The students are the boss.

[Confuzius]

My adult classes are ALWAYS lovely. I have had one bad one and thats cus the book sucked, so I am ditching that book.

My students are super responsive, fun and playful. I do have to gulp down a lot of coffee before each class to make sure I am super animated and chatty, that seems to really help to get them involved and responsive. Most of my classes are filled with 20 something college girls, dunno if that makes a difference. But even my business english classes to 30-40 something dudes are really fun and engaged.

Sorry for your bad experience.

[tomthorne]

Seconded. Teaching adults here is great. They really want to get involved and are up for anything. They also have a lot of interests outside the classroom. This has always been my experience in 7 years teaching adults here.

They are also a hundred times better than teaching bloody kids , although they require a lot more preparation.

[Arteta]

When I was in school and the teacher asked an obvious question nobody ever answered. I always figured it was because people were embarassed to answer because by doing so you're agreeing that it's a reasonable question and that you just happen to know the answer, so they're worried that other people will think they're stupid. Or at least this is the way I felt.
People tend to answer the questions that other's may not know the answer to, so they can show off a little. It does not surprise me that children in other cultures act the same way.

It may not be helpful for the children not to answer, but you're not going to change their natural reactions. I'd suggest telling them the answers to these and then gear up to questions where genuinely only a few of them may know.

I'm not a teacher though and I've had 0 teaching experience, so I could be massively wrong, but I have been a student for my entire life.

[bob]

They are "adults," though by the sound of it likely quite young adults.

[Arteta]

They are "adults," though by the sound of it likely quite young adults.

Well even now in my 20's if the teacher asked what was the big event that happened yesterday, I wouldn't want to be the one that puts their hand up and says "Sir, I know, the Queen died!". If the answer was truly obvious then people won't want to answer it. It may not even be logical, but that's not the point; people subconsciously subscribe to that sort of reaction.

EDIT: Subscribe, not Subscript. Maybe I'm not fit to teach English

[tomthorne]

They are "adults," though by the sound of it likely quite young adults.

Well even now in my 20's if the teacher asked what was the big event that happened yesterday, I wouldn't want to be the one that puts their hand up and says "Sir, I know, the Queen died!". If the answer was truly obvious then people won't want to answer it. It may not even be logical, but that's not the point; people subconsciously subscript to that sort of reaction.

This is a fair point. You can't expect people to answer completely unnatural questions. "Did you hear about..." would be better.

[Puppet]

Based off the news reporting on TV, it wouldn't surprise me if they thought the biggest news story in the world involves a kitten playing with yarn on youtube.

[bohlinghaus]

At my school it is the same. The owners will sacrifice those kids who at least try to those who do not give a damn and do all they can to disrupt everything.

But maybe it is just location. I have been told by teachers either currently in or who have taught in Taipei that tomfoolery is not tolerated.

I have seen my teacher/parent communications edited for me. In fact I have been told not to put anything negative on the communication and not to check individual answers on tests, only to give a passing score. Even on level up tests. I have heard the minimum score is 80%, and every student must be given that score. No matter what. As a result, there are kids who have been through several semesters at this school who know maybe 10 words in English and use only one.
I have not, but my assistant has been told by students that their parents pay money and they can do what they please and nothing we can do about it. The owners do not have our backs on this and any attempt to try and correct the issue will only get shot down. And then the owners blame the lack of real progress on the teachers. But this has a cute way of backfiring.

Once the company was sitting in on one of my classes, and watching me through the cameras, and wrote that I was doing fine. The owners balked, and the company rep stuck to their guns and stated in Chinese, in front of the parents, that the teachers were doing their jobs, maybe it was the students. Since then, the teachers have been forbidden to speak to the company without a manager present.

To me this seems that the parents are getting ripped off. But I do not think they care (the parents). They need a place to dump their kids after school, so, just cringe and take in the back side. Which they in turn make the owners take it, who make the teachers take it.

One of the scofflaws in my class, his mother is intent he goes to an Ivy league school in America. I laughed so hard I started crying. He is 12, so I put up a bunch of math that he should know at that age and given that Taiwan seems to out score American kids on these math tests, he could not do it. Simple math fractions, very basic algebra and geometry. He could not do it. Even the Chinese speaking assistant could not get him to do it. I am still laughing.

Its in my contract not to use recording devices, and while I judge the validity of the contract, its best to keep my nose clean.

[TaiwanVisitor12321]

I guess I just can't get around the fact that these people pay me to teach them English and then sit there and do NOTHING unless I hold their little widdle hands every single step of the way. They can do "hi" and maybe "Good afternoon" without help. These are supposedly people with years of English education.

My classes are supposedly a discussion. I guess I don't know why they have zero motivation and don't ask me questions about the day's topic or vocabulary, don't want to get to know a new person by asking me questions.... hell, even be polite by saying HI when I walk into the room.

I'd really like to see these school where you guys are finding motivated students. At my school any motivated student is hated by the other students for wasting class time by talking in their discussion class. I have students that walk out of the class when they see who I would consider a good student in my class. I also have some horrible people that just do their best to ignore everyone else and dominate my time as much as possible. Nobody complains about them.

Once I had four new students in a business English class. Nobody else was there yet. None of them had the book, and none of them would speak to me.

"Hey guys"
...silence...
"Hello?"
...silence...
"Do any of you have the business book?"
...silence...
"What kind of work do you do? If you don't have the book I suppose we can chat about business that goes on in your lives"
...silence...

Are they mentally retarded? I mean really, what do they expect from me in this kind of situation? Nobody is prepared for class, or ANYTHING and they just stare at me.

Shortly after this exchange a regular student showed up, and I just did the class with him and ignored all the other weirdos. The regular invited them to share his book and take part in the class but they told him they wanted to "practice listening", which is code for "I'm too scared to do anything because my mommy isn't here". Keep in mind, these are businessmen.

[Whole Lotta Lotta]

One thing you have to realize at many Buxibans in Taiwan is that you are not really a teacher. You are a Customer Service Representative.