My bad student stayed awake and actually did something resembling classwork, albeit all he did was draw pictures. Unfortunately, no one was there to see it, except a woman staring through the window.

I also got a compliment that I only get once each year.

Today was open classes at the school where I work. This means that if we teach first year anything we usually get observers.

The class with my bad student had no observers, except a woman who stared longingly through the window. My bad student got an assignment paper and then put his head down on it. I woke him up and explained the assignment and he seemed to have fun drawing pictures–the assignment required students to make a fake photo album and write a conversation. He drew some of the pictures but didn’t write the conversation. He did this whilst his classmates performed their conversations with their fake photo albums

In the afternoon, I had four observers. Unfortunately for them, they got watch the writing phase of the fake photo album, but didn’t get to see the actual performances. This meant a good portion of the class involved the students speaking Japanese and me running around helping people and putting out fires.

I’m sure the observers were befuddled, but they got to see real class. I don’t modify what I do for observations and that means that timing is everything. I do add a little bit of extra energy and I wear a tie, which usually earns me one compliment/reaction.

I won’t get another complement until next year.

No one was really interested, and I can’t say I was that interested either, but everything actually kind of worked out in the end.

Today all of my classes were either classes that are already turning bad or classes that won’t have class at all next week as they are going on school trips. This means that none of them were that interested in doing much.

As such, I either gave them a writing assignment to start, one to finish, or a review class. The writing assignment started slowly, but by the end, after much patrolling by me, everyone managed to produce something.

The one to finish actually finished early, with only one pair getting it horribly wrong.

The review class started out slowly, especially as it’s a lower level class that seems incapable of 1) understanding that they were reviewing something they’d already studied and 2) would look back one page in their textbooks to get examples.

By the end of class, though, they’d all managed to finish the assignment and I kept busy checking their work.

Next time I’ll owe them a game of some sort.

My students assure me my bad student is bad in all his classes, but often in different ways.

Today, my bad first year junior high school student finally gave in to boredom and fell asleep. I kept waking him up, which annoyed him.

I also asked the other students if he was like that in other classes. They said he was bad, but chatty in other classes which means what he’s doing in my class is an act. This means the devils of my worse nature are stretching and getting ready for a useless battle.

Today, my students were preparing conversations/presentations for Friday when parents will probably arrive. (Actually, Saturday will be the busiest day, but a few mothers and grandparents will show up for my classes.) My worst student did nothing other than use his textbook as pillow.

At  the end of class I told him that if he fell asleep again I’d take his chair and make him stand/sit on the floor and that I had no problem doing that in front of parents. (Note: in my time at the school where I work I’ve been seen shouting at students; sending students out into the hall; and thrown high school students out of class during observations.)

My bad student responded by shrieking as he was being stabbed. I responded by shrieking even louder. This surprised him and I reminded him that I’d take his chair. He snarked off at me, in English (See you; good bye) and left.

Next class, depending on how many parents are around, I’ll encourage him to get involved and slowly try to set him off. Eventually he will explode and all the sympathy will be mine.

My techniques are not mature, but they can be effective.