Mine is not as great because I �ve just finished checking my students � exam and in one of the classes I have unsatisfactory grades. In Turkey, it is below 45/100. This is the first time I have a student with such a low grade, my students are not that bad actually. However, I have major discipline problems lately. They ignore me and they don �t care about any punishment I give. They don �t even care when I have some fun activities to do, they refuse to participate. They just speak to each other, sleep etc. They �ve lost the motivation and I don �t know what to do. Plus, the class average is really low this time, like 60, most probably because of these problems. But now, I have to give a full report about the analysis of the exam to my department head. I don �t know what to say and I �m really upset right now. The management of the school and the parents really care about the grades, they need to know the reason and I don �t know what to tell them.

I �m just in my second year in teaching and this year has been really frustrating for me. Experienced teachers in our site, can you help me?

Here in Ukraine, I �ve heard it multiple times: there are no bad students, there are bad teachers.

What can I say, I think it �s a general tendency among young people worldwide. They seem to be not interested in learning, sometimes they find ways to trick the teacher out of a good grade by cheating, but do they care for knowledge? Obviously not. They have their needs met, they �ve got gadgets of all kinds so they think they �re smart, and they have other stuff to entertain themselves with.

I myself am struggling with discipline issues in class. There are good days and bad days... And just like you, I sometimes lose heart, especially if put a lot of effort and spend hours preparing something to engage them and they would just laugh it off or not pay much attention. 

Just don �t let it get to you. Do your best and keep their written work (like homework, dictations or wss they do in class) in this way you will be able to show your management how much effort was spent on your part and how much on theirs.

BTW you are not alone:) Check older forum posts and you �ll see other teachers who struggle with ss who lack discipline.

All the best to you,

Sophia

Edit: if you would like some tips, maybe this could help

http://busyteacher.org/8995-top-10-tips-deal-with-indiscipline-in-classroom.html

http://busyteacher.org/6943-teachers-top-10-ways-to-motivate-students.html

http://busyteacher.org/3575-how-to-communicate-with-parents.html

http://busyteacher.org/3573-classroom-behavior-tips.html

http://busyteacher.org/6064-keep-your-cool-tips-handling-difficult-students.html

http://busyteacher.org/7764-how-to-handle-disruptive-students.html

As you enter the classroom you go directly to the board and stick a huge paper with their names on it, kind of like a chart, where they can see their names written. Explain that as you have to report to your superior about the behavior and performance of theirs in class, you don �t want to miss a detail so that chart will be on the board every class and you �ll be ticking the people who misbehave and the ones who deserve good marks too. 

I wrote things like :  use cell phone in class / speak with classmate when teacher talks / no homework / swear / be the class clown / pay attention / answer when teacher asks / bring homework / engage in activities / and so on ... It was a big chart, I had to fold it in six I guess for me to carry it but it worked for them . When they started seeing their names written on the paper, after 15 or 20 min I �d say, I could work rather "normally" in that class ... The next class the first thing they asked when I got there was whether or not I had brought my chart with me again !! I had some parents come and complain about their kids � marks so with the chart in hand I let them see how he/she had behaved in my class, they understood that education begins at home, that teachers need a helping hand from home to deal with sts . Good luck ironik!

I understood perfectly the situations; probably you did not pay attention to my words- I wrote at the end . for the future; which means my adivice was for the years to come!also, I told her possible reasons to be reported-))))

I have something similar to Alicia �s, but as I am kind of witch for these students who misbehave, I have  a little thing different - they also miss their break and stay in the classroom with some extra work; no matter if they don �t have their English books, ( they tried it, too ) I have already opened a book of History or Science, for example, and told them" Your extra task is to copy this. ". Believe me, after a while, it works. Obviously, some now and then some parents complain, but, they never go to far, when they see the evidences. 

One thing, if you decide to do the same, I always let them eat their lunch, so that parents can �t complain the poor little ones were obliged to stay a whole morning with their bellies empty.

We are facing a general rush to retirement, here in Portugal, but this is not the worst, we are having some suicides among teachers - any country caring for their working members would stop and think. What �s wrong? Why do teachers go away, why do they decide to suicide... 

I �m leaving, my grandson is having a bday party - he is two. I do hope he will live in a much better country, when he is the age to understand things around.

Linda

in my opinion there is no �correct answer � to your question, anyway I would give you several suggestions you could try.

First, you could try to explain about the problem with the discipline and mention the major problematic students (if you observe carefully you would notice that there are only 2-3 students that create problems and the other students just follow them). Probably, the major fault is yours, but you �d better not point it out. Why don �t you focus on strategies to get your discipline and results better, while writing the report. Concentrate on the positive rather than the negative. Secondly, results are not the most important in TESL. Do not worry about this so much that to feel guilty or bad. Try to have good time with your students, they will appreciate it. At the same time introduce 4-5 important rules for you, that your students must follow. Think carefully what would you like to change in your classroom and convert it to a rule. Ss that don �t follow your rules would have lawer result on the exam or something similar.

Anyway, preapring your report, DO NOT feel guilty, mention different strategies you have tried to use in order to solve the problem. You are not the only teacher suffering this problem. Cheer up! :)))

Good luck

 Teddy

Cheer up, dear friends. Perhaps one day things will change.

 

My best wishes

Yolanda

I guess I just need some time to maintain that and if you had any suggestions for appeareance, posture and stuff I �d be more than grateful. In the meantime, of course I �ll keep trying and reading about different strategies, if my dep.head doesn �t kill me this time