just had a wicked shitty class. 22 kids in terminale, the last level before the big baccalaureate test. so they're all about 17 or 18 and bored with school and life in general. this age group has its plusses and minuses.
plus: they're old enough to know a good amount of english and carry on a decent conversation.
minus: some of them really stink at english, even though it's their main subject.
plus: they're old enough to behave, for the most part.
minus: they're too old to be surprised or thrilled at anything i say, resulting in boredom.
plus: they're not as antsy as the younger kids.
minus: they're bitchier.
this morning's class was awful. they were rude, talked the whole time i was talking, and what made it worse was that the teacher (who was in the room with me) kept yelling at them to show me some respect and shut up and be quiet. i think this made it worse. god, i felt like i was babysitting. AND i had to talk about thanksgiving, which is relatively boring for ME, let alone them.
my usual tactics in small groups when kids are losing interest or misbehaving is to start asking goofy, random questions like "hey, you, what's your shoe size?" being impromptu and silly sometimes keeps them occupied enough to keep guessing what i'm going to come up with next.
the entire class today was girls (except for a lone, silent dude in the back with a major afro who, for some reason, i always see on the city bus), and many of these girls are ... spoiled bitches. they say things about me under their breath in french, which sucks because i don't know what they're saying so i can't really tell them to fuck off (in my nice way, of course).
all in all, shit like this doesn't really bother me anymore; i've moved beyond getting upset if people are snickering about me. what i have the hardest time with, though, is keeping a class occupied without resorting to getting all flustered or annoyed or yelling at anyone. when no one in my classes cares about being there, it rubs off on me. i don't care, either. but i can't dismiss class 25 minutes early, so i have to figure out ways to fix this. in smaller groups i can waste a good 15, 20 minutes asking each kid about their weekend or their family or whatever, leaving me 35-45 minutes to get through a lesson. when i'm in front of a huge class, it's an entirely different story.
some of my smaller classes are 5 or 6 kids, which is perfect... others are up to 15, which is hard. i'm like an expensive babysitter. calgon, take me away.