Hi, can someone give me suggestions on how to teach rebellious high school students who dislike English?
Your pieces of advice will be much appreciated.
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Hi, can someone give me suggestions on how to teach rebellious high school students who dislike English?
Your pieces of advice will be much appreciated.
Here's a book a friend of mine recently recommended:
Teaching Discipline and Self-Respect by SiriNam S. Khalsa
www.CorwinPress.com
Thank you, genoveva. I've checked the site, and I will go to read the articles there. That sounds a great book your friend recommended. Hope I had a chance to read that.
you have to somehow convince them as to why it's important that they should learn the language. kids need to see the utility of a skill or they see no point in investing the time to learn it.
I can’t imagine not liking English! I even liked diagramming sentences- I’m a dork though.
I remember one really fun thing we did once with Shakespeare that really helped those who were confused and was fun for everyone. The “actors” of the different parts dressed like the stereotypical jock, nerd, wallflower, cheerleader and so forth and then acted out the parts of a Mid Summers Nights Dream and moved around and talked like those stereotypical characters using Shakespeare’s dialog. Very fun.
(I wouldn’t like to diagram that- I’m the queen of run on sentences!)
Good luck with the school year!
bring in a news article to class spelling out to your students the growing global demand for bi-lingual workers. the prospect of earning a higher salary may work.
but i really think you ought to just throw the slackers out of class. call their parents and tell them you won't tolerate their rebellious nonsense. it used to work for me. :)
They are very frastrated ones, I guess. Parents don't care that much either. English is a foreign language to them, which adds more difficulties to the learning. They do think that learning English is of no great importance to them. I think the news article thing might work. Thanks, Jon.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1jt
Thank you, hubbard. I'll try this kind of games. But it would not be Shakespeare. That may be a bit hard for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by motherhubbard
i used to know an ESL teacher who dealt with similar students. she spent many miserable days, some in tears. she eventually got a transfer to work with the lower grades and was much much happier there.
Hmm, I've heard of similar incidents too.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1jt
Try using comics and graphic novels.
And what is extremely important (from my teaching experiences): Try to change your teaching methods during your lessons, and surprise your students every once in a while with something special. Although classroom teaching might make sense in some situations, it should not be practiced permanently: if you get students involved, things will definitely turn out to the better.
Best of luck! :)
Rheingold (teaching rookie myself)
The best tool for taming your rebellious students who dislike English is to tell them very interesting stories. I used to do that exactly to loll them into a fictious domain, far from their class-room reality. Please try this out and respond.Quote:
Originally Posted by white camellia
Yes, beat them senseless with a very large stick. They will listen to you then. (-:
try relating literature to music ( I do that with myself if I can't relate to the literature I'm studying) or relate it to some social rebellion movement (like Vonnegut and the 60s counterculture, thoreau and Pink Floyd)...
I was a teacher and taught for nine years. Indeed I had to encounter very harsh students. Dealing with them was a very big challenge. I was teaching English literature and as such all I used to do was captivate or enchant them in a different world, in a fantasy for a while. They got lost and were hooked to what I said very attentively. Why do not use very some way to souse them in your ideas? Really you must come come up ideas that are really intoxicating, not dulling.
Of course the are teaching is not just to be course or syllabus centric, you must indeed break the limit and encapsulate bigger realms, and of course you must entertain and instruct and if you fail to combine both at the same time you can not turn out to be a good teacher.You will be just an average.