I am currently undergoing my formal education as a teacher of English and German as a second language, but I’ve been a full-time private tutor for 5 years. I’m not supposed to teach in a school yet, but due to the state of the education system in my country, there was a lack of teachers and I got invited to teach in my former high school. I teach a group of 11 thirteen-year-olds 6x45 minutes on Mondays and Tuesdays.
I felt like I was doing quite well, but today devastated me. We had our second lesson in the canteen (due to lack of available classrooms) and it was a disaster. I try my best to plan engaging, exciting lessons, so after a short vocabulary test they were due to write, I asked them to go around the classroom and ask each other some questions related to our new unit, I even made and printed them a spreadhseet with their names that they could fill out. They started asking each other for the information in our native language, no matter how many times I asked them to speak in English, and after the time was up, I could not, for the life of me, get them to settle. Half of them were shouting and chatting, the other half were eyeing me, waiting for my response. They are generally quite lively, but today was the first time I could not get them to settle.
Now, I never yell. I do my absolute best to respect everyone, just like I promised them the first time we met. However, I asked for their respect and cooperation in return and I can see that faltering. They got used to me, got bored with me, I don’t know.
Initially I thought I would have more problems with the boys, but they are okay. It’s the girls, they mature faster so they are already these moody teenagers. I can’t get them all to do their homework, even by giving them bad grades for it, can’t get them to engage, put away their phones, nothing. I tried interesting debates, topics, but it doesn’t work for more than 5 minutes. Nothing I’ve seen in movies, experienced as a student myself works anymore. They don’t have the attention span. They are under- and overstimulated at the same time and cannot sit still, but cannot do a stand-up activity in an organised manner, it turns into chaos.
Academically, they are bright and have a very good level of English thanks to video games and movies. They do fairly well in tests, but they won’t improve unless I manage to get through to them. I have some rules in place and I stick to them, so I have given them a few bad grades, etc. but I don’t feel like it’s enough.
For information, I’m barely taller than them and I’m a 25-year-old, younger looking girl so I’m not very intimidating. I’m also not mean-spirited and never talk down to any of my students, but I realised I need a modified approach to teaching in a group compared to teaching privately.
I would appreciate any insight or tips on how to achieve a calm and disciplined environment in which I can actually use the fun stuff I work hard to prepare.
Can’t help with all the other stuff because teenagers are complex. But on the specific point of using the native language, from my experience this could be a sign that they’re not confident enough in their English.
Unlike one on one tutoring, students can get very self-conscious about mistakes or “having accents” with other students, specially when they’re so young. Instead of insisting they speak in English at all times, try to be lenient when they chat among themselves, but ask them to try and repeat their native language questions in English specifically when addressing you.
And when doing group exercises, what worked in the past was letting them sort it out privately in whichever language, but then having them taking turns at a “for real” part of the exercise to the whole class. Your mileage may vary.
I don’t think bad grades as punishment work, specially for homework, but I have no experience in grading. And don’t feel bad for not being “intimidating” or commanding discipline, teenagers in groups are basically immune to that (unless there’s some form of severe punishment which you obviously shouldn’t do) and kids nowadays are even harder to control.
Thanks for the advice!
I have considered that they might be self-conscious, but they are otherwise very outspoken and confident, so I honestly don’t think this is the issue, maybe with some of them. But I was more lenient when it came to group work today and it went much smoother, they eventually spoke more English, so I consider it a success.
As for bad grades as punishment, I don’t really have much else. Luckily, they are motivated enough to want a good grade, and I tell them time and again that I don’t want to give anyone an F for homework, or anything for that matter. However, it is a part of their class to complete the exercises I assign as homework so it would be unfair towards the others to just let it slide.
On the second point it does make sense. I just don’t think it can work as the sole encouragement, happy incentives are kind of a must too. Those are harder to find and depend on their interests, but movies and stuff like that can work.
But I have very little experience with actually running the classes rather than just assisting, so take that bit with a pinch of salt.
Definitely, negative motivation as I call it, is never enough on its own. I have lots of positive encouragement such as a system of “plus”-es that they get for participating and doing well during classes, 5 of these gains them an A, I also regularly hand out these fun coupons for those who get 100% on a task or win a game. They really like those!