4.08.2010

"Mentally challenged".

I have one B class that borders on retarded. And I don't mean, as in their English is quite low. I have a lot of classes full of students who can't even read English. They aren't borderline retarded. This class is. It's like giving directions to a flock of some kind of extremely slow moving large bird. They just blink at you. Slowly. If they can even be bothered to react that much. The Korean teacher tries to explain it in Korean, thinking maybe they haven't understood. They still just sit there looking only mildly interested in the fact that they are alive. I walk around and start all of the examples for them, ask them questions to prove that they understand what's going on, ask them if they can finish -- they nod. I walk away. They sit there, staring abstractly into the middle distance, tongues lolling.

Are you fucking kidding me?

So we had a little read-aloud today. Everyone got to read their assignments in front of the entire class. Just because I'm tired of this fucking bullshit out of them.

I can tolerate just about anything in the classroom at this point without coming even close to losing my cool. Personal attacks on my intelligence, sexually harrassing disrespectful comments. Whatever. The one thing that just really fucking makes me want to break a chair over a student's head is just being flatout ignored. What are you supposed to do with a class who just sit there and stare at you and refuse to even pretend to be working?

Bring in candy, of course! The mountains of EFL wisdom rang out in reply.

Fuck that shit. I'm not rewarding a shitty fucking attitude with something no one over the age of four should be getting so damn exicted over. We'll just keep reading everything aloud for as long as it takes for them to realize that they're going to be really fucking embarrassed in a minute if they don't just do the damn the assignment. Little shits.

And yes, I am in a badass mood today. Thank you for asking.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL.

I so get this post.

You're a smart cookie, cookie.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot said...

When people piss me off I like the "stand there and stare at them until they get uncomfortable and then stare at them some more until they get really creeped out and then keep staring until they collapse into a drooling mass of horror and shame" approach.

I'm no Picasso said...

That's a good method for EFL students, actually. Since our actual speaking tends to sound like funny cartoon talk in their ears more often than not.

CeilingofStars said...

Ugh girl...I have the same problem. Except my classes are all mixed so it's usually just 1-5 students like this per class. It's getting to the point where I think it works out for the best if I just ignore the retarded student and work with the rest of them. It's not like there's much I could do in that situation, anyway.