[livinginkorea]

I made the mistake of not being strict in my first few classes. I was totally unprepared especially in the whole area of discipline. They walked all over me.

Everytime a newbie asks me for teaching tips I always stress that you have to be a total hard *** for the first couple of weeks until the kids realise that you are the boss. After the (battle) lines have been drawn then you can relax and be yourself. Do it the other way around and you are up against it.

-livinginkorea

[emile]

i made this mistake too. After going from teaching at a language school to teaching at a government school once a week (in Turkey), I got the shock of my life. The kids were so badly behaved. The local teachers used to smack them about, and even that didn't always work.

[little sage]

My biggest mistake is that I used to think I couldn't take the local language (for me, here, Korean) out of the classroom. I taught kids and I expected so little from them, I wanted them to speak only English, but I didn't know how to enforce that rule. I thought it would be impossible to create an English-only environment. It took me over a year to figure out that a simple reward system works wonders.

ANYWAY, in the meantime, I resorted to using some Korean in class myself. This was an idiotic idea. Once, while playing cards with a group of 6 year olds, I wanted to say "good job/ well done" (jal-hae-sseo) to the kid who had won. Instead I said "you show off" (jal-lla-sseo). Thank God they laughed.

I think I'll sift through my 13,000 other mistakes and try to find a good one now.

Karen

[deon]

I have heard that quite a bit but I have a hard time being a hard a$$ - not that I can't be a b!tch at times but I find myself being more frustrated than anything. But I have only taught one week so far. Wanjan (Monday- hey, I am trying) I am going beyond introduction 'warmers' and using a "lesson plan" ACK *good nauture grin*

Quote livinginkorea

I made the mistake of not being strict in my first few classes. I was totally unprepared especially in the whole area of discipline. They walked all over me.

Everytime a newbie asks me for teaching tips I always stress that you have to be a total hard *** for the first couple of weeks until the kids realise that you are the boss. After the (battle) lines have been drawn then you can relax and be yourself. Do it the other way around and you are up against it.

-livinginkorea