Obstacle X
What frustrates you about teaching?
I seem to have the bad luck of working with folks who are incredibly busy. I don’t work with children or university students who HAVE to be in their English classrooms in order to graduate. I work with business professionals, lawyers, company directors, team leaders, account executives, and university coordinators…people who are in a perpetual state of scramble and motion.
What frustrates me are the consistent interruptions. In the last month, I’ve had a 40% last-minute class cancellation rate. In the case of some, this has made progress absolutely impossible. We start working on one project, and then have a spree of class cancellations that keep us off target for two or even three weeks at a time.
That frustrates me. I totally understand my student’s situations, but how am I supposed to help them make progress with such a difficult environment to play with?
80/20 Rule Sounds Great but…No Real Sale.
On the first or second day of class, I always walk my students through some ideas or habits that will help them be able to work on their English development on their own. “I want you to fire me,” I always say, “Because if you learn how to learn and work your English on your own, you really can do it without me…”
One of those ideas that I try to share with my students comes from business: the 80/20 rule. 80% of your profits should come from 20% of your efforts or work. In English class, 80% of your language learning and practice should come OUTSIDE the classroom, and only 20% should come from classroom work and me. Why?? Because classroom time is simply NOT enough to get the quality contact time you need to actually make significant learning progress. It’s about getting fire hosed in the language, and English classes are all to often like getting hit with a squirt gun. You barely notice it.
During the class, EVERYONE excitedly buys the idea. They are enthusiastic about it, and we explore how they can make the 80/20 idea work. (Podcasts, how to listen for QUALITY not QUANTITY. etc.) It all makes sense to them, but when they step out of class, it’s all swept away by busyness.
“Sorry, can’t make it.”
Really starting to hate that phrase. Again, understand the outside demands that are being placed on the students I work with, but how do you deal with a group of 6 people when only half show up on a regular basis? And how do you deal with the even bigger problem of that half being different members of the group almost every time?
Is this normal? In my whole 7 year ESL teaching career, there has always been an obstacle X out there to slow you down. Since I’ve started freelancing however, I’ve noticed a sharp increase in these obstacles. It’s really frustrating some times, and I just wonder if any of you have any ideas to more effectively deal with these problems.
I guess this was more of a rant, and to be fair, not all of my students are like that. I do have a few who are really committed to their English growth and development, and they are slowly but surely putting our classroom ideas into practice, but the going feels pretty slow right now, and I am just wondering how do you deal with Obstacle X?
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Comment by Fred — November 8, 2006 @ 6:59 am
Good question how to deal with obstacle X. I agree with you that quality is more important than quantity.
I am currently working on an investigation project on ICT integration into Secondary Education study programs in Spain and have created a new blog on language labs and English teaching. Which are the quality criteria to select materials?
Any help or comments would be appreciated.
Comment by José L. Cabello — November 8, 2006 @ 12:58 pm
I definitely agree with you when you say that the majority of learning occurs outside the classroom because that’s when the content is truly applied. If there is a problem with your students showing up then maybe you can try and find a way to put some of the course materials on the internet so they are accessible anywhere as long as they have a computer. Most businessmen should be able to carry a laptop around with them when they are traveling around. This would make it easier on them if they had to miss class because they would be completely aware of what they missed. This would also keep you from holding back other members of the class that consistently show up. This would also help your students become more familiar with the growing technological society we have nowadays.
Comment by Sean — March 6, 2007 @ 9:56 pm