The communication presentation will be finished on here tomorrow.

In the meantime I'm just expressing my deep frustration with having to work with students who, quite evidently, can't be bothered with their classes. Most Mondays, my ESOL IT class only has one person in it. This is not because the work is too hard, as I have been very careful to ensure the work is at the right level, and that the students get all the help they need. It is because the class members simply can't be bothered to come. I have two students today which is highly unusual, but the second student has been away so long that he can't remember his password. Resetting it didn't help, as he has evidently shut the window asking him to change it, without reading the message (a common problem) and is now locked out of the system again. And of course, the IT helpdesk is empty.

Dealing with students like that is hard for me- what I want to do and know I shouldn't is yell at them, because this student's attitude makes me so cross. He wandered in late with no adequate explanation.

For some of our students, their upbringing and the country they come from does a lot to explain their attitudes to class and college- for example, Congolese students tend towards being late to very late, as they often simply don't understand the importance of timekeeping in the UK.

But for others it's pure laziness. And it's one of my biggest irritations as a teacher. I'm still working on strategies for dealing with it, but the main problem is that these students never show positive behaviour, which makes it impossible to reinforce positive behaviour with praise.