[cabst90]

I was teaching an adult class in the U.S. I had an aweful, young, troublemaking, sexist, racist guy in my class. I don't know what he was doing there, but he was there. He made sexist comments constantly. He thought his English was perfect even though most of the other students couldn't actually understand him. He tried to bully other students. I had the students play a race to the board game. He got up next to a student who was much smaller than him and very timid. Then he proceeded to tackle the student and physically hold him back from the board. I made it clear that this was unacceptable before we continued. He agreed to "behave" himself. Even though he agreed to tone it down so that we could continue playing, the next time that he was up, a woman about twice his size, not shy nor afraid of him, stood up to be his opponent. She stood there, hands on her hips, and he behaved.

I had another student from Mongolia. She had lived in Korea for 4 years and could speak Korean almost perfectly. She had a horrible time with English and was deathly shy. After having her in my class (and one class with only four students), she opened up. One night, she came up to me to tell me that she had had to help a Mongolian friend at the hospital by translating basic things. She thanked me for forcing her to speak in my class because it made her comfortable enough with the language, even though her English is far from perfect, to talk to the hospital staff.