Challenging students in the classroom. How to deal with this problem?<

Challenging students in the classroom. How to deal with this problem?

During our hours of training as teachers, be it of Spanish or of any other subject, we have been able to learn how to come to terms with teaching material for specific types of groups: immigrants, youths, adults and professionals, … but what happens when within this group we have a person that doesn’t want to learn?

I will put you in a situation: in a previous school year I did some work experience as an observer of a Spanish teacher of British youths between the ages of 16 and 17. It was a private institution and the students were there as a result of their parents’ wishes. They were all excellent and they all had a Spanish level which was roughly similar; the level A2. All, except one that is. This youth did not seem to have any interest in studying the language. Especially shocking, after the effort, I imagine, that his parents would have had to have made to pay for a Spanish course like this in Spain.

But the problem was not only that he did not want to learn Spanish, but rather, that in addition he irritated his classmates, he interrupted explanations and the teaching with topics that had nothing to do with the language and when he responded to the questions about the topic that we were giving, he always gave the wrong answers, apparently as a result of his total lack of attention and interest.

In this case I was an observer and doing work experience and I decided to bear it and try to endure the problem as best I could, trying to ensure that the quality of the teaching for the rest of the class was not affected. But actually, I was not prepared for such a situation. I did not know if I was to expel the student or to leave him to his own devices. Has something similar ever happened to you? What did you do or what would you do in a similar situation?

Of course we were talking about non-obligatory education, that’s to say, it is a private course in a private institute. Should the rest of the classmates have to also endure a person that does not want to learn like them? Many thanks for your help and advice.