Wednesday 18^th April, 2018 2000

Today was going well until shortly after 1010 when I took my second class of the day. The topic was Fake and Shoddy Goods, in fact a topic I quite enjoy normally, having in my time bought both at times, sometimes knowingly, others not.

So after beginning the class with a light-hearted where were you last week because I came and you didn't? I posed the question ”What does fake mean?”

Nothing.

Now please understand these are not English majors so I cut them plenty of slack, I don't expect wonders. Please also understand I do not take the Mickey out of wrong answers, nor do I castigate anyone for giving one – I would rather have twenty wrong answers than none at all.

But none was what I got.

Now I know my class is not part of their normal curriculum and I have taken pains to tell them if they don't want to come then I would rather they didn't. So there is no excuse that they were forced to be there, they were not.

You may believe I was harsh but I am fed up with doing 99% of the talking when it should be 10% with them taking up the remainder. God, I would be happy with 60/40! All I got was lap-gazing.

Time to make a stand.

As an ex salesman, I know all about the “who speaks first loses” ploy in closing, equally it should work in reverse in this situation, no? I get an answer or we sit in silence.

Having embarked on this action I could hardly back down.

The class sat in silence for the next thirty minutes until the break time bell went. I announced that I was going for my break and would not be returning, they may as well go and do something else seeing as my classes were too irksome for them. I was hurt. I stewed for twenty minutes and went back down to see if they had gone. They had.

During lunch I started to seriously question what more I could do. I know damned well my classes are anything but boring, I don't browbeat the students except when they decide to watch films on their phones or talk to their neighbour during class. I questioned my ability and the way I had handled it. Should I have singled out someone to answer the question? That's not my style, I want answers to be freely given by a volunteer, not pulled like hens teeth. All that does is see you having to point to people for every question.

So by the afternoon I was having to consciously mellow in order not to take it out on the next class. I did open proceedings by mentioning what had happened previously. I had but ten students turn up from 44. Fine by me because surely the ten that did actually wanted to improve their English?

To my intense dismay the same thing happened, except this time I was not prepared to sit in silence for half an hour. I told them I was leaving, they had left me with no option but to inform the school what had happened and although it would not look good for me it would not bode well for them either.

I sat in my office seriously questioning whether my summer holiday was worth putting up with this shit, maybe I should move on or at the very least stipulate that I only taught English majors from now on. I even started composing an email to Janet to that effect.

When I first started teaching of course I had the odd bad day normally due to my own inexperience but after eight years I was confident I could deal with anything. My pride in my ability hadn't taken a knock, it had been hit with a sledgehammer. It was shaping up to be the worst ever day of my teaching career. And also a day on which I would either tender my resignation or issue demands.

After twenty minutes, a cup of coffee and a cigar, I remembered I still had to shut down the classroom computer. Minus text book (not that I really need it) I went down to rectify the omission.

The ten students hadn't left. On the contrary, there were now thirty of them, sitting patiently assuming I would return – were it not for the computer I would not have. What are you doing? I asked. The monitor came to me with a handwritten note because as she explained, her English was terrible. The note apologised for not telling me there were no classes last week.

I told them I never blamed them for that, the faculty should have told me, I was angry because they expected to come to class and just sit there like dummies as they do for Chinese teachers because that's what they are told to do.

Do you want a lesson or not?

Yes.

We had the lesson and people started answering. The previous class will be given an ultimatum next week. I do not wish to admit I cannot handle a problem (without bloodshed) but faced with mannequins despite my best efforts to make my lessons vibrant and fun, I am not putting up with it any more and “this is China” simply won't wash any more.

Especially as the answer to “what is fake?” was the very first sentence printed after the topic heading in their course book............