My 9am lecture today was in HLT2 for the first time. This is my 3rd year group - high proportion of international students, in particular a large group of French. They are mainly top up students so have just started at University in the UK in spite of being 3rd years.
In previous lectures and seminars, a group of them had consistently whispered throughout. Talking to Gil about it, she said this was common practice for French students, and felt it was a cultural difference.
Today, in the lecture I noticed the whispering was much worse than usual. There was a hard core of 4 in the middle of the auditorium, two at the front, and another 3 on the right. The overall effect was an almost constant low level murmuring.
When I felt the level had become unacceptable I tried stopping talking and staring pointedly at the people talking. I did this twice but they seemed oblivious. I recalled something Grant had been saying earlier in the week, about feedback from his students when he had failed to control others talking. I realised that I owed it to the other students to try and stop it.
I was a bit annoyed by now. I raised my voice and said that all I could hear was people whispering, and that not only was it distracting for me, but also for the other students, and that I wanted it to stop, and that it was unacceptable. The two girls in front even carried on talking while I was telling them off. I went and stood in front of them and said 'Hello, were you listening? I'd like you to be quiet please.' They both apologised. The talking did stop, but at one point a couple of the group of four appeared to be giggling, and one had his jumper up to his face - looked like he might be talking behind it.
I spoke to David about it - he said he'd never had that problem but Dave had - when they'd talked about it David had suggested that they might be trying to translate what was being said. I thought this an extremely generous (and incorrect) assessment.
Discussing it with Simon, he told me about a time his students had failed to show and failed to do their prep and he had thrown his papers in the air and walked out, after giving some home truths about the amount of money they were wasting for themselves and their families if they couldn't be bothered to do the work. Not sure it's quite that bad! Very dramatic though.
I reflected some more on what happened today, and feel I need to have a strategy ready for next week. First of all, I think the acoustics in the banked auditorium in HLT2 may mean that the whispering sounds much louder than normal, and the behaviour is more obvious to see. Notwithstanding that, it still needs to stop.
I think I have identified the ringleaders. For next week's lesson I will know their names, and use them - so they will know that I know who they are. I am considering trying to have a conversation with the French. Maybe they are indeed unaware of the expected behaviour in the classroom in the UK. I might even apologise for telling them off, and say I now realise that they may be unaware of the difference in classroom environment from what they are used to and it will take a bit of adjustment. I could also ask what they are talking about - is there a reason they feel they need to talk? Do they understand? Am I going too fast? This may be a less adversarial approach. If I have that conversation with them I will have given them every benefit of the doubt.
I might also try and find out whether it is indeed different in University in French - might start by Googling it, and then try and talk to the French tutors in the business school - see if there is a cultural thing.
If all of that doesn't work, I'll start taking it personally!
Maybe I should use this as my critical teaching incident for PGCTHE and see what the others think.
Update: Have spent some time researching this on the internet and came across some good pointers on a bulletin from the Stanford Centre of Teaching & Learning... reproducing Phil Race. Why didn't I think of the books!!! Duh.
