I think I shall give up my job

In a way, I am a better teacher than I have ever been. I am very comfortable in front of a class (unless they are being riotous) and I know my stuff very well. I am pretty good at planning a lesson. I feel that the students trust me.

But there are aspects of the job that I hate. One of them is to do with retention. The teachers are leaned on very hard to make sure that all the students take their exams before they leave. This is sometimes impossible, for example, in the case of bereavements - usually one or two a year have to suddenly return to Germany (etc.) in tears and never return. But sometimes it is simply a matter of making a students prioritise the exam over their job, and this is where bullying comes in. I am not a bully. I do not spend 15 minutes in the corridor with a student pushing her into telling her boss that she cannot do her job on a certain day because she has an exam. Especially when she is clearly scared of letting someone down and promises to come on another occasion for the exam. I would rather try to find another session for the "mop-ups".

Even though my boss does it with a kind look on his face, he is actually a bully, and what's more, I think he knows that I think so, just as I know he thinks I am far too soft.

I also hate the meaningless target-setting and the ILP's. I don't like the fact that to get the funding, all the students have to do an exam that means nothing outside the UK. OK, it's an exam, but it has no kudos. I look at the reading test and I think that some questions are unfair - impossible to teach to. I have a degree in English Language and Literature and I can't answer correctly some of the Level 1 reading test questions. The answers are mysterious to me. That shouldn't happen, but I am afraid the tests are not set as carefully as they should be, or indeed, as they used to be.

I like teaching but it's the other stuff - the endless box ticking - and covering our backs for the inspections - that bother me. Most weeks I am thinking: I can't really be bothered with this any more, and I find it weird that my colleagues love it, and will spend hours trying to decide whether to award one mark for pronunciation or not.

Beginning teaching again

I have begun teaching and stopped several times and I'm not scared, but I am nervous and I keep scratching my arm - sign of nerves coming out as eczema.

When I first started teaching the First Certificate Class I had a student who was very noisy and dominant. A dominant student always wants to be a rival to the teacher. The first thing she did that irritated me was her noisy breakfast. She would bring in a can of coke and a pastry from Gregg's for her breakfast and make a great parade of tearing the bag and opening the can, and I asked her to not make such a loud noise with it all. She was not supposed to eat of drink in class at all and eventually I said that she would have to eat her breakfast before she came into the class because it was so disturbing. She acted as though I had infringed her human rights. What a sulk she went into! I ignored it. Then came the day that I criticized her speaking. I told her about mistakes in word order and in omitting articles, and using the wrong prepositions. She just didn't believe me. She was so used to people telling her that she spoke great English, because she was fluent, but there were a lot of mistakes in there and she did not accept that. (She was very proud of the fact that she was engaged to an English man and very excited about her wedding). After that speaking assessment she was even more insulted with me and she decided to talk all the way through all my lessons - I taught that class for three hours a day. She had a pal who was also a big sulker and together they formed a partnership that would not answer any of my questions and behaved as though I wasn't there.

I really couldn't decide what to do. She had paid for the lessons - they all had, and they were preparing for an exam and it was my job to make sure they were ready. For two months I just carried on teaching the ones who were good, marking their homework and so on, and trying to ignore the hostile ones. I used to dread going into work. Then one day I walked in after the break and found that there was a conflict going on. A young Spanish man was telling the noisy girl that she was ruining the class, and after that she left the class and didn't come back until the exam. Phew!

(When she came back for the exam she arrived with the famous fiance. He looked about 15 and was about half her size.)

Anyway I decided I had made the wrong decision with that student, and next time I would nip any such behaviour in the bud as soon as it started. The next class I was assigned was an advanced class and I was rather excited about all the interesting things we could do because of their higher level of English and the fact that they were not an exam class. But on the second or third day a student came in who ignored me completely and talked to the rest of the class as though I wasn't there. She talked throughout the lesson in spite of me asking her direct questions and asking her to listen. So after the class I tackled her and said: why do you come to the lessons if you are just going to talk? She said: "I don't need lessons. I have a job in Boot's! I am only here for the Visa." She was very proud that she had a job in Boot's. (All the students needed to attend classes for 15 hours a week because they were on student Visas.) So I thought about this and how the agony would go on and on if I didn't stop her behaviour. So I went and told the Director of Studies about her. Ida could be lovely but she could put people right down. Ida came and fetched the young woman out of my class the next day. She tore her off a strip and the woman came back in floods of tears. She had clearly been humiliated and she blamed me for this. So Ida put her in another class.

Was the result good? No. The whole class hated me. They sat and stared at me for an hour and half every day and refused to answer any questions. I couldn't make them write, either. After the break they all left except Magda. I ended up just teaching Magda. My life was still horrible, apart from the time the Hungarian came on holiday. He took lessons for 2 weeks as part of his holiday. He loved my lessons and was really enthusiastic. Apart from Magda, that was the only nice part, for three months.

So there you are. What was the better decision? I don't know.

Also, people think that teaching adults is easy. The fact is, they don't always behave like adults.

Crash

It is the third week of term and I have been working hard and steadily, but today I feel it has all caught up with me and I feel so tired!, And I find myself thinking about the students. what is it like to be a Thai bride? what is it like to be an Estonian care worker? are they treated fairly? Some of my students are unemployed, past middle age, and are getting depressed. The faces come into my mind one after another.

I saw a programme about the NHS last night and the GP who was featured was an absolute star. She saw so many patients in a day - more than 40, without losing her professional manner or her judgment. I simply couldn't do that day after day. The NHS is full of workhorses like that who keep going even when the people they see are pretty hopeless. They care. there was also a wonderful middle aged nurse who tested the homeless for TB, taking the mobile X-ray unit wherever the homeless gather, and seeing all the saddest cases, but cheerfully asking what kind of noxious substances they'd been taking and giving out pairs of clean socks. She was exactly like the midwives in Call the Midwife, but older and wiser.

what a strange society we are, some so strong and some so unable to cope.