My job and students

I guess I'll tell you a little bit about where I work and the students I teach. The school I teach at is a very low level college. We have about 12,000 students and 700 teachers. If I were visiting different schools looking for a job, this school would be the last on my list based on appearances. It is currently a giant construction site, but when it is finally finished it should be a pretty nice school. There is one building on campus which is incomplete and construction has stopped. Nobody can tell me if the building will ever be finished. It has something to do with the last president of the school, according to rumor, he is now in prison.

The program I teach in has the lowest of the low as far as students. These are the students who completely failed the national exam, but their parents have enough money to buy them into our program. So, students are either in this program because they failed the big exam, or they are in it because their parents are forcing them into it. This doesn't make for a very good teaching environment. I'd estimate that one-fifth of my students are pre-intermediate level and are interested in learning. Another one-fifth are pre-intermediate level and are only somewhat interested in learning. One-fifth are beginner level and are only somewhat interested in learning, and the rest are completely uninterested in learning. Despite this fact I am still able to have fun when I am teaching them and enjoy my job. My philosophy is that if the students want to learn they will, if they don't want to learn they won't, but either way, I'm going to enjoy my life.

The class sizes are between 40 to 60 students. The maximum number of students recommended for the type of teaching I do is 25. Teaching 25 students ESL is challenging, teaching 60 is stupid. They aren't motivated enough to do pair work or group work, and only speak English when I talk to them. In one of my classrooms they decided to ban the teachers from using the chalkboard and computer/projector due to chalk dust damaging the computer. Oh yeah, two of my classes have no books. So, let's go over this for a second. Two classes back to back, 1.5 hours each, no books, no computer/projector, no chalkboard, all the students failed the national exam and 50 students on average for each class. All I can do is laugh.