Do you look at your students? Do you call your students by their names?
Do you help all your students?
The questions in the subheading are some questions that we need to make ourselves in order to have a good class management.
As teachers, we need to take into account several points that are so important in the classroom, such as eye contact, use of students’ names, T’s positions and movement, seating arrangement, teaching aids, grouping, rapport, pace, timing, teacher´s voice, instructions, error and correction, attention spread, interaction, TTT and STT.
Eye contact is the way that teacher used to look at the students to ask different things, for example with just a look, a teacher can tell a student to be quiet, to answer a question, to group in pairs or groups or it can make students feel confident, because as we know in an oral communication we look at each other to see the expressions and also to see if the other person is paying attention.
The use of students’ names is also important, as teachers, we must learn by heart our students` names, it is true that we have many students, but it is necessary to do it, because when we want a student participate, we must not say you or the one in pink, with the reason that we are human beings and nobody likes to be treated as an object and the correct use of students` names gives students a value and they feel good when teacher knows their names. as we said it is not easy to learn all the names, but there are things that can help us to do it, for instance if we can ask students’ participation we can look at the list of attendance or we can draw a map of the classroom and the way students sit down and of course with their names and also we can write some characteristics of them to remember easily. So every time we do not remember a name, we can check our map to see the name of the students and call him/her correctly.
Here is another link with tips for learning students’ names:
http://tep.uoregon.edu/workshops/teachertraining/beginnings/onlinebeginnings/learnnames.html
Teachers’ positions and movements are the different places that teacher is when he/she is in the classroom, many teachers prefer to be in the front of the classroom when they are explaining, because this lets to see all the students and in certain way gives authority, which is good, but the problem is when the teacher maintains the same position in all the class, when it is a good idea to monitor students when they are working in a task in order to check if they are working correctly, to help them or to solve any questions that they could have with the task.
Seating arrangement is the way students sit down in the classroom, the most common way is in rows, but the best way is the horse shoe form, because it lets teacher to be in the middle of the students and around them, which is good to control the class.
The following link explores the pros and cons to a number of different classroom seating patterns: http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/classroom-seating-patterns-223
Teaching aids as its name says teaching aids are all the things that help us in the classroom for example a CD player, handouts, worksheets, board, OHP, books, posters, realia, wordcards, wallcharts, flashcards, cards, among others to make a class more attractive with the aim that students learn.
Grouping is the way that teachers group students to do a task. It can be in pairs, trios, groups, the whole class and individually and it lets students to interact each other like in real life with one single purpose and when it is individually it lets students work more autonomously.
Rapport is the atmosphere that there is in the classroom, it can be excellent, very good, good, regular, bad or very bad. When the rapport is excellent, in other words friendly, students are not afraid of the teacher and they can learn better, but when the rapport is unfriendly, students feel stressed and they do not learn, because there is a barrier.
Timing is the time for each activity, for instance, when a teacher asks students to write two simple questions and he/she gives 10 minutes to do it, the pace is lose and when a teacher gives a complicated task and students have to finish it in 5 minutes, the pace is tight. For that it is important to know when an activity takes much time and when an activity is easy for our students.
Pace is the time between activities, sometimes this is fast, adaptable or slow. When it is fast, this means that it was important to give more time to finish an activity and when it is slow, it is the opposite.
In teacher´s voice, we have to considerate three things; clarity, volume and speed. These things are important, with the reason that the teacher is also input material. Our voice needs to be clear, our volume normal and our speed too, so that our students can understand us.
When teachers give instructions, they need to know that the instructions need to be adequate, clear and also teachers need to use other things to leave clear what students are supposed to do, such as modelling or demonstrating, because if students do not understand, they are not going to achieve the goal of the task.
Error and correction, before correcting our students, we need to analise if the error interferes with the communication. The correction is important, if not the correction is not necessary. When we correct our students, we need to be aware that some students do not like when teacher corrects them, and this can make our students feel afraid and for the next time, they will not participate again, because other students can laugh at them. For that, it is good idea to take notes of our students’ mistakes and after the activity to write them on the board without saying who made them and ask students to identify where the mistake is and the teacher needs to give feedback.
Attention spread as its name suggests it is the attention that as teachers we give to our students. It can be individual, whole class or only one part of the class, and we need to be careful, because if we just help one student, the others will feel excluded from the class.
Interaction, regarding classroom management and drawing our attention to the Students´ interaction there are five types according to what Adrian Puff (1991) states T-C, T-S, S-T, S-S and S-S S-S.
TTT and STT (teacher time talking and student time talking) as their name say it is the amount of time that teachers or students spend in the class talking. Sometimes as teachers, we spend all the class talking and we do not give our students the chance to talk and practice the language, For that, it is important to be aware of our TTT and let students talk, because maybe the classroom is the only place where they can use the language.
Here are several ideas from teachers with students of different ages for effective classroom management:
http://www.pacificnet.net/~mandel/ClassroomManagement.html
This link shows tips and advice for classroom discipline:
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/toolbox/discipline.html
Here we have some videos regarding how teachers manage their classes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XroJtR9gQc8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhTRlj06j-Q&feature=related
References:DOFF, A. (1991). Teach English. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
WINGATE, J. (1997). 10 Ways to build rapport with your students in English Teaching Professional, Issue Four July 1997.
McCAMLEY, Margot. Classroom management: classroom discipline. 2006. Web Link: http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=59438&docid=146446
[Read: August 27, 2010 GMT-5].
AUTHORS: (Group 10)
Vanina Herrera Allard
Damian Martinez Villatoro
Hayarin Dominguez Hernández
Carlos Hernandez Escobar