This post is a sort of outline for a presentation that I am giving this weekend in 경주 for Fulbright full conferences. I would appreciate feedback on it or any other ideas. Trying to keep it short since I only have fifteen minutes to present. Sorry that the bullet points look like a mess at the bottom.

Coming to Fcon, we all have exciting stories that we want to share. Hopefully, most of this stories are positive and how your students are little angels, and that is just great to year. For some of us, our experiences are a bit "different." My school's previous ETA left me notes scattered throughout the desk and such, what stood out was that I got three warnings about the 2nd year students, specifically that they will steal prizes if you don't lock everything up. Now, I've had previous experiences being a teaching assistant in the states for ESL classes. I got a warning then too that there was a "gang mentality" amongst the students. I went to that school though, and I was labeled worse when I was a student there, long story short they were great kids, just a few of your normal angsty teenagers.

Does this look like the work of gangsters? lol

Now at my current school, these are some notes that students left for me. To give some background my second week of working at the school, students started a fire in a bathroom. This last week, a student tried to fight my co-teacher during his class. You could say that I have had an exciting time since I have been there.

My coteacher is retiring after the current semester and has burnt out on taking care of the kids, and advises me that I should give up to. But, I'm stubborn, and these kids have not pushed me as far as I have driven some of my teachers. Also, if my teachers gave up on me, I would not have gotten this far in life. So, if you feel like your students hate and or don't respect you, this is something I hope you take home with you

Do not beat yourself up!

Their behavior towards you is nine times out of ten, not about you at all! One thing that I did that changed my perspective entirely was going to other classes and see how students acted there. Guess what; they performed the same. So it wasn't my class or me, the students don't respect their teachers in general. Now, how can we begin to adjust this? Well, these are some methods that I use in my class that has been helpful.

Management:

K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid)

• When I started, I tried not having formal rules. I wanted to be a chill teacher and gave students a yellow sticky note to write a good behavior on and a pink one for bad behavior. I filtered out repeats and came up with these boards. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but without formal rules, it became difficult to manage my students.

So, I removed the boards entirely and put up a rule poster below, having these general rules have helped reduce problems a bit because students understand the rules more clearly.

Then, I have these pumpkins. Three to start the class when a rule is broken (asking to listen or to be quiet three times), I pull one, and we read the rules altogether. If I remove one, I don't give a reward to the whole class for good behavior, pull two, no game, pull three, no one gets to talk anymore.

Use a Seating Chart

Learn Names

*The single most useful thing to help manage students is by learning their names, which in large part is where the seating chart comes in handy.

Reward good behavior

*I use a made-up money system to reward good behavior, what students can buy with the money is below

Be consistent

• Being consistent with both rewarding and punishing students is important so they can understand what behavior is expected of them.

Cultivation positive relationships with students:

Common Hobbies

• One way that I interact with students outside of class is at the gym and by playing sports

Club Classes

Being Supportive

• This extends to even when I punish students, knowing that I am not punishing them to just be a jerk. But that I care.

Reaching out to Problem Students/Bullies

Communicate with your coteacher/homeroom teachers

They know the students best and if they can help you understand if a student is having a bad time or not.

Split up students/ rearrange seating charts

• Place those students upfront. Other teachers approach with problem students is to send them out of class. I take the opposite approach, going back to trying to be supportive. I hate sending kids out cause it sends a message that you don't care about them and I have been sent out of class before so I know how it feels.

Nip it in the bud

• In a tactful way.

But the last thing to remember in this kind of situation is

Do not Give up!

Becuase you will eventually find your own way of dealing with students, I don't even have it completly figured out.

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