Most of our students have had fantastic grades throughout their exchange year. But there are some that struggle a bit more. Some of this comes from laziness and not being focused but a lot comes from all the new English terms.
Most often it is the English terms when the grades are poor in the beginning of the year and then improve. Helping your student through this is much easier than the problem being laziness. If they won’t let you know what the issue is you can always email their teachers/guidance counselor for some insight. They can usually tell if the student is struggling just with terms or if its something more. Making a list of terms used in the class with their native language and English is the most helpful here, they could ask the teacher or other students for help with this as well.
Also ask if the class too easy or too hard for them? European and Asian high schoolers seem to be more advanced in their studies than their American counterparts, so naturally they are usually put in harder classes. But on occasion we have misread a particular student and they need to be dropped down to a lower level class. With math and science sometimes it is a guessing game as to where they will fit best as our classes and theirs at home don’t always match up. So explain to your student that if they are feeling overwhelmed to say something to you, the teacher, and/or the guidance counselor. They may need to be moved to another class. On the flip side, they could end up in a class that is too easy (or with subject matter that they have already studied) and become bored and stop paying attention/doing their work. So again, explain to them if they are not being challenged enough to say something and they could probably be switched to more difficult class. Depending on your school’s flexibility this should be an easy problem to solve once it is detected.
The hardest one to handle would be poor grades because of laziness and/or a lack of interest/trying. This happens. Not everyone is a great student. I can tell when my students are trying versus phoning it in based on their test grades. I know that when I study with them they do well and when I don’t and leave it to them (like they told me they prefer) they do not do as well on those tests. This tells me they are being lazy in their studies. They are paying too much attention to the phone and not enough to the material in front of them. When I notice this happening they have two options: study with me or my husband or study alone but at the kitchen table when I can observe how much phone time is taking up study time.
Are they not turning in work? I’ll look at their assignment lists and see a sea of zeros. Seriously why aren’t you at least turning in classwork? It is done in class. Turns out lack of organization was the culprit. So we had a chat about making sure to turn their work in and organizing their binders (and we will do binder checks). Not doing homework? Well you aren’t going out until it is done. Do it at the table in front of me.
Have you had all these thoughts, discussions, and nothing is working? Well, they need a C average in each class to stay in the program (I prefer a B but sometimes that just doesn’t work out), so if they are not showing effort to fix their grade they get a call from their IEC/Program Advisor to threaten going back home. This will usually light a fire under them and they will have their grade fixed in a couple weeks. If not and you are still struggling with them, inform your IEC that it hasn’t been resolved and then they usually issue a formal warning with a time limit on when the grade needs to be up to a C.
I understand that this can be a hard-ass stance but it is a privilege for them to be studying in America. Not a right. So they have to earn it. Plus their poor grades and lack of trying reflects negatively on you, the organization, and their home country (not to mention the student themselves and their bio-family) and we do not want that. We bring these students here as apart of international diplomacy, for them to represent their home country well and for them to take what they learned about America back home, and with poor grades they are doing a disservice to everyone (but mostly to themselves).
So, poor grades can be a number of things. Some easily fixed, so fixed over time, and some with a little beating your head on wall. Again most students want to do well, some just need an extra push.