Does anyone have experience with how the Japanese teaching industry deals with this? I am in a JHS.
When I am able to be a strong influence in the class, I can usually get the students to think before they shout. I try to instill early the value of listening when other people are speaking and not trying to speak over them.
But when I get assigned to a class only a few hours a week, I have less influence. Especially when the homeroom teacher is indulgent regarding discipline, it can be very hard to get a class noise level down to a reasonable level. Couple that with a few students who don't know how to control how they react to strong emotions, and it's not uncommon to have students shouting directly into my ear and not acknowledging that it really hurts. I had one especially bad class recently that left me with a headache and bad ringing in my ears into the next morning.
Obviously there are techniques for getting a class under control, but those take time and effort from multiple teachers. The thought of damaging my hearing in the meantime has me a little spooked, especially since as a language teacher, part of my job requires differentiating fine sounds in students' speech. I am a long-termer, so I would like to be able to teach until I retire. After retirement, I'll have enough to worry about without also struggling with hearing loss-related senility.
Surely Japanese teachers have been going through this for as long as adolescents have been rowdy. Anyone know what they do about it?
by InOverMyHat