He has many behaviour and attitudinal problems and makes it hard for me to teach and work with the rest of the class. His level of English is good but any progress is spoiled by his comments and lack of respect. Some of his classmates are fed up with him and others just don't pay him too much attention.
The school heads don't offer either too much information nor help on how to deal with this situation. In fact they are quite reluctant to give any type of information. I have asked other teachers about this child and all the feedback I get is negative.
Therefore I have posted this message to ask if any of you has ever experienced something like this.
I would appreciate any comments/recommended reading.
Thanks for your help
SLar
Comments
Nik Peachey
Hi Slar
This is a really difficult question and one that is very hard to answer without a lot more information. How old is the child? You say that he's an English students, but what country are you in and what nationality is he? Are you teaching him in England? What nationality are the parents?
His problems could be coming from a whole range of issues and previous experiences that have nothing to do with your class or your teaching style, so I think above all don't take this personally. It's really sad that you are getting so little support.
I think above all what you need to do is to try to build a trusting relationship with him. Bad behaviour is often caused by a need for attention, validation and appreciation and a cry for help.
You could try getting in touch with the new parents, though not to report back on bad behaviour, rather to see if you can work with them and offer them your support. They are probably having many of the same problems that you are having and ensuring that you work together in a consistent way to support this child may well help.
One thing that has helped me with badly behaved classes or kids is to use learner diaries with them. Get them to write a little about what they are doing in or out of class and then write back to them with questions and comments. This can help you to develop a one to one relationship with your students that is impossible to get in an open classroom situation and could also give your student the chance to express and share some of what must be, very confusing and frightening emotions that he's expeeriencing. For this to work though you'll have to do it with the whole class. This is very important so that the child doesn't feel that he's being singled out for punishment, and the other children don't feel that he is getting preferential treatment due to his bad behaviour and then start imitating it themselves.
I wrote an article for TE here which you can read to find out a bit more about learner diaries.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/learner-diaries
I hope this helps, but as I say, really you need to give more information, and even then without knowing and observing the child it would be very difficult to really help you out.
Good luck though and do try to be patient and understanding.
Best
Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, Trainer
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/
http://quickshout.blogspot.com/
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