Today I had two ni nen sei classes, and for whatever reason they are invariably my most difficult students to teach. Last week they were on a workplace visit program, so they had no classes, and this week they seemed way worse than usual (probably a combination of being away from class, and my getting to used to the other classes). Anyway, today’s classes didn’t go well, and I had to yell more than usual (which is not at all).
By the second class I was already pretty frustrated with them, and then the Japanese teacher told me I had to be more strict because “some students are too rude”. This bugged me quite a bit, not just because they said discipline isn’t supposed to be our job (I never assumed that would actually work), but because I actually can’t say anything to them that they will understand, besides the basics like “stop talking” and “be quiet”. I can of course say these things louder, and make the same kids repeat the answers when they were talking, but without someone to explain why I’m doing this in Japanese I feel like it’s kinda pointless.
Anyway, in the second class there was one student right in front of me that kept turning around and talking to the guy behind him while I was talking. At first I was just calm about asking him to turn around and be quiet, then I was saying it more loudly, then I was basically just yelling at him, and every time he would just say “sorry sorry, be quiet” and then go back to talking in about a minute. Since you can’t make a kid leave the classroom here, I then made him move his desk to the front of the room, facing the class, and moved his friends away from him. Since this didn’t really make him listen (he wasn’t talking, but was trying really hard to get the attention of the kids who were at this point avoiding him), he also had to repeat just about every answer given by the class. Near the end of the class I moved him back because they had a worksheet to do with their friends, and he started talking again while I was explaining it to them. That made me keep him after class so I could get the Japanese teacher to translate what I was saying. This was a lot more effective. Since I wasn’t just yelling (I was asking things like “Is this how you act for your other teachers, or do you just not want to show me any respect?”), and there was no classroom audience he got quiet pretty quickly.
On the way back to the class the teacher thanked me, but said there are many more students like him. I am a bit curious to see what that class is like when I am not there.
