It’s a busy day if you’re an English teacher in Japan. You might have four lessons, so you race to your classroom. They’re a good bunch of students and are always happy to see you. You crack open the door to the familiar faces and take your spot at the front of the room. As the bell rings, you call out “Good morning!” with all the cheer you’ve got.
They reply with a tired, monotonous “Good morning.”
Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good. Time to recover with a cheerful “How are you?” They give you back a weak “okay.” Yikes! What’s going on here? Where’s all the energy? Your students sound like they’re half asleep! Is this how the entire class is going to go?
Unfortunately, yes. Sometimes this will be your experience. It’s inevitable that at some point you’ll run into an unmotivated or low-energy class. At that point, trying to soldier on is just excruciating for everyone involved. You don’t want dead silence in response to your questions, so what can you do?
Why Are My Classes Unmotivated?
It’s probably the first question that comes to mind—why are these students unmotivated? If you knew that, it’d be easier to deal with the root cause, right? But sometimes that root cause won’t be something you can do anything about.
Sometimes the class before was a bit of a drag. We’ve all had those long, boring classes that seem to go on forever. Unfortunately, that attitude gets carried into your class too. Maybe they’ve just had a really grueling PE lesson, and the fatigue is catching up to them. All their energy was spent, so there’s not much left for your class.
Sometimes students are just too cool for school. They’re not here for all your jumping around and games. They want to chill in their chairs and feel above it all. None of those reasons is your fault, but you have to work with it. So here are some of our best tips for getting the most out of these classes.
Stand Up!
Click here to read more.
- External Link
- https://gaijinpot.com/
27 Comments
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3RENSHO
Geeky man-bun...check! Department-store suit purchased off the rack...check! Straggly facial hair...check! (And so now I am looking forward to junior high school girls fawning over me...)
餓死鬼
Maybe they were up at the crack of dawn and had to cross seven seas, answer three riddles and slay a dragon just to get to school. They may have three hours of club, two hours of juku, one of piano, Nova, five hours of homework and a partridge in a pear tree to look forward to after school is over. If they’re high schoolers, they probably have a test or ten the next day, classes on Saturday and no summer vacation.
SDCA
Spot on! This is all prep work for when they become a shakaijin and now bosses are wondering Why Are My **Employees Unmotivated?**
starpunk
Maybe they're tired of being talked to like they were several grades younger. And also, maybe they're just tired of all the rinky-dink 'Mickey Mouse' atmosphere of the class. They may find it to be insulting. I find 'motivational speakers'/lecturers to be just that for the most part.
Chabbawanga
unmotivated is still better than shooting each other imo.
Redemption
When I taught at a high school in Oita my problem was that I was too motivated. I think it really stressed out some of the students. On the other hand, I was able to start an English club and then you can really find motivated students and try different teaching methods.
Chabbawanga
It means - wouldnt it be nice if the biggest issue in all schools across the world was a lack of motivation.
Paustovsky
How meta is the main photo ?
I would wager my house he wears yukata around town on a summer's Friday night.
mikeylikesit
What’s the fundamental problem leading to low motivation? Getting kids to stand up and tossing in a few other whistle-and-bell techniques isn’t teaching. It’s just more song-and-dance, superficial window dressing that may work once or twice, but it isn’t going to sustain students motivation and progress over the long run.
Students need a teaching approach that sparks in them curiosity about new things, challenges them to puzzle through problems, gives meaningful feedback to their meaningful attempts, and helps them connect new things to what they already know. Kids will be curious if made to stand up when they expect to sit, but they will sink into even deeper apathy if what follows is more of the same explanation and drilling devoid of meaningful context.
EvilBuddha
Ask Jeremy Brown as to how he managed.
Blacklabel
Every manbun wearer I have ever met in Japan was an English teacher or a backpacker who wants to teach English in Japan someday.
wallace
Never even seen a single foreigner with a "manbun".
yokohamarides
Good luck with that.
nero
JET and the whole English teaching thing is a massive scam. How can the government or anyone keep splurging into these when even until today barely anyone speak English ? These are just vanity projects to bring le exotic hakujin into the country.
Legrande
JET was a concession the J govt made amidst the trade wars of the 1980's.
At this point most people recognize it has not really succeeded at raising English proficiency in Japan.
tora
Friar chuck away the text book. Then get them outside for a project. In the most simple project, they would have to find an interesting spot and describe it (based on a sample you provided in class) and then come back and give a short presentation in groups, peer marked. Even extremely "low" level students (whatever that means) can do this. The question is whether the administration actually wants learning to take place or not (that was rhetorical).
theResident
'Manbun' wearers are only to be teachers, backpackers or surfers. There were 2 in my pub yesterday, spliiting a small bill item by item. Sad.
theResident
@wallace - Prob not in your neck of the woods. Plenty in Tokyo.
tora
What the... Are man buns??
wallace
theResident
I have lived in several places including Tokyo. These days I don't even see many foreigners.
Blacklabel
I got 10 downvotes so there must be 10 offended manbun lovers on this site alone.
theResident
@wallace : No dispute, and I'm sure you have, but they're pretty damn popular here now.