I wanted to tell you that I need your suggestions, ideas, opinion, experience or whatever you could say in regards to this topic: Apathy in the classroom, plus, discipline problems. I am working in Chile at the moment, I �ve been living here since 2003 and my husband is Uruguayan.

We only have almost 3 months more till summer holidays.

I �ve had a hard day today, and even though many people tell me I should not worry to the point of feeling not good enough for this job, I often do anyway. It  seems to be that these problems really make me feel too small.

I find difficult to handle and manage the lack of motivation, the apathy some students manifest during the whole class. And yet we get long  compulsory workshops on evaluation, and how to make students �pass � exams by continually giving them oportunities. Keeping them in school and the system making teachers guilty of all the problems in education.

I really would love to get the �recipe � to make everyone work and enjoy learning. I have carefully selected special worksheets  to prepare a booklet  at the beginning of the year and make students feel enthusiastic about the english class. But still every class (with this particular group- 34 sts) is  a chaos. Every two or three students seem to be small islands disconnected from the rest, not listening, not seeing, talking to themsleves. It �s �almost � end of year and we are still working on present simple.
Is it only me who goes through this?

Hope to hear from you!

Hi Amelia,

Thank you for posting and for your suggestion and support. I �ve tried the games, I �ve tried separating these groups to which they are reluctant, which adds an extra waste of time separating them.
As you say, games should be educational and what I try is to make them also be related to what we are learning.

But lately, I spend almost 20 � minutes asking them to sit down, or come back from the corridor, then 10 � more to make them listen, open their books, explain what we are going to do. I don �t understand if this is something which a commong thing all around the world, I don �t want to sound like a depressed, negative teacher, but a full of concerns and questions. I know some teachers feel this is not possible becasue they have wonderful teaching experiences, and I admire those teachers who can play games and also teach at the same time. I love games, but I find there is a moment where we have to teach grammar and concentrate, study!

I made them read Frankenstein, and they really got bored with it, they never read the story, every chapter was me telling them what was about. Very frustraiting.

I just basically would love to know how to handle and think of this behaviour, full of sleepy and apathetic students.

I can say that i feel what you say.I am  An Egyptian teacher .I was working in my country then i had to move to wok in another rich country.Matters changed completely to me .ss are less motivated than the Egyptian ones.The Egyptian study hard .No one ever delayed the homework.The apposite are  those extremely rich people.Everyone has the year model car.They pay no attention to the teacher .They consider him as wellas the driver or even the servant believeme At this case i started to be so firm with those sts .I put rules which mustn �t be broken .Parents are informed daily with their kids behaviors by the follow up records.I asked them to deprive their kids from things they don �t need.I chose the most troubling kids and made them as leaders to feel that they are responsible.I became to taik to them individually.The worst one are also encouraged . I told them that they can be much better.School administration was with me but not in every single problem.You see my friend that those who are sleepy arenot the ones who can measure the level of teachers.

finally don �t worry about workshops and official meetings that happens anywhere

I wish you great success only be patient

I �m by no means perfect, but I found that when I brushed up on my concept checking and giving of instructions, it was better.It �s also really hard to do but to speak in softer tones when you are angry, so basically reverse what you �ve been doing , it can also help.

I also found that with larger classes, it is possible to play games, if you give each student a photo copy of a games board and a photo copy of a dice, which looks like a sliced up pie and they have to close their eyes and circle with their finger and then place their finger on a number.I also make mine with two 3s and two 2s and two 1s, because if you have six numbers then the game loses power coz they finish it too quickly.I think I have some other versions of dice to download-[unfortunately someone didn �t see the value of my �pie � dice and said it was copied [i made it on sierra print artist] and removed it...I can send you one on email if you like.I also don �t give them counters , I make them mark off on their own game board where they land , and that way they can also write in the answers too which will help them when they �re studying.

 

I hope this is helpful.

Regards

;o)

If nothing works, write a short questionaire, and give your students to fill it annonimously: what do they expect from your classes, how would they grade your classes and why, what would they change, what would they improve, what would make them learn easier, what would motivate tham to participate during the classes - you will be amazed how many great ideas you will collect, and how honest your students will be. After reading, try to implement some of their ideas - and you can even discuss the results with your students - encourage them to be honest and share their problems, and their lack of interest in learning English.

You can also add a question: Name 5 reasons why learning English is important, and then read just these answers and discuss it with your class.

 

Good luck!

 

Sasa

My high school teacher gave us this assignment for Romeo and Juliet (how else would we read Shakespeare for heaven �s sake????), and those were the best 2 English classes we had!

Over time, just repeat what you see works for your class, and in no time, you won �t have any problems at all!!!

First of all, it may be obvious you are not alone!!!!!Handling the class is by far the most difficult part of teaching kids. The bigger the class the worse it gets and your class is really big. I have also spent my afternoons crying at home after classes that went badly. By now it is a bit better. I came to realize that it is not (all) my fault. Of course there are moments I could have reacted differently and it would have been better but on the whole the disruptive behaviour is their doing, not mine. This year I got proof it isn �t only me... I teach two classes from the same grade. One of the classes is amazing, we have fun, we learn, we work and we enjoy. Kids come at the end of the class to tell me how much they enjoyed their classes. the other class, same grade, same material, same teacher just different kids is a nightmare! Some of the kids there just keep on talking, fighting and muddling among themselves. some of them keep on interupting me or getting down on others (which will blow my fuse everytime!). I feel the room is a factor, The disruptive class sits is a room that doesn �t allow me to move them around and they sit very close to each other since the room is really too small but again, main factor is the mix of kids themselves....

I recently discovered a site www.behaviourneeds.com which allows you to download a whole book on classroom management which is very good (for free)! It also offers a free email course but that is a bit annoying to be honest since from lesson to lesson they push their payed courses more and more and there is less and less real info in the course. but hey, they need to make a living as well. the site offers a lot of nice things. I stumbled upon it when I was looking for signs to make visual aids for the clasroom rules. they have some really neat ones!

Hope this is useful and thanks for bringing this issue to the forum. I think this is a really big issue for every teacher teaching full classes in regular schools!

About the questionnaire, I think it is important to add the question WHAT CAN YOU DO TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH? that way you also show them they have a hand in their own learning. It is too easy to put it all on the teacher and how s/he should change! a bit of self reflection is a good thing to learn!

and borna? Did you really get to a point where "you have no problems at all"? If you are teaching full classes of kids in a regualr school and you have "no problems at all" I would love to hear more about that!!! (and I am NOT being sarcastic, I would love to hear how you got to that point, it would give me hope that something like that exists...)

 

you are absolutely rigth, I acutally have that question in my questionaire as well. What I do is this: I usually hand out this quiestionaire at the end of the school year, and then I have the whole summer to reflect upon the results. But I �ve had problems with some classes I "inherited" from a teacher who got retired in the middle of the school year, and they were impossible to teach for many reasons. I implemented this questinaire right away, since they told me they hated English, etc. Eventually, after a month or two, I had no more issues with this class.

As I said, sometimes it is impossible to reach them, and even when you do everything imaginable, sometimes they just don �t care. I �ve my share of bad days as well, but over the years, and with experience, it gets better and better. My phylosophy is - there is always something you can do, so don �t give up! And most importantly, don �t let them see you tired or depressed, it will get worse!

What worked for me best is praise. Yes, praise! I �ve told the worst classes that they were my favourite class, and that in comparison to other classes, it is a joy to work with them, and that I feel blessed that I got that class this year, and that I really look forward to our next session, and at first they thought I was joking, and then they said, wait a minute, every other teacher in this school criticizes us, and eventually, by mid-term, they start to change their behaviour, they do homework, they participate in class, and I praise them even more, and I praise them to other teachers as well, and they don �t believe it, but the kids hear I preaised them and it becomes a positive "vicious circle" of praise. At the end, they praise me, and call me their best teacher!

Try this, you �ll be amazed of the results.

You can implement this on just one child, that makes the most troubles in your class - call him/her the smartest, the most mature kid in the class, tell him/her how you expect great things from him/her...