explain why they got it, like being noisy. However, it still doesn’t seem to be enough. I know the head teachers yelled at them because the two boys from the first class, found me and apologized after class, which was nice, but I don’t want to rely on the head teachers for all discipline issues. I just got to take the good and the bad as they come to me. Just another day in 中国。