Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

It's embarrassing when our own rules screw us.
Last year I had a rule in my class of Korean students not to speak any Korean during English lessons. The penalty was a yellow card; twice = two yellow cards = a red just like in soccer. Two months later they gave me a red card when I couldn't get them to understand a sentence and said it in Korean. It's a lot of fun to them to see the teacher caught in the rules and embarrassment to us.

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

I once stayed up pretty late making last touches on a lesson for the next day. It got pretty late so I guess I wasn't quite awake! I finished everything and packed it up for school. The next day in class all of my flash cards were perfect but the vocabulary words were backwards, upsidedown, sideways, and some were just plain unreadable! NIGHTMARE!!!
Another time I planned everything perfectly and got up the next morning to realize it was all a dream!!! Yet another time, I was really prepared for my four 3rd-6th grade classes one morning. I arrived at school to find that I had grabbed the wrong bag and that my WHOLE lesson(flashcards,props and worksheets) was at home in another!!! AAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Well, I have been embarrassed several times. Sometimes you get silly in front of kids, teaching them with all kinds of monkey gestures, knowing that they find it fun. When observed by adults I save a lot of my silly monkey gestures. I was doing a really silly one once and didn't notice the principal looking at me after having silently sneaked into the back of the classroom and looking at me as though I had lost my mind.
He later asked the HOD of English Department if their foreign teacher(me) had some mental problems .Typical Chinese headmaster - students should just sit and listen to a boring teacher.

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Teachers always getting caught in their own rules. The problem is, the people we teach look on us to be some kind of models.

Whoops! Today I spent like 5minutes trying to spell the words "Ryhme" and "Rythme" It was just ridiculous. Oops, I still got them wrong. Rhyme and Rythm. Jeez!

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

In my first few weeks of teaching in Thailand I got angry with a grade 1 kid for writing an X instead of his name on a worksheet. I erased it, but he defiantly did it again. I was about lose it when my teaching assistant informed me that his name was in fact X. I felt pretty embarrassed after that.

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

When he groes up he will understand.

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Cleavage, buttonholes too big for buttons. It started off at the bus stop, I wondered why this young man kept starring and smiling, now I think it was a smirk. It was hot so I kept leaning on things throwing my arms in the air, just making the gap wider. Well after I realized it, got on the bus , he did wave goodbye I thought about it, I had on a nice bra and I have reasonable breasts and after that, mortified doesn't come into the equation. A button upopened but don't think I was that cool at the time I thought of suing Walmart for embarrasment. (briefly)
It happened again in class a student gestured to me. Respectuful, now I use safety pins
on all my button up the front shirts and use candlewax on the zippers of my pants, gives it more grip
I think if I was younger it would have but I think it is the way you carry it off these "embarassments" normalise it,brush over it and thank the student for pointing it out make a lesson plan out of it.
Spelling is wrong on the board, makes you human and makes the student feel clever .
Turn it to yours students advantage.
Ones I hate is when the bloody computer doesn't work and you waste time trying to get it right, now that's embarrasing

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Yes, it really makes us human. I really hate the idea of students think we are a kind of perfect being.

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Denis

I always have to check my spelling with Ryhme,I don't no why.

I do one song a year, The Rose. I give them the lyrics with 20 words missing. They listen and try to fill in the words, play it again then we go through the missing words words that rythme, ask questions about the song.

Does the songwriter think that you should be careful about falling in love?
So many times they confuse what the writer is saying and what other people think.

I get a bit tired of students asking me to sing a song. When they do I give them this.

I chose this song because I like it and it has lots of metaphors especially good when you are teaching something is like something else.

If they want more English songs they can go to Karaoke.

Ps I think singing songs can improve your pronunciation but do that at home. Class time is too valuable

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Yeah.
There is a girl in my class who can sing Celine Dion's "My heart will go on" from the beginning to the end without missing out a word. But she is my worst in reading as well as speaking. One day I felt so angry she couldn't read a simple text that I rushed back to the office, printed out a copy of the song's lyrics and brought to her. You won't believe it but she still had problems reading the song.

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Settle down Dennis,
I know one Chinese song by heart but if I had to read it I would be struggling and that is in Pinyin.
This is not the point I know. She loves the song she is proud that she can sing it.
Great to work with that, if you can but probably not, class sizes to big and so on.
Cheers

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

If grammar rules for example were turned into songs, would our students master them?

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Hi Denis,
Grammar rules turned into songs Hmmmm. Need to think about that. Could be a lot of songs.
I remember as a child we had such things as "i before c except after c" and some others that I can't recall. More to do with spelling but I still use it.
Cheers

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

I also had an ambarrasing momment.I taught listening and in that text,there is a phrase that is new to students "a bar of soap" but I wrote "a par of soup " instead.

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Hi Thanh,
Yes embarrrassing students will lose confidence in you fast if they pick it up. When I make spelling mistakes I cover it up by praising the students who have picked up the mistake and say, I did it on purpose to see if you were paying attention.

On Monday I was talking about the weather and temperature and drew a thermometer on the board. The student's started laughing. I caught on pretty fast why, because it looked like a penis.
I blushed and started laughing myself (hey we are all adults).
I rubbed it out and went onto clouds.

Re: Have you ever been embarrassed while teaching?
 

Hahahaha, yeah poor drawing is really embarrassing. It happens to me all the time.