I am a high school first grade teacher and have the same type of diversity within each of my 14 classes. Each class I teach is gender specific. Half of my classes are male and the other half are female. I find the greatest challenge to usually occur in the area of discipline within my male classes. If my female classes struggle, it is usually due to them sneaking a mirror or cell phone into class past one of their other teachers. Below are a few of the challenges I face and how I deal with them.
1. Special needs student causes interruption due to other student's laughing at him/her.
(I greatly desire to have my special needs students feel as though they are part of the class and not an outcast. During the first class period I take the special needs student "help me" do some random task outside the classroom while a korean teacher explains very clearly in in his/her native tongue that there will be no tollerence for making fun of or not including the special needs student in the class activities. The repercussions for breaking this rule include but are not limited to apologizing, losing free time, and copying pages from a dictionary. Also students are to do all they can to decrease stress for that student by going out of their way to help them. Our classroom is a team. We win as a team, we loose as a team.)
2. Very high level students are bored out of their mind when I have to re-explain instructions for low level learners.
(Instead of hashing through the instructions again, ask the advanced student to quickly explain the directions you just gave back to you in english. If the directions are correct, have them translate them into their native tongue for the other students.)
3. Activities are finished too quickly by advanced students and they begin talking while low level learners keep struggling.
(Pair high level learners with low level learners. If you do not know who is what level yet, simply wait for those who finish first and either have them help the other students, or, give them more to do.
4. Students don't understand why we have to slow down sometimes.
( Explain in simple english with real life examples that some people are faster at learning certain things like math than others. Other people are faster at learning english or other subjects. Have them embrace what their culture in Korea already emphasizes, do what is best for the whole, not the individual.)
2
