This piece takes a look at glaringly obvious oversights or other faux pas adult EFL students have made in class; some of which would no doubt get on your wick. Numbers 1-5 are actual questions fielded to the teacher, while 6-10 are listed as sub-headings. The positive aspects to keep in mind are that, as a result, lessons were learned by the teacher and, in some cases, the student too. To encourage fellow educators, it must be pointed out that writing about such experiences is cathartic and comes highly recommended.

1. Why are we doing the grammar test?

The student who made this remark had put his foot in it as he hadn’t bothered to do his homework or even read the homework instructions from the previous week. To make matters worse, the summative grammar test, with the sole purpose of seeing what has been learned so far and if anything needs to be improved, was fully explained in lesson 1 – yes, the culprit had been present in the first lesson.

2. Can you summarise this grammar in 2 sentences?

The young lady who innocently asked this was doing a B2 First preparation course. Unfortunately, it was pointed out, grammar doesn’t work like that, it is abstract and verb tenses (which we were focusing on then) can be looked at in terms of functions. It is true that grammar can be tricky for some and mastering it doesn’t happen overnight either. Though, some people look for an easy way out, which in this case, just doesn’t exist.

3. Will we be doing a task to help us understand this?

The student had only just been told that there would be a task on modals, where all the examples that would be demonstrated were already written so note-taking was optional. This was lesson 5 and each time grammar was taught in lessons 1-5 the same formula of p-p-p (present-practice-produce) had been used.

4. Can I send you an email to look at?

In Lesson 1, it was made clear that everyone has the possibility to share work samples including emails, reports or other written English by them each week. Somehow, this generous offering had gone unnoticed until lesson 4.

5. Do you know this word in English?

This appears to be a case of laziness or someone who is used to being spoon fed. Looking things up is part of the learning process and it is not the teacher’s job to translate words from the learners' L1 for them. This was mentioned in the writing overview and once more to the class. As a one off, the translation was done by the teacher just for once, but, in the future, autonomy will be promoted.

6. An advanced student complained when some basic errors that arose were analysed in class.

The trouble was that the mistakes were being made by a C1 student and surely it would be wrong not to address the slips, however basic they were. Of course, this could only occur one or two times as it would get repetitious but didn’t come up more often anyhow. To add insult to injury, this was a mixed-level group and the lower level-learners started at B2, which is a ridiculously broad range, and what was simple for her was not necessarily basic for intermediate students, for example.

7. Self-study was kept to a minimum

The general attitude among some members of one class was abysmal. One person did no homework whatsoever for 7 weeks and his attendance wasn’t much better. Having busy working lives was not really an excuse as doing the course was a commitment they had made, and it had been paid for by their company in good faith. The project co-ordinator at the language centre passed on the updates the teacher provided to the organisation to seemingly no avail.

8. One student decided to take three minutes extra without permission during an unscheduled break.

Nonchalance and being laissez-faire aren’t the best characteristics to have in a learner. This was disrespectful to all and had happened after a colleague had technical problems during an online lesson. The said student decided to pay a visit to his kitchen and make a drink without a care in the world.

9. A non-work-related presentation was given about camping

The same chap as in number 8 completely ignored the homework instructions, which were to give a presentation on a work-related topic; in keeping with mid-way evaluations received by students who had wished to focus on business-related topics. To his credit, he did give it a go, in the target language, which is a challenge, although he admitted that he hadn’t prepared it beforehand.

10. Students hadn’t looked at their course outline since the 1st lesson, a month earlier.

This is not a cardinal sin, although it is a little annoying as teachers put together course outlines to help students know what they will be doing each week and when, over a period of time (in this case 10 weeks), and to give them much needed structure.