Why I Quit the BTS Job

I think the title says it all. Yesterday, I didn't go back to the difficult job that I've been complaining about for two weeks. I stewed over it all week and all weekend and finally made my decision late Sunday night. I sent out my email on Monday morning announcing my resignation.

Yesterday when the time came around for me to be "in class" (if we can even call it that), I didn't even feel a hint of regret. There would have only been two reasons to continue: 1) Really, really hard up for cash, or 2) Desperate to work on classroom management.

I will admit that I have reached a level in my life where I can "pick & choose" the kind of people that I want to work with, but also the kinds of jobs where I can teach in my way. This job was neither one or the other, which is why my resignation included two key points:

1) I firmly believe in pedagogy -- giving students texts and asking them to memorize vocabulary is not, in any way, shape, or form, a good exercise in pedagogy for language learning. They can read texts at home until they are blue in the face. They shouldn't use class time for reading, translating, and memorization without context or student-perceived of value (finding their own meaning, understanding and importance for what is being instructed). If I can't teach them in my way, in a way that encourages them experiment and assimilate the language, then all (in my opinion), is lost. We are both wasting our time.

2) I am not a babysitter, nor am I the police. Oh good god, I am so far from my babysitting and policing years that it is not even funny. I now enjoy the luxury of teaching real adults -- people who have personal motivation and investment in what I am teaching. People who respect my work. People who listen. People who try. I do not need to go back to the teenager who hates me just because he hates English. To all of that, I say a big, resounding "bye bye"!

Onward and upward.

So what will I do instead? You know I get bored easily -- I've already got other projects.
I will work with some new adult clients AND I will go back to real university. I will teach students who have received a B1 on their BULATS exam and as a reward are put in a "fun class". That's even what the administration has been calling it. When meeting the head of the languages department, he asked me if I thought I would be able to produce a TV show with them and I replied fervently that nothing would make me happier. I'm full of ideas, of creativity, of energy... it should be a positive experience unlike the soul-sucking 3 hours of class I subjected myself to.

I feel bad for the students who wanted to be there and wanted to work, but at the same time those are the kinds of learners who will go out and do the work on their own. Having me there shouting at their classmates won't help them at all.

I'm looking forward to talking about my creative endeavors with my new students and my new professionals at the beginning of January. Here's to hoping 2013 will be another positive year of teaching.

Adults and Second Conditional

Getting back into the swing of my normal life after my stressful Monday afternoons is always nice. This morning I had a group of my professional students that started out as "true beginners" who are now well on their way to being pre-intermediate learners. Because we had already talked about the simple past, the future, and modal verbs for giving advice/making suggestions, I thought it would be a good idea to head into the conditionals. We talked about the first conditional a few weeks ago and last week we started the second conditional by having the students ask each other what they would do in a variety of student-generated ridiculous situations.

To bring it back around to professional themes today, I created an exercise where they would have to use both first and second conditional structures for giving each other advice (and refusing advice) to deal with troublesome office situations.

Here are the scenarios I put together this morning. We only made it through discussing three of them before time was already up! They gave each other good advice and did a good job using the first conditional to reply with a "yes but if I do that, then...will happen" reply.

Without further ado, a professionals-oriented mash-up of 1st and 2nd conditional tenses for ESL learners in the Western world:

1)     My boss is blackmailing my colleague.  What would you do?
(But if I do that, then he will … )

      2)  I’m working with a client who is completely racist. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

3) My client said he preferred to work with me “under the table”. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

 4) Two co-workers are having an affair. His wife is a friend of mine. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

 5) I suspect my deskmate is an alcoholic. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

6)   I discovered bad business practices at my company. I should have a promotion next month. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then will …)

7) I haven’t had a raise (an increase in my salary) in three years but I have a lot of new responsibilities. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then…)

 8) My colleague is late to work every morning. He should have a promotion next month. Maybe if I tell my boss, I will have the promotion instead. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then …)

 9)  My manager and I don’t get along. I love my job and my team but it is very difficult to work with him. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then …)

 10) I think my colleague is secretly working for the competition. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then…) 

The Difficult Class: My (failed) Plan, la suite

I made it through nearly six slides of the presentation I prepared. It started off well until I got to the group speaking bits. They would turn and talk to each other, but when it came time to share what was said, no such luck and for a variety of different reasons.

1) "No".

Why? I asked. Why wouldn't you want to answer an easy question where the answers are written on the board just behind me? A number of replies: This is stupid and it's too easy (so then why aren't you doing it?) I don't feel like it. Yeah, I know how to conjugate that verb, but I can't think of anything. (please remember that the verb in question was "to be" and they had a minute to think about it before I started calling on people).

2) "I hate English". Well that's not an answer to my question either. Why? "Because I don't understand".

The students had decided before they had ever even seen my presentation that it was too difficult just because it was in English. My point was that even if everything was only in English, they could still understand because after studying English since 6th grade, they should all have a pretty good understanding of the present simple. They do, they are just painfully argumentative and uninterested in listening to me. Sigh.

3) "You insult me and I don't like you". Well tough shit, Girl-Who-Has-Never-Been-On-Time. I am the teacher. An answer to the question "why don't you have an example?" after having been given the time to come up with one is not as seen above. Don't blame me for your lack of will to participate.

After sending out my third offender, I myself decided it was time to leave. I found the director, told him I was through, and that was that. Done.
We had a "heart-to-heart" with the class where everybody aired their grievances.
A number of students (not the trouble-makers, of course) came to apologize to me.
Others came to make their point. "We want this". And I said, "Yes, but if you don't give me XYZ, how can you expect me to think you are capable of doing ABC?" to which they replied, "Okay so we have some soul-searching to do." To which I replied, "Yes, you do. I can't do this alone."

It's true. The teacher plays a role and the student plays a role. If one person in the equation decides to stop playing their role, then the lesson won't work. A teacher cannot do a student's job and vice versa. It takes two to do the "Learning Tango".

I'm more or less convinced to keep going with them. I figure we have already come so far and failed so hard that it can't possibly get much worse or more exhausting. There's just a few problems that remain:

The director wants me to "teach the test" just to "get through this"... meaning, do texts, translate them, look at the vocabulary and call it a day. I told him that was against my teaching principles. I told him there was no pedagogy or practical application of that exercise and that I'd rather give it a go my way. He told me to take the easy route and just do texts.

I reckon if I continue, I'll try to do a mix. How can we do texts but no speaking exercises? How can we learn vocabulary without learning how to use it?

So we'll see where this goes. For the moment, I have no inspiration, motivation or desire to carry on with these kids but just like last time, maybe a stroke of something will hit me and we can find a way to work together (and maybe it will be less of a fail). I don't know. I'm trying to rebuild the foundation of a building that is in ruin. I've done it before, but I was a different person... not entirely sure I can do it again.

Ever dealt with a really difficult class?
Was it cultural or just situational?
What did you do to meet the challenge?

The Difficult Class: My Plan (Part 1)

During my son's nap time today, I was struck with an idea: What if I did give the difficult class a second chance? And what if I did it on my terms? I started thinking about other advice I've given my "Padawan": assume they know nothing. When in doubt, teach it anyway. If I were to take my own advice, how would I start? 

First off, I'd start with the fact that they didn't give me anything to go off of last week. Nothing I saw was impressive, lacking effort and motivation. Therefore, if they want to pretend like they haven't been learning English for the last 13 years of their lives and hide behind the excuse "I don't like it" or "I can't", then fine. I'll remove any opportunity for excuses possible, and I'll do it by starting at square one: sentence structure. 

I decided that because they are chatty, I need to give them something to concentrate on. Although powerpoint presentations don't fit into the Direct Method, I figured it was a necessary evil and that there was a lot that could be done with one. I decided to open with an introduction about how to build a sentence, then moved into the verb "to be" in the present simple (affirmative/negative) and continued onward with regular verbs in the present simple. I decided it would be necessary to tell a little story and to give myself plenty of room to quiz the students, checking to see if they are listening or not. 

On one particular slide I set up something like 16 different animations, starting with "I" and the little man, moving on to "you", then "he/she/it" appear at the same time, then "we", and finally "they". This is the typical order that French people are used to learning things in except they tend to see "you" twice to understand that "you" serves as "tu" and as "vous". I figured that since they have been studying English for the last 13 years of their lives, they ought to know by now that "you" is the only 2nd person subject pronoun in the English language (unless somebody is up for bringing back "thou"? Any takers??)

On another one of my slides that I added really silly, exaggerated animation to get their attention. First a dog appears, and then the "it" sentences. Next, the woman appears, and the "she" sentences. Finally, the little man appears followed by the "he" sentences. I chose to highlight and underline the "s" at the end of each verb conjugated in the third person present simple because French speakers often drop this letter when speaking. If I emphasize it, I can maybe hope to correct a mistake that has been reinforced in their language since they were little kids. Aie aie aie!

Another slide lead up to  their "practical classroom work" -- a slide describing a man named "Bob" who lives a pretty simple life.
The animation on this slide starts with the title and the main character. Then, step by step, his schedule appears. His mother (a secondary character meant to keep their attention) appears with the text about "call mom" followed by Bob's reaction. Then his schedule carries on, task by task, before the slide is complete.

The slide that immediately follows this one asks the students to write sentences (affirmative/negative) about Bob's schedule and Bob's day using the present simple and reinforcing the third person.

So that's that. I spent all afternoon completing the powerpoint (roughly 16 slides with three exercises integrated + homework). And so now the question that all teachers should ask when lesson planning: So what? What is the point of this lesson? 

It's simple, really. This lesson is designed for the students to say "well,...duh!" Of course they already know this stuff. So why am I presenting it like this and going it over in such an obvious way?

A few reasons.

1) I'm hoping it will motivate them to make more effort -- to show me that they are better than that so that we can do things that are more interesting. (this is a long shot but stranger things have happened in my teaching experiences..)

2) I'm hoping to correct some of the silly little mistakes they make from the get-go without having to go back and do that later.

3) I'm hoping that this will show them that I mean business. I'm coming back and bringing an arsenal. I'm not going to accept students who chit chat or text all through class. I'm not going to simply "pass them on". They are going to have to work and we'll do it on my terms in a structured environment. If they choose to continue acting like babies, then I will teach them like babies. If they decide that we can do things that are more interesting and challenging, then I will give them that. I'll teach them just outside of the zone that they choose to show me. This is the zone that I have identified for the moment, so it's the perfect place to start building.

and finally 4) when you work on a powerpoint, you can simply stop on a slide to get the class back under control. You know how much time you have left if you need to draw an exercise out or skip over something a bit simpler (in the interest of time). You know exactly where to pick back up the next lesson if you don't make it through the entire presentation.

So there you have it. My plans for how to tackle the behavior problems and strategically address the language level issue at the same time.

Wish me luck -- we'll see how this goes!

(and in French, if you want to wish somebody luck, you say "merde", which literally meanst "shit"!) 

Upper-intermediate/Advanced Talk Session

At my "real" job in the web world, I host Talk Sessions twice a week during lunch. The Tuesday group is my upper-intermediate/advanced level, and my Thursday group is my pre-intermediate/intermediate group. Both groups do similar exercises but at their own level which I think is particularly cool from a teacher's perspective because it cuts down on planning time. This is something that I always strive to do -- find one central topic that can be expanded or reduced depending on the level. It was the same strategy I used when teaching little kids and it adapted very nicely to adults.

A few weeks ago, I came across some silly riddles on the internet, sort of "Whodunnit?" kind of scenarios. The answers were always the most ridiculous yet obvious scenario imaginable, but before they found the answers/were given the answers, they spent a lot of time talking it out using language for putting forth an idea,  making a suggestion, agreeing and disagreeing, and dispelling each other's ideas based on the facts. I found it to be a constructive lesson because we were able to use a wide range of vocabulary and expressions and in the end everybody was laughing. As I've said before, laughter is a key element and because these are "talk" sessions, they are meant to be fun.

I found them online.. not sure who to credit because variations of them exist everywhere. I'll just make it clear that I didn't invent any of these scenarios, but I did very much enjoy using them.

Without further ado...

1. A man in a lift

A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every day he takes the elevator to go down to the

ground floor to go to work or to go shopping. When he returns he takes the elevator to the

seventh floor and walks up the stairs to reach his apartment on the tenth floor. He hates walking

so why does he do it?

02. A man walks into a bar

A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and

points it at the man. The man says thank you and leaves. Why?

03. Dead man in a field

A man is lying dead in a field. Next to him there is an unopened package. There aren’t any

animals in the field. How did he die?

04. Anthony and Cleopatra

Anthony and Cleopatra are lying dead on the floor of a villa in Egypt. Nearby is a broken

bowl. There is no mark on either of their bodies and they were not poisoned. How did they

die?

05. A carrot, some coal and a scarf

Five pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the lawn. Nobody put them on the

lawn but there is a perfectly logical reason why they are there. What is it?

06. Two sons

A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same

year. But they were not twins. How could this be possible?

07. A woman pushing a car

A woman was pushing her car. She stopped pushing when she reached a hotel and then

realized she was bankrupt. Why?

08. Heaven

A man died and went to Heaven. He saw thousands of people there all naked and young. He saw

a couple and he immediately recognized them as Adam and Eve. How did he know?

09. Friday

A man rode into town on Friday. He stayed for three nights and then left on Friday. Explain.

10. Manhole covers

Why is it better to have round manhole covers than square ones?

11. Sudden realization

A man was walking downstairs in a building when the lights went out. Suddenly he realised that

his wife had just died. How?

12. The blind beggar

A blind beggar had a brother who died. What relation was the blind beggar to the brother who

died? (Brother is not the answer).

13. Another dead body

The dead  body of a man was found in the middle of a burnt forest. He was wearing only

swimming trunks, a snorkel and diving mask. What had happened?

14. Mystery suicide

One stormy night, a person switches on the TV and watches the news. The person leaves the

room in a rush, runs up the stairs and turns on the light. Then the person commits suicide. Why?

A difficult class: classroom management

This year I've had a young lady from England living with me (henceforth known as "Padawan") who is learning how to be an elementary school teacher. She is working with kids from 1st to 5th grade in two primary schools in predominately Muslim neighborhood of immigrants. She often has discipline issues ranging from kids not listening to kids talking back to kids stabbing each other with scissors. Every time she comes to me with a problem, I feel like I have an answer.

"Separate the trouble-maker from the rest of the class."
"Put your safety and the children's safety first! Kid stabbing with scissors = out, no question."
"A cool "Simon Says"-style behavior game to get them back on track." (this one REALLY works with little kids, too.)
"Be encoraging. Make them love English. If they love it, they'll listen." (so true.)

She's been trying different things and gaining confidence in stride. The more confidence you have as a teacher, the better you can handle situations that don't go your way in the classroom. I can see that it's getting better because she comes home looking a little bit happier every day and seems more and more comfortable with the discipline and classroom management aspects of the classroom. She's really adapting well and I'm very proud of her.

With all of that in mind today, I went off to meet my newest class. Back in May I decided to stop teaching students but six months later here I am, face to face with young adults again. Ironically enough my new students are the same age as my two host daughters and their friends, and the girls and I get along fabulously.  I figured it would be a good experience. Here's the background:

Students are  in a two year business school, working and going to school at the same time. This means that if for whatever reason they are thrown out of school, they also lose their job and vice-versa.

These particular students are in the second year and are considered a "slightly difficult" class. When a director is trying to sell you a class and he calls them slightly difficult, you can read between the lines that the class is actually very difficult. However, I've had difficult classes before and managed them successfully, so that isn't impossible for me.

In the past what I did to win over my "difficult" classes was take the time to listen to the kids, because they just wanted to talk. I asked them what they wanted to learn, and that's what I taught. I made interactive exercises, brought in topics of interest for discussion, and forged relationships with them. I still get updates from kids in that class and it was four years ago. After the first lesson, I saw that as a challenge for my own personal development and I attacked. In the end, I won.

This time around, I thought for sure that these kids would be different exactly because they are already in the working world and have different priorities. Unfortunately for me, that wasn't the case at  all. In the first five minutes of class, I had already lost them. They were completely gone. They wouldn't listen to a word I said.

Class continued with constant chatter -- and not just whispers, all out chatter and shouting across the room to friends. There were insults made at other classmates and at me, and more "je n'arrive pas"s and "je ne veux pas" and "je n'ai pas envie" than I have ever heard before (basically "I can't do it" and "I don't want to do it). I would explain an exercise and before I knew it there were kids talking again. When the exercise wasn't done correctly and I tried to ask why, the reply I got was, "well I didn't understand." OF COURSE you didn't understand. YOU WEREN'T LISTENING. 

Rule #1 to learning languages: You have to listen.

Rule #2 to learning languages: Don't laugh at each other. 

Rule #3 to learning languages: You have to try. You have to make an effort.

These kids had broken all rules within the first 30 seconds. There was simply no going back. I carried on, trying my best to keep everybody on task and working but they were just too far gone into their pit of "I don't understand", laughing at each other and making jokes about me.

I ended class ten minutes early as soon as the exercise was finished. There was no way we could work constructively. At the end of class, they thanked me, I put on my coat and took my bag and basically ran for the door.

To say I'm not proud is an understatement, but I was on the verge of tears like I've never been before. I immediately called the director and informed him of all the problems surrounding this group of students. He was "unaware" that the situation had gotten so bad but insured me that house would be cleaned if I wanted to stay. I'm all for second chances and facing challenges, but wow -- in the space of an hour and a half, I lost all -- not a portion or a part -- but all of my motivation. It was just... horrible.

So here I sit, knowing that he's going to call me tomorrow expecting an answer. What do I say? What should I do? The teacher in me -- the one that teaches for everybody, for the kids that want to learn -- say that I have to go back. But the expert in me says it's not worth my time or my energy.

For now, I'm just going to think about it and then I'll see tomorrow and next Monday.

Right when you think you have all the answers... you get a reminder that you still have so much to learn. As teachers, we just never stop learning. So there ya go.

Google Translate: A teacher's worst nightmare

I don't think I'm alone when I say that I absolutely hate receiving papers to "correct" for students of all ages alike that have been run through Google Translate.

Just now I was working with somebody and he looked at me and literally questioned out loud, "Oh, we can't say that? Why not?"
To his question, I want to answer, "well, why in the first place?" But I know perfectly why they believe what is on the paper in front of them -- for whatever reason, maybe because Google is so good at giving us the search results we want, people trust it. They expect what they have written to be correct and to actually mean something, because well,... it's Google, ya know?

I've been trying to think about what I can do to keep my students from using these sorts of tools and encouraging them instead to find the words in English to express their ideas. I usually stop all together with whatever document I've been given in it's (what I like to call) "traduced" form. "Traduce" is a franglish mash-up of translate and traduire, and that is exactly what Google Translate gives us. It's not English and it's not French. Once the document is out of the picture, I look at the student and simply ask them what they would like to say. Then we start over, word by word, with grammar and vocabulary that are simply within their reach.

French is the kind of language that feels the need to take up space. It's wordy with long, looping sentences. Somebody once told me that French was like a painting with long brush strokes, whereas English was like a movie with action, surprise, and suspense in doses. You see that when you look at French and English on paper. The same idea expressed in French that took up a whole page may only take up half a page when written in English. This makes people feel uncomfortable. It makes them feel like they haven't written enough and that they must have missed something. You can't change perspective in a day so I ask them to read, re-read, and if they feel like there is something missing we can always revise. True to form, everything is there, and then I get a look of shock and amazement like, "well that wasn't really hard at all, now."

Reading is another area that can be problematic. It is a great way to learn new vocabulary words and to see expressions used in context, just as long as all of the new words and expressions are detracting from the story because that's where you get bored. In the same way that it is OK for a translation to only take up half a page, it is also okay for a reader to not run to the dictionary every five minutes to look up words that they don't know in the text. I say if you have to go to the dictionary that often, then what you are reading is too hard. If you have to go to Google Translate, then the student may be over-thinking what they need to write and looking to "take up space".

Translators and dictionaries can be great tools, but they have to stay just that: tools. They aren't crutches, so breaking the habit of using them to confirm every last detail from the beginning is a great idea. That way, the people you are working with will be able to think on their own and try to find their own meaning in the words. What does it look like? What does it sound like? How is it written, and finally, can I use it on my own?

How do you handle learning tools in your classroom? What do you think about online translators?