I don’t need to come to the beginning of the class
Students arriving late to class are a common and serious
problem for teachers. The most important part of any class is usually the beginning
and the end. At the beginning the class is set up by the teacher. He recaps
what was done in the previous class and connects to his plans for the activities
for the day. If a student misses the beginning he generally doesn’t know what is going on in
the entire class for that day. Eventually such a student may turn into a ‘problem’
for the teacher. He may become a complainer and invariably he blames everybody
but himself for his poor performance!
It is difficult to know what to do as a teacher. I use a
carrot and stick approach which varies according to the circumstances. I generally try berating the latecomers with jokes
and sarcasm etc-but sometimes this is not appropriate as not all cultures
appreciate sarcasm. Sometimes sarcasm does not work and may even backfire badly!
If I have a persistent group of latecomers in a class I generally
try to create an activity which is not essential to the days work. However, if
this happens too often, the students who do come on time justifiable feel
short-changed by this approach as they realise I am effectively ‘waiting’ for the latecomers to
arrive. In the end , they too may start to arrive late!
I sometimes refuse to give latecomers the days
instructions-although this may mean they are a pain in the neck for everyone
including the teacher during the class. I certainly don’t repeat the
instructions every 5 minutes as each cohort of latecomers arrives! Some teachers
just ask the latecomers to get their instructions for that particular days
class from their peers in the class. But this approach also can upset the
law-abiding peers!
It is a thorny problem for which I have really little more to suggest except to play it by ear with each
class.
Many cultures do not value punctuality in the way Anglo
culture does in Australia.
Our initial reaction may be to apply some form of sanction-but of course
the managers of programs in Australia are
loathe to do that because they do not want to upset their paying customers! Students
may complain to agents who put pressure on recruiters who then put pressure on managers
etc. eventually.
It is easier for a manager to berate a teacher who is the
subject of complaint than to take on (a group of) recalcitrant latecomers with the agent.
Inevitably, like many other things–this problem is therefore
often thrown back to the teacher. I have not yet found a universal method of
dealing with it. To compound the problem teachers often won’t admit to the problem because they think the
latecoming reflects on their teaching competence.
Another reason for the persistent lateness is that many
students believe that they don’t need to be in class to pass. One reason for
this is that they don’t really want to be in the class (their parents want them
to attend and / or are paying). Another is that they overestimate their
language competence and think it doesn’t matter at what time they turn up–they will
pass anyway.
It is easier with school-age students. In Colombia where
punctuality was a notorious problem I was famous for locking the door five minutes
after the class started. This caused a furore at the time but there was little the
students could do about it as I was the Head of discipline and the Vice-Principal
of the College! However, many schools would not permit such an approach by the teacher
and/or don’t have lockable classroom doors.
One can never be too careful with regard to cultural sensitivities.
I thought locking the door in Colombia was a joke at the time (32 years ago) but I recently
contacted a student on Facebook who I had taught and one of the first things she brought up in our
correspondence was me locking her out of the classroom one day!
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