I have had the image of the Harry Enfield character, Kevin the teenager, in my mind so often in the past few weeks when faced with my two temporary classes while covering for a sick colleague since March. Their default setting seems to be to assume the worst of each other and often of me.
The lower level class labelled themselves the no-hopers the very first time we met them and this is re-inforced every so often when a small group of them, asked to do something say 'Well it's no use asking me, I don't know a word of English.' They are as afraid of their peers as they are of what I might think of them. This means that they won't speak English for any length of time in front of each other so we have had to agree that they send us (the teachers) individual voice mails to have a chance of awarding them grades for oral English.
The voicemails have belied their low opinions of themselves. Some of them have gone into minute detail of their personal history and revealed information to us who are relative strangers which they would never dare to do in class. Even fairly innocuous observations such as introducing family members and saying 'I love them very much' I am sure would not be acceptable in open class discussion.
In the higher level class it is obviously not cool to study and there are also a lot of defensive reactions. Pacing over to the other side of the classroom last week I explained that I would have to repeat my instructions as they would certainly not have heard what I had said to the other group. 'Well you were too far away!.' was the immediate reaction and it took two more tries of explanation from me before they understood that I was not accusing them of not listening but coming over to help.
I am learning that if I have similar groups in the new academic year there will need to a lot of boundary setting and negotiating of norms at the beginning. For example just because they are working with internet enabled computers does not mean that they should be instant messaging with their cyberfriends. I do use chat in English teaching but normally with a specific goal in mind and also obviously in English.
But I am a little stymied about how much we have to discuss. My last session with them was delayed a while because nobody had thought to bring writing utensils and paper. It never occurred to me that I had to list paper and pencil as a pre-requisite for a class. It seems kind of obvious to me even when you are working in a computer-equipped room.
Keywords: Harry Enfield, Kevin, motivation
