Practical 13 - Classroom management

Practical 13: Classroom Management

Chapter 3: managing the classroom

A-     The teacher in the classroom. Using the voice.

A teacher I remember well is an excellent teacher, he used to be my biology teacher. I believe he deserves a “1” in all these characteristics because he was very clear when explaining new things to us in a language suitable for our understanding, his vocal quality and audibility were just perfect: we could hear him properly from every part of the classroom. Also I remember he used to move around the classroom staring at each of us in a very intimidating but encouraging way. All these characteristics plus a lot of more things made his general presence In class absolutely memorable. The only thing in which I do not coincide with him was in his way of dressing, it was a very ordinary one, I would have prefer more fashionable clothes but I think they were fine because we did not lose consentration when observing him, he did not call our attention.

·         Appearance: 3

·         Audibility: 1

·         Clarity: 1

·         General presence in class: 1

·         Movement: 1

·         Vocal quality: 1

Me:

·         Appearance: 1

·         Audibility: 2

·         Clarity: 1

·         General presence in class: 1

·         Movement: 1

·         Vocal quality: 2

B-      Talking to students. Giving instructions

1-      I ticked a) and c) as in both of them the teacher is controlling and guiding the students in what they have to do in a very simple and logical way. She also checks if students have understood the instructions. What is more, the use of gestures and encouraging phrases are involved in both of them.

2-      a. First, make sure you have all the tools necessary. Take the spare wheel. Now, take the jack to lift the car. Remove the flat tyre. Put the new wheel in the right place, fit the nuts. And now, lower the jack. Pick up the flat tyre. And drive!

b. First, insert your card in the machine. Type your PIN. Then, choose withdraws. Select the account and then the amount of money. Select Exit. Take your card, the receipt and the money. 

c. First, turn on the fire. Later, put olive in the sauce pan. Then, broke the egg above it. Leave it in the fire until it is white with a yellow circle. Finally, take the fried egg from the sauce pan and put it on a dish. It is ready to eat!

These three explanations will be combined with lots of gestures so that students can understand.

C-      Student talk and teacher talk.

1-      If the class is based on STT (student talking time) students will have like around two minutes of talking each because the teacher gives more importance to their practice than her talking. But, if the class is based on TTT (teacher talking time) students will be, luckily, expressing a sentence or two as the teacher do not give them the necessary time for them to participate. The best way of doing such activity is in a STT.

D-     Using the L1

I partially agree with the statement, because teacher should speak mainly in English but there are occasions in which the L1 will be needed; for example, if the teacher gives an instruction in English but she realizes students did not get what they have to do, in that case she could change to Spanish so that students are not lost in the class. Students, especially at lower levels, are constantly translating what they learn in the L2 into their L1, and this is fine because this is their way of comprehending new vocabulary. Again, if the teacher gives an instruction and she realizes they did not get it she could ask one students to explain it in the L1, by doing this she is sure all of them understood the instruction.

“Students and teachers should be discourage from using the students’ L1 in the classroom when it is not necessary”

E-      Creating lesson stages.

a.5

b.4

c.1

d.6

e.7

f.2

g.3

A), b) d) and e) are the last ones because it is not a good idea to make more noise that what the students are doing, if the teacher ´shouts or blows a whistle, students will talk louder in order not to be interrupted with what they are doing. That is why c) is the best option, the teacher in this case does not even speak to them, she just raises her hand asking for silence. F) is a very good option too, because if students realize that the teacher is explaining something and they could not hear to her they will make silence so that they do not miss anything. G) is kind of threatening, I would not do it but it can be useful to make students realize the teacher is getting angry as they do not listen to her.

F-      Different seating arrangements.

A. separate tables

b. circle

c. orderly rows

d. horseshoe

e. separate tables

f. orderly rows

g. orderly rows

G-      Different student groupings.

2)  a.G  b.G  c.S  d.P  e.G  f.W  g.W  h.P i.S  j.S

Chapter 14: What if?

A)     1- Mixed-ability classes may present the teacher with some problems or with some advantages.

With a mixed-ability class you can not only ignore the problem but also use different materials or tasks, or use the students themselves as ways of dealing with it, e.g. the ‘advanced ‘ students can help the slower ones.

We also believe all classes are mixed-ability classes, as students may share the same level of English but they will for sure have their own strong points within that same level; some of them may be better at writing, other are speaking and not listening or very good at reading.

2- a. We can prepare different exercise for the different students using the same interview; more complex ones for the advanced group and easier yet not stupid ones for those who have a lower level of English.

b. We can ask all of the students to produce a ghost story but expecting different results from them. We do not believe, in this case, we should ask some students, for instance, to produce a whole story and other some sentences, as some of them may surprise us, and those we believed could not do it may come up with a great story, showing a skill we did not think they had. We, as teachers, can make some presuppositions about our students but we think we should never underestimate their abilities.

c. We can put the students in separate groups, considering their speaking skills, or we can group them not according to their language level, but mixing those we know will speak with those that probably will not. Those who love speaking may encourage their partners to participate by helping them or doing most of the talk, letting the ones who do not love the activity have some interaction and thus, learning as well.

d. We can prepare some activities in common with the whole class so as not to frustrate the students who will get other activities when working alone. Here again, instead of preparing different activities, we can use pair work and put together students who can help other students, making sure they are helping not doing all for them.

e. We can prepare more difficult tasks for those students who are finding our classes too easy, using the same materials we use with everybody else. Sometimes we assign them the role of helpers, having them giving some help to their partners or organizing the class (giving away papers or activities).

f. We could prepare different ways of feedback, for example, going from the simplest mistakes to those which are more complex, all of the students paying attention and learning from the other faults, always ‘protecting’ the kids’ identities as we do not want them to lose face. We can also prepare an activity and call students one by one and giving special and direct feedback on each of their productions; we could also group the students according to their mistakes similarities and give instances of feedback group per group.

Small classes

Big classes

We can: ·         give more specific and detailed feedback; ·         listen all of the students reading passages or repeating the new vocabulary individually; ·         give all the students the chance to talk and focus on their particular problems; ·         read aloud the productions of every student, if they want to, making feel them proud of their work and recognizing their efforts; ·         Correct papers/ activities quicker; ·         Have sometimes more relaxed activities such computer games in a more relaxed atmosphere, without losing the control of the class; ·         Organizing activities outdoors knowing that a small group may be easier to cope with than a bigger one.

We can: ·         Have/ listen to more perspectives or opinions; ·         Play games that involve lots of people or interaction with different partners; ·         Vary the choosing of students when we want someone to answer a question; ·         Carry on bigger projects that involve variety of productions and lots of work (as we can assign different roles); ·         Produce groups with different students each time, fostering them knowing each other and not gathering always with the same people; ·         Prepare plays using English that contain many characters, having all of the students speaking it in this way but at the same time not overwhelming them with the amount of lines each one gets.

B)      1-

2.  When having a big class we learnt we have to make sure everyone is listening to what we are saying. We should never shout, as students may lose the respect they have for us and we may lose authority; we think we need to use our voice range at a high level. If not, we can always move around the classroom and repeating the activities or the explanations some times more. Moving around the classroom is also important in checking constantly that the students are working and in offering help when needed, being both a monitor and a facilitator.

As regards the teacher’s board work, we think it is important to keep a clean and tidy board, always telling students what they have to write down and what they have not, as they might find it otherwise troublesome.

When using the tape recorder, we think that probably students at the back could hear less, so switching places every now and then would not be wrong, having the students that always sit at the back sitting at the front and vice versa. We should always make sure everyone is listening to the audio and try to have the classroom as quiet as possible.

C)      1.  We think we can start letting the students know that even though it is not forbidden at all, it is extremely important for them to practice English as much as possible, and that it is better for them to do it in a safe place like the classroom, where we can give them feedback and correct them when necessary.

If they continue using it we can start asking reasons, maybe they do not feel comfortable or they are too shy. If this is the case, we can set some rules altogether that may encourage them to really feel the classroom as a safe place in which mistakes are allowed and very important in the process of learning.

We can always praise them whenever they use English too, recognizing their good points.

We can help them on their oral use of the language by having them first completing sentences that we may start using just a word, them moving to some longer stretches and reaching in the end (hopefully) full sentences.

Finally, although we do not think is the ideal thing to do, we can take some disciplinary action.

2. We would be not unhappy with students using their own language when:

- They are talking a very important matter such as birth control; although it would be wonderful to listen to that debate in English, they may not have the skills required to defend their positions in a language that is not theirs;

- They are checking an instruction; they are just trying to know whether they got the instruction right or not. Students are about to solve an activity anyways, so checking that they have understood it right in a language they know perfectly seems fair and the right thing to do.

- They are doing a group writing task;  we all know how difficult is to agree when doing a group work, so we think that giving their opinions and debating in Spanish would not be wrong, as they are producing something in English.

D)

A	B	Homework Task
5	2	Students do a fill-in exercise, choosing between ‘going to’ and ‘will’.
9	7	Students interview residents/tourists in the street and bring the results to the next lesson.
4	1	Students learn a list of words by heart to be tested by the teacher in the next lesson.
5	6	Students prepare a presentation which they will give (individually) in the next lesson.
9	7	Students prepare roles for next week’s role-play.
6	7	Students read a text and answer multiple-choice questions.
5	2	Students write six sentences using the past continuous.
9	8	Students write a composition about the environment.
7	6	Students write a publicity leaflet based on something in the course book.

E)      1.  A) Rudeness;

     B) Blunt refusal to do certain activities or to do what they are told;

     C) Disengagement from what’s going on;

     D)  Constant lateness;

     E) Not listening to the teacher;

     F) Constant chattering in class.

2.

THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CONTRACT
TEACHER	LEARNER
As your teacher I will: ·         Correct your papers as soon as possible; ·         Be fair; ·         Explain as many times as necessary, if you were always listening but you still did not get it; ·         Have patience; ·         Not give you only grammar exercises; ·         Respect you; ·         Listen; ·         Leave my personal problems outside the classroom.	As a learner I will: ·         Try to do my best; ·         Do my homework; ·         Have a good relationship with both my teacher and my classmates, treating them with respect; ·         Listen to the teacher when she/he is explaining or whenever it is necessary; ·         Not bother anyone; ·         Not lie; ·         Not misbehave; ·
As your teacher I expect: ·         You to pay attention in class; ·         You to work hard; ·         You to have energy to work in class; ·         You to treat me with respect; ·         You to listen to me when necessary; ·	As a learner I expect: ·         The teacher to be kind and patience; ·         The teacher to not yell at me when I do things wrongly; ·         To receive my papers on time; ·         To receive feedback on my productions, both written and oral; ·         The teacher to correct me whenever I am wrong in a good way; ·         To receive a good education;

F)        

Action

Consequences

-          Join in ourselves in order to try to stimulate discussion. -          Give them rewards or acknowledge their oral production in front of the class. -          Pair the reluctant speaker with a classmate that loves talking. -          Bring to the class some topic we know those reluctant students will want to talk about. -          Make some time in our schedules so as to meet with the reluctant students/the group of reluctant students so as to have a more private speaking session. -          Ask them which the reason is for them not wanting to speak.

-          It might relax students; on the other hand students may end up listening more than talking. -          Students may feel appreciated and encouraged to speak; to may also just speak for the rewards and not do it for their own good. -          They may feel encouraged by his/her partner; they may feel shame of how little they know or overwhelmed by how much his/her partner speaks. -          This may make them talk, but it is a bit difficult to find a topic that suits all the reluctant students (as there will for sure be more than just one). -          They may feel safe just talking with us and thus start speaking a little; there may be no time available in our schedules or theirs, or maybe they may be not interested on doing it. Or they could probably feel embarrassed of having extra-lessons with us. -          We could find a solution if we know what the problem is, but maybe it is not in our hands. If we fix the problem maybe the student will start speaking in English.

G)     1. In general the problems students can have while listening to a track in class are that they cannot hear quite well because the track quality or just because they class is too big and the quality gets lost. As we said before, we could move the students from the back to the front of the classroom every now and then, or make a circle and place the audio right in the middle. We think also that it would be beneficial to bring to the classroom new audios and not those old cassettes that usually cannot be heard; that will also help.

Another problem student may have is that as they do not understand what the listening is about. We think we could set the context, the characters, their relationship and the sort before the activity begins. In this way we could set them and thus make the listening easier, as they will know what they will be listening to. We could also write down some words we consider difficult/that are new on the board and explain them.