Dealing with After School Classes

I run a special English after school class that doesn't have any cool name at all. It's just called English Conversation After school class. These classes are actually clubs and, unfortunately if you work in the countryside, it's highly likely that the kids were placed in your club as a result of not being able to decide what to do.
You will most likely be running the entire 45min/class yourself. (Middle school)

I only had about 12 students this time and 10 for the first semester. I've had 2 students sign up voluntarily each time for this club. One decided my club would be movies and games all the time and signed up before anyone asked what club he'd want to join. Two others were forced coerced in because English is their best subject. One joined because he enjoyed my last winter camp.

That's just random fact, but it give you a bit of background about the students that you may end up with too. I am not the one to be showing movies that I haven't pre-screened and playing a bunch of random games that I don't make a lesson out of. So, there have been quite a few days that I felt like an English club in the countryside just isn't worth it.

"Game game! we want a game!" Well you know what? My kind of games that enrich English learning include, Clue, Guess Who, Where's Waldo, Scattergories, Pictionary, etc. Do you see where I'm going? The crappy part is that most of the students are not good enough at using adjectives, describing situations or vocabulary. 0.0  Yea, I know.

Well, of course many of the students complained about not playing games. We did play but they were just bad in the beginning so I stopped it. We ended up doing a bunch of drills and learning cultural things instead. After they got the hang of making more sentences and describing things we did play games again. We also played Life and Monopoly because I love those games. 

One student, the third grader, that volunteered for my club, tried hard to not pay attention and get the other students to follow in his footsteps. I know about some of his family problems and academic problems so for weeks I tried to reason with him and get him on track and give him extra, then none then some attention, but then I realized something. I am not like the people on those forums complaining that they can't get students in line due to cultural differences. I was raised in a different kind of household. 

The whole 형 system won't be working with me. I am the  and that means my word should be final. From that point on I decided to punish any kid that listened to 형 after my distinct orders. If I said be quiet, sit down and get ready, 형 would tell them to engage in conversation with him and move to sit by him. I made them write lines, etc. Soon, only one boy would listen to 형 and I decided that he could be ignored along with 형(whom I'd just started ignoring). That kid isn't as strong as 형 and ended up begging to be left alone so that he could just follow my rules.

Unfortunately 형 and I could not get on the same page and he had to leave my club for good. Actually, this decision was made by my coT because she felt there were too many misunderstandings. Kids will be kids and interpret what they want if it gives them a certain outcome. I wrote this entry so that people know something. Children must have some sort of order and discipline. This goes across all cultures and languages. Letting them be disrespectful or disruptive with no consequences makes them win each time and soon no student will be on your field.



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Will make a relationship blog soon.