Another reason not to listen to your students too much

Posted on 18/04/2012 by alexcase

Windows 7 allows you to easily browse all the files in Documents by date, so I’ve been having a nostalgic look at stuff back to 2003. Something that has struck me is that vast majority of my classes in my first five years or so (i.e. until at least two years after I passed the Delta) were complete and utter shit. However, most of my students in that time were perfectly happy and most of the ones who weren’t happy were dissatisfied for all the wrong reasons. Would be nice to think I suddenly have students with a much better ability to analyse language teaching, but…

More on this:

The customer-centred classroom

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2 Responses to Another reason not to listen to your students too much

  1. Stephen Greene's avatar Stephen Greene says:
    18/04/2012 at 11:39

    Hi Alex,

    You are right! Most students know next to nothing abuot what makes a good language class; they just want to have a reasonably decent time and learn English without too much hassle. If you can make them think this is happening then you will be the best teacher they have ever had.

    I suppose this is why there are so many crap schools out there because they focus on the wrong thing in order to stay in business.

    Stephen

  2. Ian Player's avatar Ian Player says:
    19/04/2012 at 06:31

    Much like the Steve Jobs’ approach for Apple, I believe. Didn’t he take the view that he knew best what customers wanted? No time wasted there on market research or ponsy-wonsy surveys :)

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