"Sorry Alex, too busy to spend time on our group presentation for this week"

Met some students for lunch today.

Told me that they didn't have time to even practice or put much effort into their assignment I gave them to present tomorrow because they have to spend their weekend doing training and practicing singing. They will leave it up to one student to design the presentation and they will just come to class unrehearsed and without any thought, give me a presentation...

Singing is more important than the most important assignment I give my students during the semester?.... apparently so.

I don't blame the students, it's not their fault for this blasé attitude...

Are they here to study hard in their major of choice or study ineffectively, infrequently and inefficiently whilst spending most of their time performing other tasks?

Can we go one week without students being absent from my class because they have:

• too much work for student associations,
  
• too much homework that means they have to skip class to do it,
  
• to make posters and signs,
  
• training for some event that will be forgotten 3 days after it is held,
  
• meeting after meeting after meeting, or
  
• singing and dancing shows????

I am trying to teach a style of speaking to students this semester... even the name of the book is "effective speaking skills"! Its a skill, not a list of words you can memorise 20 minutes before a test! If students don't practice and don't put any effort, guess what? you will give me mediocre presentations all semester and I will feel disappointed in you. All I want is for you to want to improve your English and ability in English. You can not blame the University, teachers, Shaoguan or anything else to blame for poor English or lack of improvement except for yourselves. Sure your time is valuable and in short supply, but I would have thought learning would be a priority for students? am I so wrong?

Alex, you're absolutely right. I agree with the statement that learning is the student's prior task. Time is short, but we can make good use of it if we want to do something well. In my experience, meeting,trainning,performance and so on are not the excuse for not study. To me, the busier I am, the more efficiently I use the time. I will more cherish the little study time. It's all decided by you that keep good balance between the study and work.