Several students in one of my classes weren’t listening or participating today, so after a few warnings and a lot of patient waiting, I simply packed up my things and walked out. I wasn’t going to waste their time or let them waste any more of mine … and I hoped that after the initial shock, the kids who actually cared would use the last five minutes to lay some smack down on the ones who were being rude.

I think it might have worked. Just before going to bed tonight, I received this email:

Dear teacher Lance:

We are the students in Class18,we are using Holmes’ E-mail to say sorry,we talked too much in your class,we were too excited.We promise,we won’t talk too much in your class again,we will be quiet when you are teaching,and we know you are the only teacher in the class,we are not.We all miss you,please back,please come back next Thursday.

Sincerely
students in class 18

Here was my response:

Holmes (and friends),

Don’t worry, I am not angry at all. I even said that during class. I am just disappointed, because so many students in your class want to improve their English and have fun, but every week I spend half of your class time waiting for a few students to stop talking. So we never get to the fun games and funny videos (because I always do them last)!

I’ll tell you a secret … your class’s English is very good, so at the beginning of the school year I used the Junior 3 lesson instead of the Junior 2 lesson. But recently, I have had to treat the students in your class like Junior 1 kids instead … if the rudeness continues, I will start using the Junior 1 lesson instead too. And that will be terribly boring for most of you!

Let’s try again next week, ok? I will come ready to teach, and please help your classmates come ready to learn. It’s really simple!

:),
Lance

Posted to webeldotnet on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 2:08 am EST in China & Education (comment feed). If you refer to this post on your blog, please trackback. Thanks!