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Message board > Feeling so depressed, so demotivated, so useless...
Feeling so depressed, so demotivated, so useless...
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fanaticorojo
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HANG IN THERE MAN, I THINK THAT YOU ARE A GREAT TEACHER JUST FOR CONSIDERING YOUR STUDENT�S PROBLEMS. KEEP TEACHING AND KEEP LEARNING!!! |
5 Oct 2008
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Olindalima ( F )
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Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you, frenchfrog
 You make my day!!!!!!!!!!!!
WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!
As many of us have already said.... HERE IN PORTUGAL   it .... is... the.... same .
My god .... what is happening too us ?????????
?????????????????
I don�t know, and some now and then I DON�T CARE. LET THEM GO TO THE EVIL.
Obviously, most of my time, I am a very sensitive teacher, I do care, I do work, i do try my best, but, obviously, as the other guy said, I don�t remember his name now, " The times, they are changing" . Well, ok, I accept that things are changing... but my biggest problem is that they never stop changing.......
SHALL WE, ALL OF US, TEACHERS, START SOMETHING TO CHANGE THE WAY OUR STUDENTS BEHAVE�???????
DO YOU THINK THE PROBLEM IS "OUR STUDENTS" or have you ever considered that, probably, society, parents, family have something to do with all this mess of problems we have to deal?
This school year I have a WONDERFUL group of kids, BUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTT, wandering around I have some of those who use the " F word ".
Smile,Smile,Smile,Smile, because, either you smile, stand up and go on, or you get crashed. They won�t crash me and, if necessary, I will crash them and their mummies and dads, and grandparents and the neighbours, too.
We CAN�T FORGET NEVER WHO WE ARE. We are teachers, and comes what comes, we have to teach... english, verbs, nouns and pronouns, subjects .... good manners, human rights, sensibility, most of them come from such a background of families with no support at all, even those who seem to belong to nice families; when we talk a little with them we discover so many terrible things, I think we all, in the good old days of our childhood, had lots of lovely moments with our families. I think, nowadays, families don�t exist anymore. We, teachers, are our students� families, although we are not prepared for that and don�t have the time.
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5 Oct 2008
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Olindalima ( F )
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I forgot one thing
2 teach is
+2 touch lives
= 4 ever
Love the kids, as our Portuguese poet once said
" The kids, they are the most wonderful thing in the world "
by Fernando Pessoa
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5 Oct 2008
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puspita
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Frenchfrog dear,
I share your feelings, especially when my colleagues were talking about those students who were mine previously. I sometimes questioned myself: �where did I do wrong?�. However, life goes on and I have to accept the fact that there are students who seem to keep forgetting what has been taught. What I did was just like you; sharing my feelings concerning these students with their current teachers and discussing what better approach might be suitable for them.
As others have already said, you have shown how great a teacher you are by keeping track on your students progress throughout the years and helping them out in anyway you could. So cheer up, you have done the best.
cheers,
pus
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5 Oct 2008
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marta73
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As Afrodita said, here in Spain we have that problem as well( with learning in general. It�s actually quite an important social problem). In fact, I thought it was worst here than in other countries. A famous sentence by my students is " C�mon Miss, I�m gonna be a plumber here in Spain, what do I need English for?" And the thing is that they�re right. English in particular, and languages in general give you the opportunity to enlargen your world. Nevertheless, I have the impression that our students� worlds are kind of "shrinking", so English ( among other things)won�t be part of their everyday life. Maybe the key is showing them the wide range of possibilities that speaking English offers you, we should try to make them wish they knew other countries, other people, other experiences...Students won�t get involved in the learning process unless the feel the need, and that�s our overwhelming objective. It�s not easy and it�s a very slow process ( with not self- motivated students)
so, even if we�re doing it well, we won�t see the benefit in the short run. Never give up, and enjoy your job as much as you can despite adversity. Enjoyment is infectious. Let�s go to work everyday as if it was our first day, with all our energy and positive thinking and let�s be patient when we don�t feel so positive.Delayed rewards taste better. I remember one student, he was one of "those ". He didn�t want to learn, he didn�t make any effort, he just stayed in class,as a piece of furniture. One day he told me he had had a conversation with an English person he had met by chance. He felt so happy.I couldn�t believe my ears. How could he?He couldn�t even use the verb " to be" properly. Well, he told me about their conversation (very basic, I must say, he was a 12 year old)and he remembered questions and answers. Well, he had learnt against his will ! That was my last year�s miracle. |
5 Oct 2008
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VERONIKA1811
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Hello.
I am new in this wonderful site. I can say that i know how you feel and I don�t speak french, I speak spanish and the same happens with some of my students. I can understand that you teach at a school, and sometimes this happens at schools because children do not realize they could get advantage of the course. Not only in schools I could say, but also in language centers or universities where English is a requirement, so when students feel forced to learn something they do not like it is more difficult for them to learn. The trick is try to motivate them so that they feel like learning, make them practice the words they are asking by doing some mimics, you could play certian games so they never ever forget the words, this could be a little time consuming, but as a parent i would be very glad to see that my child can communicate because he is learning quality not quantity.
Don�t feel down in the dumps, you are a good teacher; make the satisfaction the other half of the class makes you feel the motivation to go on and make more effort to make your weak students be better off. |
5 Oct 2008
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jujuka
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Hi Frenchfrog,
I don�t often write in the forum but I think the topic you have raised is crucial for each of us.
First of all, cheer up and don�t let anybody spoil your day, make you frustrated or lose your optimism. Nothing/Nobody is worth it.
I work at a secondary school and I could also add my stories of working with indifferent, uninterested students, but instead I would like to share some of the tricks that have worked for me:
1. I try to introduce modern technology to the classroom as much as possible since SS are more eager to work on their PCs than in their copybooks. For example, when I give them homework, I often tell them they can do it on PC or even send it to me by email if they like. Even the weaker students come up with excellent work in the end. Now you can say they may copy and paste anything from the internet, but at least they try to find their way to some English language sites. It can motivate them step by step.
2. I have some of my classes in a language lab with access to the Net and get SS to practise some grammar points online. You also know loads of sites with interactive exercises and they do the trick: students are more interested and compete to have better results than their group mates. If they reach good scores, they can play language games (Hangman is very popular with them) eg: http://www.britishcouncil.org/central.htm or they can chat with each other (http://en.yappr.com/welcome/VideoList.action)
3. I take lots of songs to the classroom, sometimes I ask them what they would like to listen to. I also make online exercises with these songs and they are very happy to listen to their favourite songs and try to understand the words.( For example eslprintables� little sister: http://www.englishexercises.org/ ) Even if we can�t go to the language lab, many SS get motivated to do some online exercises at home.
4. Songs are good to practise and teach vocabulary and different grammar points as well. They make it easier to remember the new words and structures, and when SS should use them on their own, I just tell them to remember the songs and magic: they know what they wouldn�t if I used grammar terms to make things clear.
5. When it comes to new grammar/vocab/ topic or revision, I tend to use more and more ppt�s because on the one hand they always come handy, and on the other hand ss are more attentive when they watch them. Hopefully they remember even more of what I want them to.
I hope that by this time you can see a glass which is half FULL and not empty. If you find anything useful or I can be of any help, you can contact me by email.
CU, Judit
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5 Oct 2008
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dareka1
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�I have to say that I have never taught in a secondary high school, but I have taught in kindergardens, daycare centers, universities, community centers, private lessons, English conversation schools and vocational colleges. I�ve taught to classes of thirty as well as classes of one. �I do have to say my best learning experiences were(/are) with classes that were terrible. If the class is going terribly, (in my opinion) you as a teacher are doing something wrong. Students explain their feelings by not listening and talking to each other and sleeping, it�s your job to find out why they feel like that and how you can teach them to make them stay awake and listen to you for forty minutes (or in college ninety minutes to two hours). Every time I have had a class that has given me trouble, it�s helped me evaluate why, I am as a teacher, am failing. I�ve then had to start thinking again about what I teach, how I teach and what it must feel like for them as students (because it is different to what we as teachers think they see). �So in all, when I have a class that I REALLY hate, I never walk away and part of me relishes the challenge of finding out what I need to do to make it better (although the other part of me sits in a glass of beer complaining about how stupid the students are :) �)
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5 Oct 2008
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leva
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Dear Frenchfrog,
I know what you mean ,and as I see we face the same problems all over the world!
I�m a primary teacher and don�t know what to do when I go to the classroom and say"good morning",my new student answers F* you(this is what he knows in English and nothing else!!!) .There are students who are agressive,steal from each other (even from their teachers),blackmailing each other and so on.
On the other hand I have motivated students who ask interesting questions about English and always ready to compete with each other to get better results and these students make me feel better even if I know I must teach the other group ,too.
So cheer up and think about students who are worth it(I�m sure you have a lot!)
�va
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5 Oct 2008
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