VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

University of languages and international studies

FALCULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

NGUYEN THI THANH HUONG

4th YEAR STUDENTS’ CLASSROOM

MANAGEMENT SKILLS DURING THEIR
TEACHING PRACTICUM AT FELTE, ULIS-VNU:
DIFFICULTIES, CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

bachelor of arts (TEFL)

SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN MINH HUE, M.A

Hanoi, May, 2010

 ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, 061E1, being a candidate for
the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College
relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in
the library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the
library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care,
loan or reproduction of the paper.

Signature

Date: 05/05/2010
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On the completion of this work, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my

supervisor, Ms Nguyen Minh Hue, who gave me the benefit of her wisdom, advice
and patience, who made valuable suggestions and careful critical comments that
helped me to carry out this study.

I am also indebted to the 4 supervising teachers of English Division 1, Faculty of

English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International
Studies, Vietnam National University for agreeing to participate in my paper.

Finally, I want to express my love and gratitude to my beloved friends and family
for supporting me wholeheartedly.
 ABSTRACT

For teachers, ensuring teaching effectiveness is of great momentum. In order to do

that, they need to perform many functions such as lecturing, supervising,
facilitating and managing. Among them, being a manager is a very basic role since
it lays foundation for effective teaching and learning to take place. However, being
a classroom manager is not an easy task, especially for the novice like student
teachers. As one of the first attempts to explore the student teachers’ classroom
management skills during their teaching practicum at the college level, the paper
sheds light on their difficulties as well as the causes and solutions for such
problems. For the accomplishment of such purpose, the author adopted both
qualitative and quantitative methods of interviews, questionnaires and observations
with the participation of eight fourth year trainee teachers and 4 supervising
teachers at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University. The most
remarkable finding of the research is time management was the most challenging
skill for the trainee teachers during their teaching practice. Other problems such as
giving and checking instructions, motivating students, dealing with disruptive
behaviors and monitoring also caused them a hard time. Besides, causes of and
solutions to such problems as perceived by the teacher trainee themselves and as
suggested by their supervising teachers are also presented. The paper is, therefore,
expected to serve as a reference for both novice and experienced teachers in
mastering classroom management skills.
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 – Classification of Classroom Time

Figure 2 – Maximized Academic Learning Time
Figure 3 - QUILT Framework
Figure 4 - Helping Students Who Respond Incorrectly
Figure 5 - Feedback Content
Figure 6 - Types of Learners Behaviors
Figure 7 - The level of difficulty and frequency of classroom management
problems
Figure 8 – Bloom’s taxonomy
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Abstract
List of figures

Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION
1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study………………….…....1
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study…………………………………….……...4
1.3. Scope of the study………………………………………………………..….5
1.4. Expected outcomes and significance of the study…….……………….……5
1.5. Overview of the rest of the paper…………………………………….……..7

Chapter 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Perceptions of classroom management……………………………….……..8
2.2. Elements of classroom management………………………………….……11
2.2.1. Time management………………………………………………....11
2.2.2. Space management………………………………………………...16
2.2.2.1. Students’ seating arrangement……………………………19
2.2.2.2. Teachers’ using blackboard………………………………20
2.2.2.3. Teachers’ position and movement………………………..21
2.2.2.4. Teachers’ non-verbal communication……………………24
2.2.2.4.1. Eye contact………………………………………24
2.2.2.4.2. Voice projection…………………………………25
2.2.3. Instruction giving and checking……………………………….…..26
2.2.4. Comprehension checking……………………………………….…30
2.2.5. Monitoring……………………………………………….….….....33
 2.2.6. Disruptive behavior management……………………………….35
2.2.7. Feedback ………………………………………………………..37
2.2.8. Student motivation……………………………………………....44
2.3. Related studies
2.3.1. Related studies on classroom management……………………..49
2.3.2. Related studies on classroom management skills in……………52
teaching practice

Chapter 3 – METHODOLOGY
3.1. Subjects and setting……………………………………………………..54
3.2. Data collection methods and procedures………………………………..56
3.3. Data analysis…………………………………………………………….64

Chapter 4 – RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Teacher trainees’ perceptions of their classroom management……….65
problems during the teaching practicum
4.2. Classroom management problems student teachers encountered………68
during their teaching practicum, causes and solutions
4.2.1. Time management……………………………………………..68
4.2.2. Instruction giving and checking……………………………….73
4.2.3. Checking for understanding…………………………………...79
4.2.4. Monitoring………………………….………………………….85
4.2.5. Dealing with disruptive behaviors…….……………………….87

Chapter 5 – CONCLUSION
5.1. Major findings of the research……………………………………….....93
5.2. Contributions of the research……………………………….…………..98
5.3. Limitations of the research…………………………………………….100
5.4. Suggestions for further studies………………………………………...100

APPENDIX
REFEENCES
 Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

The first chapter presents the problem and the rationale of the study, together with
the aims, objectives and scope of the whole paper. Particularly, the research
questions are identified to work as clear guidelines for the whole research.

1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

Numerous studies have shown that teachers are one of the most important factors
affecting students’ academic achievement. For instance, as a result of their study
involving 60,000 students, Wright, Horn, and Sanders (1997, cited in Marzano,
Marzano & Pickering, 2006, p.1) noted the following:

“The results of this study will document that the most important factor
affecting student learning is the teacher ... Effective teachers appear to be
effective with students of all achievement levels regardless of the levels of
heterogeneity in their classes. If the teacher is ineffective, students under
that teacher’s tutelage will achieve inadequate progress a c a d e m i c a l l y ,
regardless of how similar or different they are regarding their academic
achievement.”

Mean while, Marzano et al. (2006, p.3) pointed out that effective teachers perform
many functions, which can be categorized into three major roles: “(1) making wise
choice about the most effective instructional strategies to employ, (2) designing
classroom curriculum to facilitate students learning, and (3) making effective use
of classroom management techniques.” They put emphasis on the fact that no
single role by itself can entirely ensure the academic success of the students. If any
one of the three roles is missing, students will encounter difficulty in learning.
Among them, effective classroom management is proved to be the basis for the
other two roles to take place. For example, when students are lacking in
disciplines, and there are no apparent rules and procedures to guide behavior, chaos
will become the norms. In this case, no matter how skillful the teacher is at the use
of cooperative learning and graphic organizers, at “constructing and arranging
learning activities that present new knowledge in different formats ... and different
media” (Marzano et al. 2006, p.4), students most likely to learn much less than
they should and little improvement is made. On the contrary, well-managed
classrooms provide a favorable environment for teaching and learning to flourish.

Holding the same viewpoint on the critical role of classroom management in

effective teaching and learning, Emmer, Sanford, Clements and Martin (1982)
stated

“At all public school grade levels, effective classroom management has been
recognized as a crucial element in effective teaching. If a teacher cannot
obtain students’ cooperation and involve them in instructional activities, it is
unlikely that effective teaching will take place . . . In addition, poor
management wastes class time, reduces students’ time on task and detracts
from the quality of the learning environment.” (p.13)

Brophy and Evertson (1976, cited in Vo, 2009) also claimed that in almost all
surveys regarding the teacher effectiveness, classroom management skills are of
great importance in determining teaching success no matter what criteria are
applied.
In other words, classroom manager is one of the most crucial roles the teacher
performs in a classroom. However, classroom management is currently considered
a topic of enduring concern for teachers, administrators, and the public. In the
“Handbook of Classroom Management: Research, Practice and Contemporary
Issues” by Evertson and Weinstein (2006), how to manage the classroom
effectively consistently ranks as the first or second most serious educational
problem in the eyes of the general public, and beginning teachers consistently rank
it as their most pressing concern during their early teaching years. In fact,
according to the findings of recent interviews conducted by the researcher among
teachers of English Division 1 at the FELTE, ULIS - VNU, not only novice
teachers but also the experienced who have been teaching for more than 7 years
have difficulty managing the classroom. The most prominent problems reported are
time management, student motivation and questioning/eliciting. Therefore, this
important managerial mission can be a bigger challenge to teacher trainees who
have not gained enough knowledge and experience anticipating and dealing with
problems happening during a lesson.

Despite the fact that classroom management has always been a primary concern for
teachers in general and beginning teachers in particular, the systematic study of
effective classroom management is a relatively recent issue in the field of language
research. To be more accurate, there was little research and development of theory
on the topic until the 1950s with the first high-profile, large-scale study of
classroom management carried out by Kounin (1970, cited by Marzano et al.
2006). Given that, it is still a neglected issue according to Wright (2005, cited in
Vo, 2009). Furthermore, there has been little attention paid to the classroom
management problems encountered by teacher trainees and no previous research
on the issue among teacher trainees who have their teaching practicum at the
college degree is carried out.

All in all, the critical role of classroom management in teaching and learning, the
difficulties of teachers in general and the novice in particular in applying
appropriate managerial strategies and the shortage of research in the issue have
driven the researcher to conduct a study on “4th Year Students’ Classroom
Management Skills during Their Teaching Practicum at the Faculty of English
Language Teacher Education (FELTE), University of Languages and International
Studies, Vietnam National University (ULIS-VNU): Difficulties, Causes and
Solutions”

1.2. Aims and objectives of the study

First, the research is conducted with a view to finding out the difficulties fourth
year students at FELTE, ULIS-VNU have in managing classroom as perceived by
them during their teaching practicum at the FELTE, ED, ULIS-VNU. Then, the
researcher expects to identify the types of classroom management problems they
confront during their teaching practicum. Causes of and solutions to such problems
as perceived by the students themselves and as suggested by their supervising
teachers are also what the researcher aims at. In short, the above-mentioned aims
and objectives can be summarized into the following questions:

1. What types of classroom management issues do fourth year students at

FELTE, ULIS-VNU perceive as their problems?
2. What types of classroom management problems do fourth year students
at FELTE, ULIS-VNU encounter during their teaching practicum?
 3. What are the causes of such problems as perceived by those students
and as suggested by their supervising teachers?
4. What are solutions to such problems as suggested by those students and
their supervising teachers?

1.3. Scope of the study

It is the first time student teachers at ULIS-VNU in particular and at teacher

training colleges and universities in Hanoi in general have been allocated to have
their teaching practicum at a college degree. Therefore, the researcher specifically
aims at discovering the classroom management problems 20 student teachers from
FELTE, ULIS-VNU face during their five-week teaching practicum at different
first year groups at the English Division 1, FELTE, ULIS-VNU. Second, classroom
management is a large issue that requires much time and human resources to study.
Within the framework of a graduation paper and the specific characteristics of
ULIS students and teachers as well as their learning and teaching curriculum, it is
impossible to cover all aspects of the issue. Therefore, only the classroom elements
proposed by To et al (2008) are studied. Lastly, due to the assigned curriculum
from the college authorities, only classroom management problems in speaking,
reading and listening classes among the teacher trainees are recorded and
investigated.

1.4. Expected outcomes and significance of the study

When conducting the paper, the researcher expects to find out the types of
classroom management issues the studied subjects consider their weaknesses
before starting any teaching sessions. Such difficulties will be put into comparison
with the ones they encounter during their teaching sessions, reflecting whether they
are aware of and have any solutions to the issues. Suggested opinions from their
supervising teachers on why the student teachers have such problems and how to
overcome them are also collected.

The findings of the study on the classroom management problems fourth year
students encountered during their teaching practicum are anticipated to lay the
foundation for them to create a well-managed class that facilitates teaching and
learning. To be more specific, findings for question one, two and three promise to
raise the student teachers’ awareness of their difficulties in classroom management.
Then, the solutions suggested by the students themselves, by their supervising
teachers and from books, articles and magazines are anticipated to serve as good
references for teacher trainees to develop and enhance their classroom management
skills.

However, benefits gained from findings of the study are not restricted to the
student teachers only. Newly recruited and novice lecturers who have no or little
experience working with college and university students can find numerous
valuable classroom management lessons and techniques in the paper. Even teachers
at other education degrees will find the study a worthy reference source to read
since the issues discussed are the most commonly met in almost all Vietnamese
English as a Foreign Language classrooms. Besides, experienced teachers at ULIS-
VNU in particular and experienced teachers in general, may base on the findings of
the paper to offer novice teachers more timely and appropriate advice and
assistance when they know more about the problems trainee and novice teachers
encounter in managing the classroom. Finally, findings of the paper promise to be a
good source of reference for the English Language Teaching Methodology Group
when making changes and amendments to the courses to help better prepare the
students for their future teaching profession.

1.5. An overview of the rest of the paper

The rest of the paper includes the five following chapters:

Chapter 2 - Literature Review - provides the background of the study, including the
definitions and description of key concepts and related studies.

Chapter 3 - Methodology - describes the participants and the context of English

teaching and learning of the studied objects, instruments of the study, as well as the
procedure employed to carry out the research.

Chapter 4 - Findings analyses and discusses the findings that the researcher found
out from the data collected according to the four research questions.

Chapter 5 - Conclusion - summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, the
limitations of the research and recommendations and suggestions for further
studies. Following this chapter are the References and Appendices.
 Chapter 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

The second chapter sheds light on the literature of the study, specifically the
definitions of key terms and a number of studies related to the research topic.

2.1. Perceptions of classroom management

Although the fundamental importance of classroom management in teaching and

learning has been universally recognized, it is still a relatively recent phenomenon
in language classroom research. As explained by Evertson and Weinstein (2006)
part of the reason lies in the fact that the term classroom management has acquired
“considerable surplus meaning” (p.4). Different experts hold different views about
the issue.

Under the light of psychological principles, Bagley (1907) interpreted classroom

management as a means of “slowly transforming the child from a little savage into
a creature of law and order, fit for the life of civilized society” (p.35, as cited in
Emerson & Weinstein, 2006, p.19). His assumption was based on the belief that
school serves as preparation for democratic citizenship so management principles
should not be restricted to short-term efficiency only but be considered in terms of
the ultimate goal of education. This viewpoint is further supported by Brown
(1952) as he emphasized Christian values of school as preparation for a civilized
life. Classroom management studies of the 1950s and 1960s were also noted by
Withall and Lewis (1963, as cited in Emerson & Weinstein, 2006, p.25) to be under
the influence of educational psychology that emphasizes teacher characteristics and
instructional methods; of the mental health movement that focuses on causes of
anxiety or other hindrances to motivation; and of social psychology that revolves
around leadership style, social climate, decision-making processes and pattern of
participation. In other words, management in this sense, was quite generic and
moralistic.

On the other hand, the term classroom management is described as the task of
maintaining order, of ensuring that classroom lessons run smoothly despite
disruptive behaviors by students. For instance, as pointed out by McCaslin and
Good (1998), classroom management is often considered a means of managing
students’ behaviors - getting them to respond quickly to teacher demands, needs,
and goals (as cited in as cited in Emertson & Weinstein, 2006, p.4). Similarly, in
The New Teacher’s Companion: Practical Wisdom for Succeeding in the
Classroom (2009), Cunningham argued that teachers cannot teach and few students
can learn if all students are not aware of the rules for behaviors that apply to them.
Teaching and learning will be thriving if clear expectations and consequences that
address and eliminate problems are established from the outset. Nonetheless,
“classroom management is a multifaceted endeavor that is far more complex than
establishing rules, rewards, and penalties to control students’ behavior” (Emertson
& Weinstein, 2006, p.5).

Therefore, the phenomenon is perceived in a broader sense. According to McLeod,

Fisher & Hoover (2003), classroom life involves planning the curriculum,
organizing routine procedures, gathering resources, arranging the environment to
maximize efficiency, monitoring student progress, and anticipating, preventing and
solving problems. Therefore, the three key elements of classroom management are
managing time and classroom space, student behavior and instructional strategies.
Van Deventer & Kruger (2003) asserted that classroom management is about
planning, organizing and monitoring activities and procedures that allow for
effective teaching and learning to take place. Holding the same view, Brophy
(1996, as cited in Vo, 2009, p.15) offered the definition that classroom
management refers to actions taken to create and maintain a learning environment
and elaborated a number of factors that must be accomplished in order to fulfill
such a task, namely arranging physical environment, setting up rules and
procedures, maintaining attention and engagement. Whereas, Smith & Laslett
(2002, p.3-12) claimed that a classroom management consists of four rules: “get
them in” which refers to the seating of the students and the greeting as well as the
starting of the lesson; “get them out” that deals with the concluding and dismissing
of the lesson; “get on with it” which mentions the content of the lesson and the
manner of the teacher; and “get on with them” that discusses the issue of
maintaining control in a lesson. These rules are to ensure that an environment in
which instruction and learning can occur is established and maintained.

In brief, different educators and researchers have different opinions about what
classroom management is, hence the various ways of classifying classroom
management. However, they intersect at one point, which is classroom
management refers to actions taken to create and maintain a favorable teaching and
learning environment, and to deal with all the arising problems that may prevent
effective teaching and learning from taking place. For the sake of clarity and
consistency, the term classroom management will be referred to under the light of
this perception.

Besides, since one of the biggest aims of study is to investigate the classroom
management problems fourth year students encounter during their teaching
practice at FELTE, ULIS-VNU, a checklist that covers as many classroom
management issues as possible is required. More importantly, the factors in the
checklist should be relevant to the specific classroom setting, characteristics and
teaching as well as learning habits of teachers and students at ULIS-VNU.
Therefore, the checklist proposed by To (2008) for the assessment of the micro-
teaching sessions of the student teachers is chosen as the framework for the
researcher to investigate the issue. This checklist includes not only the classroom
management components mentioned above such as managing time and space,
managing students’ attention and engagement and giving instructions but also
many others. They are classified into the following six groups:

• Managing time
• Managing classroom space
• Giving and checking instructions
• Checking understanding
• Monitoring
• Dealing with disruptive students
• Giving feedback
• Motivating students

2.2. Elements of classroom management

2.2.1. Time management

Time management, “the art of arranging, organizing, scheduling and budgeting

one’s time for the purpose of generating more effective work and
productivity” (“What is Time Management”, n.d.) is considered one of the skills
essential for the success in both school and real life. McLeod, Fisher and Hoover
(2003) exemplified that students need time to digest, practice, review, rehearse and
apply the new learning and to relate it with practical situations. Therefore, teachers
who manage time efficiently give students the best opportunity to learn and are
more likely to achieve curricular goals. In other words, the wise use of time is an
important factor in assisting students to accomplish learning goals and making the
classroom a pleasant place for both teachers and students. “Until we can manage
time, we can manage nothing else” (Drucker, 1954, as cited in McLeod, Fisher &
Hoover, 2003, p.20).

However, time management in the context of classroom research is relatively

different from that in everyday life. Generally, time is understood as a metric - a
unit of measurement and time management is referred to personal time
management, the ability to use one’s time wisely to accomplish a certain task or
goal. The issue in relation to schooling is much more complex since how the
teacher spends time is normally determined by school rules, regulations and daily
schedules and he/she not only needs to control his own time but to manage other
types as well.

Wong and Wong (1998, as cited in McLeod, Fisher & Hoover, 2003, p.20) claimed
that there are four types of school-day time as listed below:

• Allocated time: the total time for teacher instruction and student learning
• Instructional time: the time teachers are actively teaching
• Engaged time: the time students are involved in a task
• Academic learning time: the time teachers can prove that students learned the
content or mastered the skill
In this sense, allocated time sets the boundary for instructional time and engaged
time to take place. However, the relationship between academic learning time with
others is not clearly identified.

Many other researchers also categorized classroom time into four groups which are
allocated time, scheduled time, engaged time and academic learning time
(Caldwell, Huitt, and Graeber, 1982; Berliner, 1984, as cited in “Chapter 2”, n.d).

• Allocated time: the time the teacher actually spends teaching

• Scheduled time: the official designated amount of time for the students to learn
• Engaged time: the time the students actually spend learning
• Academic learning time: the proportion of engaged time the learners spend
actively engaged in tasks that are likely to produce learning outcomes at a high
level of success.

From this perspective, scheduled time sets the upper limit for allocated time.
Engaged time is a subset of allocated time while academic learning time is a subset
of engaged time. The relationships between different variables are clearly
illustrated on the graphs.
 Figure 1 – Classification of Classroom Time
From Chapter 2: Using Time Effectively - The Secret to Successful Learning. (n.d) from http://
education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edpsybook/edpsy2/edpsy2_intro

On reflection, it could be seen that these two ways of defining classroom time
share many things in common. First, they both include engaged time, the time
students are involved in a task. Second, though given different terminologies,
instructional time in the former and allocated time in the latter refer to the time
teachers are actively teaching. More importantly, academic learning time in both
cases is defined as the amount of time students are successfully achieving a certain
learning topic. Many studies have demonstrated that academic learning time is the
most useful predictor of success (eg., Berliner, 1978, as cited in Huitt, 2006). Huitt
(2006) elaborated that a high level of academic learning time means that students
are covering important tested content; students are actively involved in learning
most of the class period and students are successful on most tasks they are
assigned. In other words, academic learning time is the most appropriate time
variable educators and teachers need to focus on to reach an ideal situation in
which all scheduled time is allocated to the topic of learning; the student is
engaged during all the allocated time; and the student is performing at a high rate
of success during all the engaged time (Berliner, 1990).

Figure 2 – Maximized Academic Learning Time

From Chapter 2: Using Time Effectively - The Secret to Successful Learning. (n.d) from http://
education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edpsybook/edpsy2/edpsy2_intro

Although there is little conflict between two ways of classification, the latter
proves to be more specific and to indicate clearer relation between different
elements. Therefore, the four time variables, namely allocated time, scheduled
time, engaged time and academic learning time proposed by Caldwell, Huitt, and
Graeber, 1982; Berliner, 1984 would be applied consistently throughout the paper.

2.2.2. Space management

Numerous research and studies have shown that classroom space is another key
issue that teachers as well as educators need to pay attention to. Elaborating the
influence of classroom space on the teaching and learning process, McLeod, Fisher
and Hoover (2003) stated as follows:

“But time is not the only issue; classroom space affects your instructional
program directly as well. Teachers try to make every inch of classroom space
count in order to have a rich and inviting classroom environment because
they know that the richness of students’ experiences are enhanced or
diminished by their surroundings. The organization of space also affects the
way students behave and move around the classroom, as well as how much
attention they pay to instruction.” (p.3)

Parlin (2009) also emphasized that the impact of classroom arrangement is too
important to leave to chance. Whether the teacher wishes to increase group
interaction with lots of small-group activities or lectures most of the time, the room
arrangement can help or hinder.

Nonetheless, different researchers have different opinions on the various elements

of classroom space. Wright (2005, as cited in Vo, 2009, p.17) argued that
classroom space entails student grouping, uses of classroom wall, movement and
population density. Cunmings (2000) also proposed a list of components that make
up classroom space. They are:

• The quarter system: teacher talk, whole-group interaction, small-group work,

independent work
• Teaching to the communication standard of active listening
• Teacher talk and eye contact
• Classroom distractions
• Seating arrangement
• Working independently and working in groups

Another standpoint is attributed to McLeod, Fisher and Hoover (2003) as they

asserted that the different aspects of classroom space are taking inventory of the
furniture and equipment, arranging student seating, placing the students’ and
teacher’s desk, placing visual displays and creating traffic pattern. Whereas,
Savage and Savage (2010) were more concerned with arranging the students’ and
teacher’s desk, arranging the teacher’s and students’ action zone, creating the
traffic pattern and teacher’s proximity and movement.

In brief, different views on the components of classroom space have been

proposed. However, they all overlap at one point. Classroom space should not be
understood as merely the physical organization of the room such as the position of
the students’ and teacher’s desks or visual displays. It should also entail the
movement of as well as interactions between different entities occupying it, the
teacher’s voice or proximity for example. In other words, “the size and shape of
the room, the location of doors and windows, and the movement of individuals
within that space combine to form the spatial dimension of a classroom” (Savage
& Savage, 2010, p.67)

For the sake of clarity and relevance, the researcher decided to investigate the
components that appear in most of the theories about classroom space and in the
checklist proposed by To (2008) to assess the teaching performance of student
teachers. They are listed as follows:

• Students’ seating arrangement

• Using blackboard
• Teachers’ position and movement
• Teacher’s non-verbal communication

2.2.2.1. Students’ seating arrangement

The single most important decision influencing the physical classroom

management is the students’ seating arrangement. Numerous studies by Weinstein
(1979, as cited in Savage & Savage, p.68), Becker (1981, as cited in Savage &
Savage, 2010, p.68) or Marzano & Brown (2009) explored that attending to seating
arrangement can encourage or discourage students’ discussion and interaction.
Effective seating arrangement of desks, chairs or visual displays enhances
students’ ability to perceive and interpret information presented and delivered via
different teaching tools around them.

Generally speaking, the student seating arrangement depends upon various factors
like the class size, the characteristics of the students or the nature of the
instructional activities. Particularly, it accords closely with the students’ proximity
to the teacher. Researchers have explored that there is “a spot in the classroom
where students are most attentive and involved in classroom interactions” which is
called the action zone (Adam & Biddle, 1970, as cited in Savage & Savage, 2010,
p.72). This area consists of those seats nearest the basic teaching position. If the
primary teaching position of the teacher is at the front of the classroom, then the
action zone is those seats that form a “T” across the front of the classroom and
down the center. Students seating within this area tend to be more motivated and
actively involved in classroom interactions and activities. The reason uncovered by
Dykman and Reis (1979, as cited in Savage & Savage, 2010, p.72) is that students
instinctively choose locations that support themselves best. That is why; students
who extrude low self-esteem normally sit on the periphery of the classroom to
distance themselves from the threat posed by the teacher. Mastering the knowledge
of the action zone assists the teacher a great deal in constructing the physical
environment. For instance, teachers may assign those with behavioral and
academic difficulties to seat in the action zone. In this way, they will receive more
of the teacher’s attention, instruction and feedback, which may help increase their
feeling of confidence and competence. Therefore, there is no fixed or best seating
arrangement in the classroom.

However, some seating arrangements are used more often and more popularly than
others. Savage and Savage (2010) listed out three of them, namely rows, clusters,
and circular or semicircular patterns. In the specific context of the classrooms in
FELTD, ULIS where the student teachers conduct their practicum, the pattern is
the traditional orderly rows where two or three students share one table. The
advantages of such arrangement are that the teacher can see many students, move
freely around and easily gain the students’ attention. However, there is little space
for peer interaction. In order to design appropriate instructional activities, it is
necessary teachers bear in mind the characteristics, the advantages and
disadvantages of each pattern.

2.2.2.2. Teachers’ using blackboard

Blackboard is always considered one of the most basic and useful teaching
resources for the teachers. A well-organized blackboard not only assists the teacher
in delivering knowledge and information but serves as a source of stimulation and
motivation for the students as well. Emphasizing the importance of blackboards in
the classroom, Sasson (2007) stated:

“What you write is just as important as how well you organize the
blackboard. It helps center the class and brings the lesson in focus. The
blackboard is the most visually centered piece of equipment available
teacher.”

From Sasson’s viewpoint, what to write and how to write are the two aspects of
blackboard using. To be more specific, what is presented on the blackboard could
be the date and the agenda - a list of goals to be achieved at the end of the day, the
main points of the lesson as well as the minor points and supporting details. In
order to do this, the teacher is advised to divide the board into different sections
with the large parts for the main contents and small boxes for details and examples.
This theory is further supported by Gower, Phillips and Walters (1995) and
Scrivener (2005) as they classified the content of the blackboard into four groups
that are allocated into different areas of the board. They are permanent or reference
material and main language items of the lesson; material for the development of
different phases of the lesson; impromptu work; and notes and reminders. In other
words, it is suggested that teachers keep different kinds of information to separate
sections of the board.

Besides, these researchers advise teachers to pay attention to their writing position
and writing time as well.

2.2.2.3. Teacher’s position and movement

Where teachers position themselves at different phases of the lesson is of great

importance if we examine its effects on the students (“Teacher Positioning in the
Classroom”, 2005). Whether the teacher is standing, seated or crouching in front
of, to the side or of behind the students transmits different messages to the
students. It tells them:

• what type of activity it is;

• what your role is;

• what the students’ role is expected to be;

• who the teacher is attending to and not attending to;

• whether the teacher expects the students to talk to him/her or not

(Gower, Phillips, & Walters, 1995, p.24)

In general, teachers establish various positions accordingly to the aims and

purposes of different activities in progress. There are times when they want to
capture the attention of all the students, others when they want to address certain
groups or individuals and also when they want to be invisible in the classroom. In
other words, teachers should take care of their physical positions during the
following lesson stages (“Classroom Management”, n.d):

• Language presentation and instruction giving: these are the two phases in which
teachers need to be the focus of all students’ attention; therefore standing is the
best position.

• Reading activities: when the students are reading, there is no need to attract their
attention so much so sitting and occasional supervising are enough.

• Activation control: when students are beginning to conduct a certain activity or

task, the teacher can lose control and supervise from afar. The teacher should
 lengthen their proximity to the students or be preferably seated. However, he/she
needs to intervene immediately when needed.

• Controlled practice: the teacher should only supervise the students’ working
occasionally; otherwise they should be given freedom to focus on the activity.

• Checking work in progress: teachers should move from one group to another in
order to check their progress as well as provide immediate assistance without
interrupting them.

Furthermore, where teachers position themselves should be put in close relation

with where the students are seated. As previously presented, there is always a spot
in the classroom where the students are most attentive and involved in the
instructional activities. This action zone is in close proximity to the teacher’s
position in the class. As a result, teachers are recommended to remain as close to
the students as possible. In fact, numerous studies emphasized the importance of
teachers’ proximity to students. For example, research findings by Weinstein
(1979, as cited in Savage & Savage, 2010, p. 73) indicated that the further students
are seated from the teacher, the lower grades they get. Their participation and
positive learning attitudes also decline as the distance between the teacher and the
students increases (Smith, 1987, as cited in Savage & Savage, 2010, p.74). They
explained that as the distance between teachers and students increases, it becomes
more difficult for the teacher to monitor the students. This lack of monitoring does
not provide students with immediate feedback, explanation or guiding that
facilitate their understanding. The distance factor may also attribute to the lack of
teacher-student contact that could contribute to positive interpersonal interactions
and feelings. In addition, students tend to be more alert and involved in learning
when the teacher is physically close. Consequently, the academic learning time is
increased, which could be translated into higher achievement of the learning goals.
 2.2.2.4. Teacher’s non-verbal communication

2.2.2.4.1. Eye contact

Numerous studies have shown that eye contact is one of the teacher’s most
effective teaching tools. First, effective eye-contact assists students’ learning. In a
normal classroom setting, people retain only about 10 percent of what they hear in
a lesson; 20 percent of what they see, but 50 percent of what they both see and hear
(Cummings, 2000, p.36). Consequently, if the students do not maintain eye contact
with the teacher and vice versa, they miss considerable learning opportunities.
Second, good eye contact is essential in establishing rapport. Gower, Phillips and
Walters (1995) in Teaching Practice Handbook, pointed out that a teacher who
never or rarely looks students in the eye extrudes lack of confidence and gives
students the sense of insecurity. In fact, the more eye contact teachers have with
students, the more likely they are to feel connected and liked (Horn, 1997, as cited
in Cummings, 2000, p.36). Furthermore, Gower, Phiilips and Walters (1995)
advised teachers to look at the students to notice their reactions and to be in touch
with the mood of the class, “Do they understand?”, “Would it be a good idea to
change the direction or the pace of the lesson?” or “Does anyone want to
contribute or ask questions?” for example (p.9).

In general, eye contact will vary at different stages of a lesson and also in different
types of lessons. Gower, Phillips and Walters (1995) stated that the more eye
contact the teacher maintains with the students, the more teacher-centered the
lesson is. Therefore, in activity that students are supposed to work or interact in
pairs or in groups, teachers should avoid or reduce the level of teacher-student eye
contact. They also specified many cases in which eye contact can be used as
follows:
• to make sure that the students have comprehended the learning topic, have
understood what they are supposed to do and know what is going on.
• to indicate who is to speak when calling one student after another to repeat
something or answer a question. A nod is usually accompanied in this case.
• to encourage students’ contribution when teachers are asking questions or
eliciting ideas. Teachers can base on the facial expression of the students to
decide who are willing to speak out.
• to signal that teachers are taking notice of the student who is talking.
• to hold the attention of students not being addressed and to encourage them to
listen to those doing the talking. Teachers may dart their glance around the
classroom to show the students that you are aware of what is going on.
• to ensure that everyone is involved, especially when the group is working
together.

2.2.2.4.2. Voice projection

Besides eye contact, the voice is another important teaching asset. Soothing and
pleasant voice used appropriately attracts the students and makes them interested in
listening attentively. Meanwhile, they will respond inappropriately when they feel
that the teacher’s voice is uncontrolled, patronizing, monotonous or weak (“How a
Teacher’s Voice Affects Pupils’ Behavior, 2005).

Technically, Martin and Darnley (2004, as cited in “How a Teacher’s Voice Affects
Pupils’ Behavior, 2005) argued:

“The teaching voice should have a firm flow supported by a centered breath,
a developed resonance that allows the voice to be projected without strain or
effort, and a pitch range that is appropriate to the individual voice,
combined with the flexibility to vary tone and inflection.” (p.1)
It is also noteworthy the teacher should project his/her voice accordingly to
activity, class size, the room or the characteristics of the students. In Winning
Strategies for Classroom Management, Cummings (2000, p.17) stated that when
talking to individuals, pairs and groups, it is suggested that teachers should act
naturally like talking to one or two people by reducing the volume, lower the pitch
and narrow the range. In contrast, when addressing a large class, the teacher should
increase the volume, widen the voice range and raise the pitch as well.

2.2.3. Instruction giving and checking

The success of various stages of a lesson depends largely on the teacher’s ability to
give clear instructions - “the directions that are given to introduce learning task
which entails some measure of independent student activity” (Ur, 1996, as cited in
Vo, 2009, p.19). If the students understand the instructions clearly, they will carry
out the task planned by the teacher. In contrast, if the instructions are
misunderstood, the activity will be conducted in a disorganized and inefficient way.
Thus, it is essential that teachers should give effective instructions and check
whether the students have understood what they are supposed to do.

In order to give and check instructions, Gower, Phillips and Walters (1995)
suggested that the teacher should:

• First attract the students’ attention. By making sure that the students are attentive,
teachers can save time explaining the instructions again and again.
• Use simple language and short expressions. To be more specific, teachers should
use language at a lower level than the language being taught and avoid using long
and complicated expressions which not only slow down the lesson but also
 confuse the students. Besides, a firm directive manner is necessary in making
language practice efficient.
• Be consistent, which means using the same set of words for the same instruction.
This technique is particularly important and useful in teaching low-level classes.
Some common instructions are: Listen, Try again, Look at the board, Stand up,
Turn to page...,...
• Use visual or written clues. Studies have shown that the more senses are involved
in the learning process, the more likely the learners are to remember and
understand the lesson. Teachers can support instructions with visual or written
clues such as real objects, pictures or written pieces of paper.
• Demonstrate. Normally, showing the students what to do is more effective than
telling them what to do. If possible, teachers can show the students what to do by
giving a demonstration or an example.
• Break the instructions down. If the activity is complicated and involves a lot of
instructions and explanation, it is advisable teachers should give simple
instructions in segments and check understanding as they go along. Or, they may
give some of the instructions and allow time for them to be carried out before
moving on to the next step.
• Be decisive. Teachers may use a signal, like the words Right or Listen, which
students will learn to recognize as a cue for an instruction. It is important that the
students should know when to begin an activity or when to stop.
• Check that students understand the instructions, especially the complicated ones.

Whereas, Scrivener (2005) proposed five steps towards efficient instruction giving
1. Teachers should become aware of their own instruction-giving, which can be
done by listening to themselves, recording themselves or asking others to watch
and give feedback.
2. During the first few phases of teaching, it is necessary for newly-qualified
teachers to prepare detailed instructions. They should analyze the instructions
beforehand to include only essential information in simple, clear language and
in sensible consequence. They should use short sentences, one for each key
information and should not say things that are visible and obvious.
3. In class, they need to make sure that students are listening while they are giving
instructions. This can be achieved by creating a silence beforehand and making
eye contact with as many students as possible.
4. They should demonstrate rather than explain whenever possible.
5. It is also important to check whether students have understood what to do and
not to assume that everyone will automatically comprehend what was delivered.
Teachers should get concrete evidence from the students that they know what is
required. One simple way of achieving this is to call one or two to tell you what
they have to do.

Though these authors have different opinions on how to give efficient instructions,
they all agree on the following points. First, it is essential that every student should
be attentive when the teacher delivers instructions. Second, instructions sent out
should be short, concise and powerful so that students can easily comprehend and
remember. Also, demonstrating to the students what they are supposed to do is
more effective than telling them what to do. Besides, it is essential for the teacher
to check the students’ understanding of the instructions.
Supporting these principles, researchers proposed different models of instruction
giving and checking. One of them is by Nguyen et al (2003, as cited in To,
Nguyen, Nguyen, Nguyen and Luong, 2009) in ELT Methodology II - Course
Book. They are:

“Step-by-step” or “feed-in approach”: the teacher gives students one

instruction at a time, not a list of instructions all together. Breaking down
instructions into small, separate steps to help students to understand them
completely, especially when there is a lot of information in instructions and
the teacher wants students to understand every word.

Demonstrate it “model” it or “show-don’t-tell”: the teacher does not talk

about what students must do: instead he/she shows them what to do by
giving a demonstration. A demonstration is easier to understand than an
explanation and reduces teacher talking time.

Say-Do-Check: The teacher follows 3 steps for each instruction. First, he/she
says the instruction, then he/she gets the students to do it, then he/she checks
that they’ve done it correctly before going on to the next instruction. Using
Say-Do-Check the teacher can tell straight away if students have not
understood anything and can take action to make sure that they understand it.

Student recall: Having given instructions in English, the teacher checks that
the students understand everything by saying “tell me what you have to do in
Vietnamese” or “say it again in Vietnamese”. Asking students to recall what
they will do in Vietnamese is helpful at lower levels as they may not fully
 understand the instructions. It makes them remember what they have to do
and allows the teacher to check that they understand what to do. (p.16-17)

Teachers should base on the specific activities or tasks to apply one or a

combination of different models above.

2.2.4. Comprehension checking

According to Fisher and Frey (2007), check for understanding is an important step
in the teaching and learning procedure. By asking or encouraging students to share
how they understand the lesson, teachers may know what they are getting out of
the lesson. Mistakes and misconceptions, therefore, can be identified and dealt
with. Besides, the act of comprehension checking can improve students’ learning
and provides them with a model of good study skills. When students reflect their
comprehension of a certain learning point, they are more aware of what they have
mastered and have more control over their learning, which in return results in
higher level of motivation. Also, when successful students share with the class the
various ways that they employ to master something, less successful students can
accumulate numerous tips and advice.

In general, researchers agreed that teachers rely mostly on questions to check

comprehension (e.g. Gabrielatos, 1997; Bond, 2007; Fisher & Frey, 2007). How to
construct effective questions is, therefore, of great momentum in the
comprehension checking process. Fisher and Frey (2007) emphasized that check
for understanding through questions should not be thought of as a simple two-step
process of questioning and answering but a complex progression. In fact, they
recommended teachers employ the questioning process of five steps called
Questioning and Understanding to Improve Learning and Thinking (QUILT)
proposed by Walsh and Sattes (2005, as cited in Fisher & Frey, 2007, p.37-40).

QUILT Framework
Stage 1: Prepare the Question. Identify instructional purpose
• Determine content focus
• Select cognitive level
• Consider wording and syntax

Stage 2: Present the Question

• Indicate response format
• Ask the question
• Select respondent

Stage 3: Prompt Student Responses

• Pause after asking question
• Assist nonrespondent
• Pause following student response

Stage 4: Process Student Responses

• Provide appropriate feedback
• Expand and use correct responses
• Elicit student reactions and questions

Stage 5: Reflect on Questioning Practice

• Analyze questions
• Map respondent selection
• Evaluate student response patterns
• Examine teacher and student reactions

Figure 3 - QUILT Framework

From Checking for Understanding - Formative Assessment Techniques for Your Classroom (p.
38) by Fisher. D. and Frey. N., 2007. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.
The first step is to formulate the question with teachers determining the purpose of
the question itself. Generally, questions can serve the purpose of information
recognition, information recalling and application recalling. After formulating the
question, teachers need to determine the format of the desired response and the
responders. Is it a question to be answered by an individual student or a group of
students? After the question is delivered, the students need time to process the
answer, which is referred to as “wait time” (Rowe, 1986, as cited in Fisher & Frey,
2007, p. 39). Normally, teachers should wait about three to five seconds to allow
learners time to digest information and formulate a response. This “wait time”
technique is particularly essential in an EFL classroom where many students need
to translate the questions and answers back and forth from the target language to
their mother tongue and vice versa. If the students cannot give the answer, teachers
are then advised to assist students. Once the students propose an answer, it is
necessary teachers response with feedback, praise or correction for example. The
final step involves analyzing the techniques used as well as the content of the
students’ answers.

Besides, Walsh and Sattes presented some strategies for teachers to help students
who respond incorrectly (p.89, as cited in Fisher & Frey, 2007, p.41). These
strategies are summarized in the following figure.
 Helping Students Who Respond Incorrectly
Cue: Use symbols, words, or phrases to help students recall.

Clue: Use overt reminders such as “Start with . . .”

Probe: Look for reasoning behind an incorrect response or ask for clarity when
the response is incomplete. Rephrase: Pose the same question in different words.

Redirect: Pose the same question to a different student.

Hold accountable later: Later in the lesson, check back with the student who
responded incorrectly to make sure that he or she has the correct answer.

Figure 4 - Helping Students Who Respond Incorrectly

From Checking for Understanding - Formative Assessment Techniques for Your Classroom (p.
41) by Fisher. D. and Frey. N., 2007. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.

Within the limited context of the paper, the issue refers to the activity of teachers
checking students’ understanding in speaking, listening and reading lessons only.

2.2.5. Monitoring

Concerning the teacher’s activities during students’ pair and group work, Pollard
(2008) stated that teachers should quietly let the students get on with the task.
However, this does not mean ignoring them and letting the task disintegrate. They
should go around, monitoring the activities of the students. In this way, teachers
can offer help when needed, answer the students’ questions, note down students’
mistakes and examples of good work for later feedback and let them know that
time is closing in.

Acknowledging the importance of teachers’ monitoring, Gower et al (1995) also

emphasized that when students are engaged in a task, teachers should listen and
watch what they are doing. The aims of this activity is to make sure the students
are clear about and actively involved in what they are required to do, to assess how
well they are doing the task and to evaluate particular language strengths and
weaknesses. Particularly, in the context of language classroom, teachers’
supervising is of great importance in ensuring that students are truly
communicating in the target language and are under no temptation to refer back to
their mother tongue. To help teachers monitor the class effectively, Gower et al
also suggested some tips on how to monitor groupwork, pairwork and individuals.

• Monitoring groupwork
1. Stand back. Once the teacher sets up the activity, he/she should allow a short
time for the students to get on with it. By standing back, the teacher is enabled
to see which groups seem to be working well and which are having problems.
2. Quickly check. Teachers should go around, supervising to check that students
have all understood what they have to do. If one group is not clear about the
instructions, teachers should stop them and explain to them again. If most of the
students are confused, then teachers are recommended to deliver the instructions
again to the whole class.
3. Spread attention. Teachers should not concentrate their attention on one group
only otherwise the members in that group will feel cramped by teachers’
 presence. Besides, if attention is not well distributed, the neglected ones will
start drifting away from the task. Teachers, therefore, should make themselves
easily accessible so that every group can be supervised and assisted when
necessary.
4. Provide encouragement. Very often, the groups may lose interest in the activity
and be distracted by private talks. At that time, teachers should move around to
get them going on the right track. Their enthusiasm will motivate and give the
students confidence.

• Monitoring pairwork. Most of what teachers need to consider when monitoring

groupwork can be applied to pairwork. However, teachers should remember that
in pairwork it is easier for them to dominate half of the activity for the time they
show the students what the activity is about.

• Monitoring individuals.
1. Teachers should make sure that every student receives their attention and
assistance before they move around.
2. Teachers should be discreet in their approach (not too loud or too disruptive).
3. Teachers should also consider the effect of their approach in monitoring
individuals, whether they dot around the class unpredictably or move from one
to another.

In general, teachers should base on the specific types of activities as well as the
classroom setting and students’ characteristics to employ the most appropriate
monitoring strategies.

2.2.6. Disruptive behavior management

Disruptive behavior was defined by Race and Pickford (2007) as any behavior that
interferes with the teachers’ ability to teach and other students’ ability to learn.
Common disruptive behavior of students in the classroom is meant by some
classroom situations such as: if some students are chatting when teachers and other
peers are practising speaking; some arriving late for class or leaving early;
inappropriate demanding individual attention; constantly interrupting, being
inattentive. In short, McKeachie (1994, as cited in Race & Pickford, 2007, p.82)
categorized disruptive behaviors into the following patterns:

• angry and aggressive students;

• attention seekers and those who dominate discussions;
• inattentive or unprepared students;
• flattering students;
• discouraged and defeated students;
• students with a million excuses;
• students who want the truth or the right answer

Researchers have been trying to discover why students misbehave in the class. One
of them is Cummings (2000) as the author argued that the students misbehave in
the class is because they may be under physical, emotional or intellectual threats.
Some examples of the different types of threats are listed as follows:

• Intellectual threats: having to work in a group, hearing an announcement of a pop

quiz, receiving unclear instructions, being called upon to answer in front of the
class, fearing failure in a certain subject, being distracted by other students,
having their grades posted publicly, being afraid of reading aloud in the class.
• Emotional threats: negative language, bullying, intimidation and other forms of
put-downs, fear of being disciplined by an adult in front of peers, boyfriend or
girlfriend troubles, coping with family trauma, fearing of family reaction to poor
grades.

• Physical threats: fear of pushing, shoving and tripping in the hall, fear of having
caught up in a fight, fear of having personal items stolen, feeling tired or not
feeling well.

These threats are often exposed in the form of frustration, lack of cooperation and
low motivation. Fortunately, many of these threats can be minimized or eliminated.
For instance, in order to deal with intellectual stressors, Cummings (1997)
suggested that teachers could provide students with a choice of working alone or
with a group to alleviate the fear of small group work; minimize test anxiety by
announcing when the test will be and the type of test to expect or let students know
the grade is based on the content of the answers, not mechanics, spelling or
penmanship. The bottom-line is teachers understand why students misbehave and
have some precautions rather than solutions to the problem.

2.2.7. Feedback

Giving feedback is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of a teacher.

Formative feedback gives information to teachers and students about how students
are doing compared to the learning goals. If done well, feedback can exert
profound influence on the students (Brookhart, 2008), the power of which lies in
its addressing both cognitive and motivational factors at the same time. The
cognitive factor is good feedback providing students with information of where
they are in their learning and what to do next. Once students understand what they
are required to do and why, they have the feeling of being in control over their
learning, which is meant by the motivational factor.

Before investigating different aspects of the issue, it is crucial the term feedback be
explained. Feedback was defined by Ur (1996, as cited in Vo, 2009, p.20) as
“information that given to the learner about his or her performance of a learning
task… Feedback has two main distinguishable components: assessment and
correction.” Harmer (2006, as cited in Vo, 2009, p.20) also supported this theory
by stating: “feedback encompasses not only correcting students but also offering
them an assessment of how well they have done”. In other words, these two authors
both agreed that feedback consists of two components: correction and assessment
of the students’ performance. In addition, its two most popular modes in the
classroom are oral feedback and written feedback (To et al, 2008, p.21-22; Gower
et al, 1995, p.169-170). Within the specific context where the student teachers are
allocated to be in charge of reading, speaking and listening skills only, the type of
feedback investigated in the paper is oral feedback.

2.2.4.1. What to correct

The first question teachers should ask themselves about the issue is what to
correct. Brookhart (2008) believed that the content of the teacher’s feedback
should involve choices about focus, comparison and valence.

Regarding the choice of focus, four levels of feedback is distinguished by Hattie &
Timperley (2007, as cited in Brookhart, 2008, p.20-21): feedback about the task,
feedback about the processing of the task, feedback about self-regulation and
feedback about the self as a person. Feedback about the task refers to information
about errors - whether something is correct or not, about the depth or quality of the
work that is based on certain criteria. One example is “the thesis statement in
writing as well as in speaking should tell the listeners your opinion about the issue,
whether you approve of it or not”. Feedback about the process of the task includes
information about how they approached the task, information about the comparison
between what they did with how they did and information about possible
alternative strategies as well. For instance, the teacher may comment on a student’s
piece of writing like “Refutation is one way to emphasize your point. What else
could you do to make convincing arguments?”. Meanwhile, self-regulation
feedback draws connections between students’ work and their intentional efforts,
“it is good of you to have interactions with the audience while presenting” for
example. Whereas, feedback about the self as a person includes personal comments
from the teachers. Generally, it is not a good idea to use this type of feedback since
it does not contain information that can be used for further learning.

Choosing the content of the teacher’s feedback also involves the choice of
comparison. Brookhart (2008, p.22-23) listed out three types of feedback
comparison, namely criterion-referencing, self-referencing and norm-referencing.
Criterion-referencing feedback is feedback comparing the students to a learning
target, which helps students decide what their next learning goal is. For example,
“Your voice is very soothing, yet lacks emphasis” implies that you should have
stress on certain syllables and words. Self-referencing feedback, meanwhile, gives
information about the process or methods the students use. This type of feedback is
particularly necessary for struggling students who need to realize that they make
progress. Whereas, norm-referencing compares the performance of one student to
that of others, which is not strongly recommended since it may create negative
competition among the students.

Lastly, feedback should be positive. Being “positive” does not mean being
diplomatically happy or only saying good things about the students’ performance.
Being positive means demonstrating how good a student’ work is compared to the
criteria and how the strong points of the student’s performance show his/ her
ability. Being positive means pointing out where further improvements are needed
and suggestions for correction. In other words, good feedback is not only about the
good point of the students’ performance but the area that needs to be improved as
well.

Feedback Content Can In These Ways...

Vary In...
- On the work itself
1. Focus - On the process the student used to do the work
- On the student’s self-regulation
- On the student personally
- To criteria for good work (criterion-referencing)
2. Comparison - To other students (norm-referencing)
- To students’ past performance (self-referencing)
- Comments on the good points
3. Valence - Comments on the points that need further improvement

Figure 5 - Feedback Content

2.2.4.2. How to correct

Several researchers and authors have suggested various techniques for correcting
errors in general and spoken ones in particular. One of them is Nguyen et al (2003,
p.21-23) with the seven techniques for oral feedback. They are: finger correction,
question mark, alternatives, blackboard prompt, student-to-student correction,
modeling, and delayed correction. Teachers may base on the specific learning
goals and types of learning activity to choose the most appropriate one.

2.2.4.3. Who to correct

Concerning the question of who to correct, Gower et al (2008) asserted that in

many cases, the student is able to correct the mistakes by himself or herself, either
completely unprompted or under the assistance of the teacher and the peers. As a
result, not only the teacher but also the students participate in the feedback session
which is dominant by self-correction, student-student correction or teacher
correction (Gower et al, 2008, p.167).

• Self-correction

Teachers are recommended to let the students correct themselves first. In order to
do this, students will have to learn to become articulate and critical as well as to
learn how to monitor themselves. Sometimes, they need the assistance of the
teacher and the peers to be more aware of the problem and how to deal with it.

• Student-student correction

When the students do not know how to correct themselves, teachers should not
immediately provide feedback but let other students be involved in the session.
This strategy makes the learning more cooperative, reduces the student’s
dependence on the teacher, increases the amount of time students listen to each
other and creates chances for good students to help others.

• Teacher correction

If neither self-correction nor peer correction proves to be effective then the teacher
should give his/her own comments on the performance. No matter how the teacher
has done the correction, it is essential that he/she should ask the student who made
the mistake to say the correct version. The teacher can do this with gesture or say
something like “Ok, again. The whole thing.”

2.2.4.4. How much to correct

Probably the hardest decision to make about feedback is the amount to deliver.
Bookhart (2008) emphasized that judging the right amount of feedback to provide
entails considerations on the following simultaneously:

• The topic in general and the learning targets in particular. For example, if the
students are learning about non-verbal communication in presentation then
comments on how the students make eye contact or hold their hands should be
more emphasized than those on ideas or pronunciation.
• Typical developmental learning progressions for those topics or targets. This
requires the teacher to dig deep into his/her knowledge of the topic (what else
should they know?) and his/her teaching experience with the topic (what
typically comes next?).
• The individual students. For instance, for some students, correction and feedback
on one point would suffice whereas others can handle more.

It is also noteworthy that teachers pay attention to the phenomenon of over-

correction. Gower et al (1995) explained that over-correction is when the more the
teacher tries to correct something, the worse the student gets. It is not effective for
the teacher to fix everything they see or to try to make everything perfect in one
go. Instead, it is worth spending time correcting some items only then moving on
to others on the next section. Correction of major errors that most students make is
best considered since it could be done quickly and students will be more interested
in receiving comments related to them. For real learning, what makes difference is
a usable amount of information that gives students a clear understanding of what to
do next on the points they see they need to work on. Therefore, teachers may
consider employing the Goldilocks principle of “Not too much, not too little, but
just right” (Bookhart, 2008, p.13).

2.2.4.5. When to correct

The general principal of gauging the timing of feedback proposed by Bookhart

(2008) is to put yourself in the position of the students. To be more specific,
feedback needs to come when students are still mindful of the lesson. It needs to
come when the students are still thinking of the learning goal as a learning goal -
something they still need to work on, not something they already did. Particularly,
it needs to come when they still have some reasons to work on the learning target.
Teachers should consider these things to choose the most appropriate time to
deliver their feedback so that students can benefit and learn most.
In short, in order to give effective feedback, teachers should take into consideration
the issues of what to correct, how to correct, who to correct, how much to correct
and when to correct.

2.2.8. Student motivation

2.2.8.1. Perception of motivation

Motivation has been widely accepted as one of the most crucial factors that affects
the teaching and learning process. Dǒrnyei (1998, as cited in Wang, 2008, p. 31)
stressed that “motivation provides the primary impetus to initiate learning foreign
language and later the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning
process”. Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable
abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals, and neither are appropriate curricula
and good teaching enough to ensure students achievement. Whereas, high
motivation can make up for considerable deficiencies both in one’s language
aptitude and learning conditions.

The issue is defined in different ways by different researchers. Gardner and

Lambert (1972, as cited in Narayanan, 2006) referred motivation to the extent to
which an individual strives to do something because of a desire to do so or the
satisfaction experienced in the activity. Meanwhile, Ellis (2000, as cited in To et al,
2008, p.28) perceived motivation as “the attitude and affective states that influence
the degree of effort that learners make to learn an L2”. Whereas, Corbin (2008, as
cited in Kirby & McDonald, 2009, p.5) described motivation as “an emotional
reaction in which the learner sees a benefit, reward, or the potential for a positive
reward in a task.” These authors, though perceiving motivation in different ways,
intersect at one point, at which motivation is the driving force that pushes
individuals to achieve something.

Normally, motivation can be manifested through different student behaviors.

Louisell and Descamp (1992, as cited in Coetzee et al, 2008, p. 104) summarized
these behaviors in the following table:

Type of Behaviors Description

1. Attention This is defined as any instance when the learner
chooses to focus on the instructional activity rather than
on non-instructional activity.
2. Time on task Evidence of this behavior is provided when the learner
spends sufficient time engaging in the learning activity.
3. Effort This is demonstrated when the learner works
intensively, investing the energy and ability required to
do the task at hand.
4. Feeling tone This is evident when the learner appears happy, self-
confident and eager in the learning situation.
5. Extension Examples of this include situations in which the learner
goes beyond the standards required by the particular
activity.
6. Performance When the learner masters the task, performance has
been demonstrated.

Figure 6 - Types of Learners Behaviors

2.2.8.2. Classification of motivation

Generally, motivation could be classified into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
According to Bainbridge (n.d., as cited in Vo, 2009, p.21):

Extrinsic motivation refers to motivation that comes from outside an

individual. The motivating factors are external, or outside, rewards such as
money or grades. These rewards provide satisfaction and pleasure that the
task itself may not provide, whereas, intrinsic motivation comes from inside
each individual.

Wang (2008) supported this theory by claiming that intrinsic motivation deals with
behavior performed for its own sake, in order to experience the joy and pleasure of
doing a particular activity while extrinsic motivation refers to those driven by
external factors such as parental pressure, social expectations or academic
expectations. Wang (2006, as cited in Vo, 2009, p.22) was also concerned with
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation when stating that “motivation is a complex
phenomenon and is made up of many components internal and external. The
second language learners who either intrinsically or extrinsically meet their need
in learning the language will be positively motivated to learn.”

In most classroom, both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation exist, however,

according to Spaulding (1992, as cited in Coetzee et al, 2008, p.103), classroom
practices mainly promote extrinsic motivation.

2.2.8.3. Factors influencing student motivation

There are many factors determining the student motivation in learning. Some of the
most influential ones proposed by Corbin (2008, as cited in Kirby & McDonald,
2009, p.5) are relevance, control and choice, challenge, social interaction,
anticipated sense of success, need, and novelty.

Motivation for learning increases when the learner feels that the instruction is
related to their personal needs and goals which are perceived as meaningful.
Similarly, students feel motivated when they can connect with and apply the
learned knowledge to their own life and experiences. They also respond well when
they are in control of their learning process, which could be achieved by teachers
who let the students have some control over issues such as the choices of
assignments or subject or sharing with them some minor managerial tasks like
checking attendance or collecting homework.

Young learners like to be challenged, especially when it involves the anticipated

sense of success. Yet, teachers should make sure that students should have some
experiences of success so that they are more likely to be engaged in learning, to
feel more confident and to persist when challenges occur. Social interaction in pair
work, small group work or large group work is also very helpful since students can
exchange ideas and learn from each other. Learners may also be more receptive
and open to new ideas when they have the chance to talk in groups, to brainstorm
and solve a problem together. Besides, students find it intriguing and stimulating to
access new or unusual information. To engage students’ interest and imagination,
teachers can periodically interject unusual or “out of the mainstream” information
related to the content being studied (Marzano & Brown, 2009, p.194).

2.2.8.4. Strategies to increase student motivation

In order to help teachers with the issue, researchers have proposed several
strategies to increase student motivation in learning. One example is the ten ways
suggested by Stipek (1988, as cited in Coetzee et al, 2008, p.105) and Hunter
(1982, as cited in Coetzee et al, 2008, p.105). They are:

1. Make the learning task challenging.

2. Place less emphasis on testing and grades.
3. Provide assistance without overprotecting.
4. Move from extrinsic to intrinsic rewards.
5. Use praise appropriately.
6. Have high expectations of each learner.
7. Provide knowledge of results.
8. Promote successful learning for all class members.
9. Increase the learners’ perception that they control the learning situation.
10. Change the classroom goal-reward structure (move from competitive to
cooperative/ individual goal-reward structure).

Arends (1998, as cited in Coetzee et al, 2008, p.105) added the following
strategies:

• Attend to alterable factors.

• Avoid overemphasizing external motivation.
• Create learning situations with positive feeling tones.
• Build on learners’ interest and intrinsic values.
• Structure learning to accomplish flow.
• Use knowledge of results and do not excuse failure.
• Attend to learners’ needs, especially their need for self-determination.
• Facilitate group development and cohesion.

Meanwhile, Marzano and Brown (2009) recommended the use game-based

learning tasks and activities, the use of physical movement that increases students’
energy and ability to concentrate, teacher’s demonstrating enthusiasm when
teaching as well as the opportunities for students to talk about themselves.

It is essential that teachers should base on the specific learning context and student
characteristics to employ the appropriate strategies.

2.3. Related studies

2.3.1. Related studies on classroom management

Although classroom management has always been recognized as crucial for

teachers, the systematic study of effective management is a relatively recent
phenomenon.

In “Handbook of Classroom Management: Research, Practice and Contemporary

Issues” (2006), Emertson and Weinstein cited:

“For the first two thirds of the 20th century, the managerial advice in
teacher education textbooks was mostly confined to common sense
(“arrange for smooth-flowing traffic patterns and places for students to
store personal belongings”) and aphorisms presented as wisdom of
practice (“don’t smile until Christmas”). Citations were infrequent and
mostly to theorists or other textbooks. “(p.19)
One remarkable example of these early studies is that of William Chandler Bagley
(1907, as cited in Evertson & Weinstein, 2006, p.19). Holding the belief that school
is to prepare children for a civilized life, management principles in school, in his
view, should be considered for this purpose. Collecting data from his own
observations of teachers he considered efficient and successful, textbooks on
classroom management, his personal experience as a teacher and some general
psychological principles, he proposed a set of management principles that are
useful in the shaping and changing behavior of the students.

It was not until the 1950s that the first “high-profile, large-scale, systematic” study
of classroom management was done by Jacob Kounin (1970, as cited in Marzano,
Marzano & Pickering, 2006, p.5). In this study, he analyzed videotapes of 49 first
and second grade classrooms and coded the behavior of students and teachers. The
findings showed that there are four critical dimensions of effective classroom
management, namely withitness, smoothness and momentum during lesson
presentations, letting students know what behavior is expected of them at certain
time and variety and challenge in the seatwork assigned to students. Of the four
dimensions, withitness which involves a keen awareness of disruptive or
potentially disruptive behavior particularly emphasized. It was believed to be the
one that distinguishes the excellent classroom managers from the average or
below-average classroom managers.

Later, Brophy and Evertson (1976, as cited in Marzano et al, 2006, p. 5) published
the results of one of the major studies of classroom management up to that point.
Although the treatise investigated different teaching behaviors, classroom
management emerged as one of the critical aspects of effective teaching and much
of what they found related to the issue supported the earlier findings of Kounin.
The crucial importance of classroom management in teaching and learning was
further emphasized in later studies. For instance, with the view to identifying
teacher actions associated with student on-task behavior and disruptive behavior, a
series of four comprehensive studies with the participation of a large number of
elementary and junior high school teachers was conducted at the Research and
Development Center for Teacher Education in Austin, Texas. The findings showed
that early attention to classroom management promises better-run classroom.
Another example is a comprehensive study by Margaret Wang, Geneva Haertel,
and Herbert Walberg (1993, as cited in Emertson & Weinstein, 2006, p.6). These
researchers combined the results of three previous studies: one involved a content
analysis of 86 chapters from research reviews, 44 handbook chapters, 20
government reports and 11 journal articles, another involved a survey of 134
educators, and one involved an analysis of 91 major research syntheses. The result
of this massive review was that classroom management was rated first among
various teaching variables in terms of its impact on student achievement.

Turning to the 21st century, the aim and focus of classroom management research
shifted gradually to specific management strategies. Marzano et al (2006) noted
that one major study had been conducted by Jere Brophy. With the aim of
identifying management strategies to deal with different types of students, Brophy
collected data based on in-depth interviews with and observations of 98 teachers
regarded as effective managers and average managers. One finding of the paper
was that effective managers tended to employ different strategies to deal with
different types of students whereas average teachers were inclined to use the same
techniques. It is noteworthy that may books and studies have been published to
address specifics of classroom management, yet the focus of these publications is
more on managing student behavior and maintaining rules and procedures than on
other aspects (e.g. Cummings, 2000; Corrie, 2002; McLeod et al, 2003; Brookfield,
2006; Tauber, 2007)

2.3.2. Related studies on classroom management skills in teaching

practice

Teaching practice is a crucial stage in any teacher training programs since it

provides student teachers with an opportunity to gain first-hand experience in
working with a particular group of students. Acknowledging this importance,
researchers have conducted numerous studies on the issue. However, most of the
studies revolve around the effects of teaching practicum on the student teachers’
teaching efficacy, the cooperation between student teachers and their mentors or
the evaluation of the teaching practice (Abdullah, 2003; Lind, 2005; Hu, 2006;
Yilmaz & Cavas, 2008). Very few papers focused on challenges and difficulties
student teachers encountered in managing classroom during teaching practicum,
one of which is by Kyriacou and Stephen. In 1999, Kyriacou and Stephen (as cited
in Vo, 2009, p.23) carried a research to discover teacher trainees’ concerns during
teaching practice. The findings were: not being regarded as a real teacher; dealing
with disruptive behavior; becoming a disciplinarian; getting the teaching right;
getting the planning right; teaching about sensitive issues; coping with a heavy
workload; having too little preparatory teaching practice; and being assessed.
These nine areas of concern were then classified into three categories, namely
taking responsibility, developing confidence and creating an orderly classroom - an
aspect of classroom management. In the same year, Orr, Thompson and Thompson
also published a paper on pre-service teachers’ perceived success of classroom
management strategies. The purposes of the research is to determine types of
behaviors pre-service teachers viewed as inappropriate and to examine the
perceived success of classroom management, success of classroom management
strategies reported by pre-service teachers. Another treatise is attributed to Kher,
Lacina-Gifford and Yandell (2000) when they also aimed at identifying pre-service
teachers’ knowledge about effective and ineffective classroom management
strategies for defiant behaviors.

There are few studies focusing on difficulties of student teachers in classroom

management during the teaching practice and even fewer papers on the issue of
classroom management skills among language student teachers during the
practicum in the area and in Vietnam. The most noticeable research is the one
undertaken by Vo (2009) in Vietnam. With the aim of discovering student teachers’
difficulties in classroom management during their six-week practicum at a high
school, Vo conducted interviews with and observation of thirteen teacher trainees.
The most significant finding of the paper is that time management was the most
challenging skills for student teachers during the practicum followed by student
motivation and space management.

In short, researchers have conducted a number studies on the issue of classroom

management. However, there are relatively very few on the pre-service teachers’
classroom management skills in EFL classroom during teaching practicum.
Particularly in Vietnam, there has not been any related to the difficulties and
challenges teacher trainees encounter in managing classroom during the teaching
practice at a college level. The paper is, therefore, conducted to fill that gap.
 Chapter 3 - METHODOLOGY

The objectives of the paper are to discover the causes of and solutions to the
classroom management problems that student teachers encounter during their
teaching practicum at FELTE, ULIS-VNU, which are summarized into the four
research questions. This chapter aims at finding answers to these questions by
elaborating on the participants and setting, justifying the research instruments as
well as describing in details the procedures of collecting and analyzing data.

3.1. Participants and setting

The process of data collection involved the participation of both student teachers
and lecturers at FELTE, ULIS-VNU.

3.1.1. Student teachers

The population of the research is 20 fourth year students at FELTE, ULIS-VNU

who were allocated to conduct their teaching practicum at several first year groups.
They are two mainstreamers and 18 fast-track program students.

• Before participating in the teaching practicum, the two mainstreamers took

seven courses in English Language Skills and five courses in English
Language Teaching. Notably, during the English Language Teaching courses,
they participated in the activity called Micro-Teaching in which they took
turns to act as mock teachers delivering a short lesson to their peers who were
mock high school students.
 • For the 18 fast-track program students, prior to the teaching practicum, they
underwent six courses in English Language Skills, one course in Advanced
English and five courses in English Language Teaching. In the English
Language Teaching courses, they also had the Micro-Teaching activity but in
the last course, they were recommended to choose FELTE, ULIS-VNU
freshmen as their target students. Particularly, in the seventh semester, these
18 students took part in the Tutoring Program in which they themselves
developed a curriculum, designed lessons to teach Speaking, Reading and
Listening skills to the first and second year students of ULIS-VNU. To some
extent, they had had experience in working with college students in an
academic classroom setting.

During the teaching practicum, these 20 teacher trainees were divided into 10 pairs
and each pair was assigned to be in charge of one of the three skills - Listening,
Reading and Speaking at several first year groups. These groups vary among
students with various characteristics from different training groups: teacher
training, interpreter/translator training and double major training.

Under the allocation of the English Division 1 at FELTE, ULIS-VNU, these

student teachers worked with their classes for 5 weeks and practiced teaching a
specific skill for no less than 5 periods of 50 minutes in total. During their teaching
session, one teacher who had previously worked with the students supervised and
gave evaluation on the performance of the students on a given checklist.

Due to the time allocation of the whole department, most of the speaking lessons
took place at the same time and so did reading and listening ones. Therefore, the
researcher decided to choose randomly one pair for each listening and reading skill
and two pairs for speaking skill. In total, there are 8 participants including five
fast-track and one mainstream students involved in the data collection process.
Although there were only 8 out of 20 pre-service teachers participating in the
study, data collected from the questionnaires and interview sessions along with
data from the videotaped lessons during 3 weeks help increase the reliability and
validity of the ultimate findings.

In addition to the students of the groups that the student teachers conducted their
teaching sessions can be considered indirect participants since how these students
act and behave determines how the direct participants - 8 teacher trainees react and
response. Thus, it is important for the researcher to inform the students of the
research and ask them to be in the most natural state so that the teacher trainees can
demonstrate their classroom management skills.

3.1.2. Supervising teachers

In order to get a more critical look at the issue, the participation of the supervising
teachers of the teacher trainees were included. These teachers who have been
teaching English Language Skills for a few years supervised and evaluated the
teacher trainee’s performance. Working along with the four chosen pairs of pre-
service teachers, four supervising teachers were invited to join an interview session
after the third week’s teaching practicum.

3.2. Data collection methods and procedure

For a collection of sufficient reliable and valid data for the research, interviews and
classroom observation as methods of the qualitative and quantitative approaches
were fully employed.

3.2.1. Questionnaire
3.2.1.1. Justification for the use of questionnaire

Questionnaire was defined by Brown (2001, as cited in Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.
92) as “any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions
or statements to which they are to react either by writing out their answers or
selecting them among existing ones.”

The questionnaire is one of the most common methods of collecting data for its
numerous advantages. According to Mackey and Gass (2005), compared to the use
of individual interviews, using questionnaires is much more economical and
practical since questionnaires can reveal data on attitudes and opinions from a large
group of participant and can “elicit longitudinal information from learners in a
short period of time”. Besides, questionnaires can be administered in many forms
such as via emails, by phone or in person, which allows the researcher a great deal
of flexibility. Taking into account the researcher’s aim of identifying the classroom
management skills student teachers perceived as problematic and the problems
they encountered during their teaching practicum along with the busy schedule of
the researcher and the participants, the use of questionnaires fits in perfectly.

3.2.1.2. Questionnaire design

The questionnaire used to collect data in the paper was adapted from the one
designed by Vo (2009). The purpose of the questionnaire is to seek answers to the
first two research questions:

• What types of classroom management issues do fourth year students at

FELTE, ULIS-VNU perceive as their problems?
• What types of classroom management problems do fourth year students at
FELTE, ULIS-VNU encounter during their teaching practicum?

In order to answer the question, the questionnaire is divided into two big questions.
The first one aimed at finding out the difficulty level of different classroom
management skills as perceived by the student teachers. The other dealt with the
frequency they encountered problems with such skills during their teaching
practicum. These questions were designed in the form of closed-item ones that
“involve a greater uniformity of measurement and therefore greater reliability”.
(Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.93).

3.2.1.3. Questionnaire procedure

The questionnaire was delivered to 8 participants after they had finished their third
teaching practice session. The researcher’s purpose was to involve the participants
when they had enough time to realize and reflect on their strengths and weaknesses
in managing the classroom. The questionnaire was in printed form and delivered
directly to the student teachers.

3.2.2. Observation
3.2.2.1. Justification for the use of observation
As previously presented, classroom management is about maintaining a favorable
teaching and learning environment, about dealing with all the arising problems that
may prevent effective teaching and learning from taking place. In other words,
classroom management is a process happening throughout the lesson, which
requires “the view from both the insider - the student teachers and outsider - the
researcher” (Vo, 2009, p.28). Besides, there are different components and elements
that are made up of classroom management. In order to study the classroom
management problems teacher trainees confront during their teaching practicum at
FELTE, ULIS-VNU, a research instrument “generating data which involve the
researcher immersing [him or herself] in a research setting, and systematically
observing dimensions of that setting, interactions, relationships, actions, events,
and so on, within it” (Mason, 1996, as cited in Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.175) is
most appropriate. As a result, observation that allows the researcher to “study the
processes of education in naturalistic settings, provides more detailed and precise
evidence than other data sources, and stimulates change and verifies that the
change occurred” (Waxman (n.d), as cited in Vo, 2009, p.28) was chosen.
Particularly, through constant observations, the researcher can gain deeper and
multilayered understanding of the participants and their context (Mackey & Gass,
2005, p.176). These features coincide exactly with the researcher’s intention of
getting insight into the teacher’s trainees’ problems in classroom management.

3.2.2.2. Observation scheme

What happens in a classroom is always hard to predict and unexpected problems

occur all the time. Thus, highly-structured observations in which the data are
recorded according to rigid checklists and rating scales are not a good choice. At
the other end of the scale, unstructured observations in which the researcher relies
on the notes of detailed descriptions of the phenomenon may prevent the
researcher from concentrating on the certain issue being studied. To illustrate,
classroom management issues such as time management, student motivation or
giving feedback should be paid more attention to rather than such factors as setting
of the lesson or the lesson plan. Therefore, the researcher decided to employ
structured observation which can “facilitate the recording of details such as when,
where, and how often certain types of phenomena occur, allowing the researcher to
compare behaviors across research contexts in a principled manner” (Mackey &
Gass, 2005, p.175). To be more specific, during the observation, the researcher
utilized a checklist of different classroom management elements to note down all
the related information and data.

3.2.2.3. Observation procedure

In order to observe the teaching sessions of the 8 participants in 3 weeks, the

researcher asked for permission from the supervising teachers and from the student
teachers to observe their classes. To make sure the presence of the researcher does
not create any pressure on the teacher trainees and her students and not interfere
with any class activity, the researcher attended classes as a non-participant and
tried not to attract any attention to her.

As there are numerous ongoings and unexpected problems in a lesson, as well as

many phenomena that cannot be recognized and interpreted easily at once, the
researcher also asked for and was granted the permission to videotape all the
lessons of the 8 participants. In this way, the researcher could watch the videotapes
again to gain more insights into the matter studied.
The data collected from observation help answer the question:

What types of classroom management problems do fourth year students at

ED, ULIS-VNU encounter during their teaching practicum?

3.2.3. Interviews
3.2.3.1. Justification for the use of interviews

Survey questionnaire and classroom observation are effective tools for the research
on investigating the difficulties fourth year students encounter in classroom
management during their teaching sessions. However, there are phenomena that
cannot be investigated directly or cannot be interpreted no matter how many times
they are observed. Similarly, there are cases when the researcher has to ask for
further explanation and/or information when the previously mentioned data are
unclear. In this case, interviews should be included as one of the research
instruments. Discussing the advantages of interviews, Mackey and Gass (2005)
wrote:

“...Interviews can allow researchers to investigate phenomena that are not

directly observable, such as learners’ self-reported perceptions or attitudes.
Also, because interviews are interactive researchers can elicit additional
data if initial answers are vague, incomplete, off-topic, or not specific
enough...” (p.173)

These features are in great accordance with the intentions of the researcher since
the ultimate goal of the interviews was to follow up and provide an insight into the
classroom management problems student teachers had during the teaching sessions
as perceived by themselves and as suggested by their supervisors. Moreover,
causes of and solutions to such problems from the suggestions of the teacher
trainees and the supervisors were discovered as well.

3.2.3.2. Interview design

All the interviews utilized are semi-structured, since it is believed that semi-
constructed interviews provide the interviewers with a great deal of flexibility
while offering the interviewees adequate power and control over the course of the
interview (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.173). The language used in the interviews is
Vietnamese to ensure the highest level of question comprehension and self
expression of the interviewees. In addition, all the interviews were conducted face-
to-face and were recorded for further interpretation and investigation.

The interviews were carried out after the participants had finished their third
teaching practice session. It was the time when the student teachers began to
recognize their strengths and weakness in classroom management. There are two
different versions for two groups of direct participants: student teachers and their
supervisors. Through the interviews for the student teachers, the researcher aims at
elaborating on the causes of and solutions to the classroom management they
reported to encounter in the survey questionnaires. The design of this interview
was adapted from the Interview Schedule in “Graduation Paper: Classroom
Management Skills among Fourth Year Students (English Department, ULIS-VNU)
During Their Teaching Practice” by Vo, T.T. (2009). The other version of the
interviews is for the supervising teachers. Data and information collected from
these interviews were the supervising teachers’ evaluation of the teacher trainees’
performance during the 3 teaching sessions; their explanation on the causes of and
solutions for any of the difficulties the trainees encountered in managing the class.
The design of this interview version is correspondingly divided into two parts.

3.2.3.2. Interview procedure

Before the teaching practicum started, the researcher contacted all the teacher
trainees and the supervising teachers to ask for their permission to conduct
interviews with them. After the third teaching round, the researcher made an
appointment with the trainees and their supervisors to carry out the interviews.
Since each mentoring teacher had a checklist to evaluate each student teacher’s
performance in each session so they relied on that checklist to answer the
researchers’ questions. Meanwhile, the pre-service teachers, after teaching three
sessions, began to recognize clearly their strengths and weaknesses in managing
the classroom.

The data collected from the interviews help answer the two questions:

• What are the causes of such problems as perceived by those students and as
suggested by their supervising teachers?
• What are solutions to such problems as suggested by those students and
their supervising teachers?

3.3. Data analysis

First, the answers of the participants in the questionnaires were converted into
numbers and calculated. These coded data were then illustrated in charts and
graphs, which demonstrated the level of difficulty of each classroom management
skill and the frequency of classroom management problems the student teachers
encountered during their teaching practice. Meanwhile, the researcher’ observation
notes were analyzed to discover the most noticeable problems. Based on the
videos, the problems that could not be ruled out from the questionnaires and could
not be found from the researcher’ notes were presented in text form. Whereas, all
the recorded interviews were transcribed and the ideas were synthesized to find out
the causes and solutions to the teacher trainees’ classroom management problems.
Finally, the collected data was classified according to the four research questions.
In general, the data gathered from the pre-service teachers are to answer part of the
four research questions, whereas the supervising teachers’ responses would help to
add further information to the last three questions.

*****

In summary, this chapter has justified the methodology applied in this paper by
elaborating on the groups of participants involved in the process of data collection,
namely the student teachers, their mentors and the students from 4 classes. Next,
the triangulation data collection method was also justified and described in details.
Such justifications of the methodology would help make way for the analysis of
the collected data in the next chapter.
 Chapter 4 - RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In the previous chapter, the methodology employed in the study has been clarified
with descriptions and justifications of the choice of participants, the instruments as
well as the process of collecting and analyzing data. In this chapter, the collected
data will be analyzed and discussed.

4.1. Teacher trainees’ perceptions of their classroom management problems

during the teaching practicum

The answer to the first research question was collected through the first question of
the questionnaires. In this questionnaire, respondents were required to rate the
difficulty level of each classroom management skill. The data were illustrated by
figure 7.

In general, all the rated skills can be divided into two groups based on the difficulty
level with 5 points for “very difficult”, 4 points for “difficult”, 3 points for
“neutral”, 2 points for “easy” and 1 point for “very easy”. The upper ranking group
consists of time management at 32 points, followed by checking understanding and
motivating students with 30 points for each. The next positions go to giving
instructions, using non-verbal communication, giving feedback and dealing with
disruptive behaviors at correspondingly 29, 27, 26 and 25 points. Only one point
less than dealing with students’ misbehavior is using blackboard. On the lower
half, keeping eye-contact sits at the top position. Ranking at the bottom of the scale
 are using voice, monitoring, forming group and positioning and moving at
consecutively 18, 17, 16 and 15.

The most striking feature of the chart is that time management was considered the
most difficult skill while positioning and moving the least challenging. Moreover,

40

30

20

10

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Frequency Difficulty level
most of the skills ranking low at the difficulty scale are the sub-skills of the space
management skill, namely forming groups, positioning and moving, using
blackboard, keeping eye-contact and using voice.
Figure 7 - The level of difficulty and frequency of classroom management problems

1-Managing time 7-Using voice

2-Forming groups 8- Giving & checking instructions
3-Positioning & moving 9-Checking understanding
4-Using non-verbal communication 10-Monitoring
5-Using blackboard 11-Dealing with students’ behavior
6-Keeping eye-contact 12-Giving feedback
13-Motivating students
The researcher also asked the participants to rate the frequency they encountered
classroom management problems during the teaching practice. In the
questionnaire, the frequency was ranging from never to usually. To make it easier
to interpret the result, these frequencies were then converted into points, namely 1,
2, 3, 4 and 5, correspondingly to never, rarely, sometimes, often and always. The
findings were presented on the line chart. As shown on the chart, problems with
checking for understanding, motivating students, using non-verbal communication
and using eye-contact occurred most frequently. Using blackboard, dealing with
students’ behavior and giving feedback were rated next on the frequency of
problem encounter. The management aspects that student teachers did not often
have difficulty in are forming groups, positioning and moving, using voice and
monitoring. It is noteworthy that the problems reported to occur most frequently
are related to the skills classified as difficult based on the data collected from
question 1, namely time management, checking understanding, motivating
students, giving and checking instructions and using non-verbal communication.
Similarly, problems with skills considered less challenging such as forming groups,
positioning and moving were reported to occur less frequently.

In brief, the skills of managing time, checking understanding, motivating students,

giving and checking instructions and using non-verbal communication were
perceived to be most challenging by the studied teacher trainees during their
practicum. The research of Vo (2009) also discovered that 4th year students at
FELTE, ULIS-VNU reported managing time, motivating students and giving and
checking instructions to be most difficult during their teaching practice at a high
school. However, Vo did not study the comprehension checking skill. Therefore,
the paper is anticipated to shine more light on the issue.
4.2. Classroom management problems, causes and solutions

This part is dedicated to elaborate on the classroom management problems the

studied student teachers encountered during their teaching practicum as pointed out
by their mentors and as observed by the author. The causes and solutions to such
problems as perceived by the trainee teachers themselves and as suggested by their
supervising teachers are also presented in details.

In general, the trainee teachers had difficulty in time management; instruction

giving and checking; comprehension checking; monitoring and dealing with
disruptive behaviors. Though there is still room for further improvement, the other
skills of arranging students’ seating, using blackboard; positioning and moving;
projecting voice; giving feedback and motivating students were assessed by the
mentoring teachers and observed by the researcher as “ok” or “without big
problems”.

4.2.1. Time management

4.2.1.1. Problems
4.2.1.1.1. Exceeding time limit

As observed by the author and pointed out by the supervising teachers, exceeding
time limit is the most serious problem student teachers were faced with during
their teaching practice. In fact, this problem occurred in nearly 83.3% of all the
lessons videotaped and was reported by 75% of the student teachers during the
post-teaching interviews. The major trend is the participants did not seem to be
aware that they were running out of time, which leads to the following reactions
and behaviors.
They cut down on the follow-up activities or the summaries of the lesson. Video
15, 17, 21 and 23 show very clearly that in order to finish the lesson on time, the
teacher trainees stopped the activities right after the main practice. They even
dismissed the students without summarizing the main contents or checking
whether the students had understood the lesson and had any questions. Meanwhile,
all the supervising teachers emphasized that having a short summary at the end of
each lesson is very important since it helps students remember the contents of the
lesson more clearly and systematically. Also, “checking whether the students have
anything unclear enables teachers to provide immediate correction and
explanation” (supervising teacher C).

They also reduced the amount of time allocated for the while-tasks. For example,
in the last listening activity filmed in video 1, the teacher just gave out the answers
without eliciting the students’ explanations. Video 5 also depicts that the teacher
did not have enough time to call some groups to deliver their presentations so she
moved on to another activity right after letting students have some time discussing
among themselves in separate groups. Similarly, the teacher in video 12 did not
have enough time to have some groups to give their presentations so she just called
one group to do the task. It is noteworthy that the amount of time cut down on
these activities is mostly the students’ talking time when the students are showing
the teachers how successful they are in achieving the goals of the activities. In
other words, by cutting down on the students’ talking time in the while-tasks, the
studied student teachers cut down on the amount of engaged time, which in turn
results in the decrease in the amount of academic learning time. Meanwhile,
maximizing academic learning time when the learners spend actively being
engaged in tasks that are likely to produce learning outcomes at a high level of
success is one of the goals that teachers are supposed to aim at (Caldwell, Huitt,
and Graeber, 1982; Berliner, 1984, as cited in “Chapter 2”, n.d; McLeod et al
2003).

In some cases, the student teachers even left out a main activity of the lesson. For
instance, the teacher in video 16 had to omit the last speaking activities since the
two previous ones took up too much time. Similarly, the teacher in video 24 just
stopped the lesson after two reading activities without having enough time to carry
out the last one. As a result, these teachers failed to achieve the learning goals set
out in the lesson plans.

In brief, regarding the problem of exceeding time, the student teachers were not
really aware that they were running out of time until the last few minutes.
Consequently, they often had reactions that were considered inappropriate by their
supervising teachers.

4.2.1.1.2. Dividing time illogically

Another problem the teacher trainees encountered when managing time in the class
is dividing time illogically. Logical time division refers to the effective time
allocation for each part of the lesson (Vo, 2009). As pointed out by the mentoring
teachers and observed by the author, the teacher trainees often had the following
weaknesses.

First, they allocated time inappropriately between different activities in a task. For
instance, the teacher in video 13 spent nearly 12 minutes on the pre-task but only 5
minutes on the main task which includes both the time for students to do a reading
exercise of 600 words and the correction.

Also, they divided time illogically between different activities in the lesson. The
most obvious mistake is that they spent “too much time on the warm-up activities
while having no or little time left for the follow-up discussion” (supervising teacher
B). In fact, this problem is featured in 87.5% of all the lessons videotaped.
Normally, they spent more than 20% of the time of the whole lesson on the warm-
ups.

Most noticeably, the teacher trainees did not seem too aware of this problem since
none of them reported on this issue in the interviews.

4.2.1.2. Causes

Both the student teachers and their mentors proposed many reasons explaining for
the above-mentioned problems. First, the teachers often estimated inaccurately the
students’ ability which refers to the fact that teacher trainees did not have sufficient
knowledge of the students’ academic competence. As a result, the activities
designed or the type and amount of information transmitted to the students did not
really suit them. In fact, all the mentors pointed out that the student teachers did
overestimate the students’ ability and 75% of them reported the same problem
during the interviews. As a result, they tended to plan too many activities in a
lesson, introduced too much knowledge to the students at a time or spent little time
for students to carry out a task that they considered easy. That’s why, they had to
spend much time explaining the subject matters again to the students or allocated
more time on a certain activity, which results in the violation of time of others.
Discussing this issue, Kagan (1992, as cited in Vo, 2009, p. 41), also stated that
pre-service teachers have “inadequate knowledge of pupils and classroom
procedure”. Moreover, the teacher trainees often wasted much time on non-
instructional activities as cleaning the board, checking attendance or delivering
handouts. The videos show that they normally spent about 20% of the lesson time
carrying out such tasks.

4.2.1.3. Solutions

Respondents to the interviews proposed many workable solutions to the problems

with time management. First, all of the student teachers agreed that when time was
running out, it is advisable that the teachers should focus on the main activities of
the lesson and skip or omit the ones that are not as important such as the follow-
ups or the transition parts between activities. Student interviewee B emphasized
that “teachers should set priority and concentrate on the tasks more related to the
learning goals of the lesson”. The supervising teachers also suggested that teachers
might be flexible in cutting down on such activities as follow-ups or lead-ins when
time was running out. However, they believed that the best solution to the problem
is to have a detailed and thorough lesson plan. In this lesson plan, student teachers
should anticipate all the unexpected problems that may occur including the
situation of exceeding time. To be more specific, they should plan more activities
with different purposes and duration than needed so that they can choose the most
appropriate one in the situation of lacking time. Also, they can have some optional
activities in reserve. Besides, a detailed and thorough lesson plan can assist the
student teachers in allocating the time for each activity more logically. With all the
activities mapped out in the lesson plan, student teachers can put them into
consideration to decide the time allocated on each activity on the basic of its
content, its level of difficulty, its purposes, the student levels and the classroom
settings as well. Emphasizing the importance of having a detailed lesson plan,
Harmer (2001, as cited in Vo, p.42) stated that a thorough lesson plan helps
teachers manage class better as when planning lesson plans teachers have to
anticipate unexpected problems. Finally, the mentors suggested that the student
teachers let the students “take responsibility for some certain non-instructional
tasks” (mentor C) like checking attendance, delivering handouts or cleaning the
board. In this way, the student teachers can save a lot of time and students will feel
more engaged and motivated in the learning.

4.2.2. Instruction giving and checking

4.2.2.1. Problems

The most common problem of the participants related to the skill of giving
instruction discovered by the author is lengthy and complicated instructions. When
interviewed, 87.5% of the teacher trainees were reported to give lengthy and
complicated instructions by their supervising teachers while 75% of them
confessed they encountered such a problem. For example, in a reading activity
filmed in video 2, the teacher gave out the following instructions:

“Now the topic today is about human body and health so I have a quiz about
body parts like hair, nose, eye, ok? And now let’s take an example. If I a
chosen one. Đầu tiên chị sẽ lấy ví dụ nhé. Nào giả dụ bây giờ chị sẽ phát
cho mỗi người một tờ. And you, all of you will read it in silence. Don’t let
others know the content of the paper. For example, in this not “you use this
thing to write”. What’s the part that you use to write? Your part in the body.
Hand, ok? So if I were her, I will stand in front of the class. I can use words,
 I can use movement. Non-verbal or verbal. Có thể dùng lời, hoặc dùng động
tác uốn éo. For example, in this case, I can do like this and you can guess it.
But there is one rule, one golden rule. Don’t just state the sentence in here.
Không được lặp lại chính xác cụm từ này. Em có thể dùng words, giả dụ như
là... Does it sound easy to you?”

The teacher in video 3 also encountered the same problem when giving instruction
to a speaking activity. The instructions go as follows.

“I have here telephone calls and actually it is the situation when someone is
calling someone else. And we have the caller for C, and receiver for R. And
in each telephone call, we need a caller and we need a receiver. It is very
easy because our class has already been divided into two sides. So one side
will be either the caller or the receiver. Let’s take situation no 1. Ok, this is
how we are going to practice. In these pieces of paper, I have what the caller
will say in the telephone call and theses are what the receiver will talk. And I
will deliver each of you from one side, from this side one piece of paper so.
And this side, each of you also one. You are the callers and you are the
receivers. Then after that you will have three minutes to prepare depending
on these details on these papers. 3 minutes to prepare what you are going to
say. After 3 minutes, I will pick randomly one from each side. Ok? And of
course you will have a caller and a receiver. Are you clear about what you
are going to do? Yes, ok!”

Another example is the instructions of the teacher in video 7 given to students on a

listening lesson.
 “The rule of the game is like this. Pay attention to the rule of the game. You
will be lining in a line, you will be queuing in a line. One after another. Ok!
So I’ll be number one, you number two <pointing at one student>, T number
3 <pointing at one student>, so in a line. And four groups, ok? I’ll give you
a set of abbreviations. Something like this “ban dag lam ji?”. Are you used
to this kind of text messages? Ok, so that’s Vietnamese. And now we will play
a game with English abbreviations. So each of the groups will have a set of
abbreviations. And I will be, you will be queuing in a line. So the two of you,
the two at the last, the two last person will be in charge of finding the
abbreviations. I will pronounce the word, for example I will pronounce the
word and the two last people standing at the last of the queue will find out
the abbreviation for the word I have pronounced, ok? And then you will have
to pass the word to each person. For example, number 2 pass to number 3,
number 3 pass to number 2, number 2 pass to number 1 and number 1 has to
go here <referring to the blackboard> to stick the word on the paper.
Understand that? Ok, so don’t worry. If you don’t understand, we will have
an example, ok?”

All of these lengthy instructions have some features in common. First, they are
often in the form of long sentences with most words in the full forms, “I will
pronounce the word, for example I will pronounce the word and the two last people
standing at the last of the queue will find out the abbreviation for the word I have
pronounced, ok?” or “In these pieces of paper, I have what the caller will say in
the telephone call and theses are what the receiver will talk.” for example.
Meanwhile, supervising D argued that teachers should avoid using long sentences
in giving instructions. Instructions should be in short and powerful imperatives
which not only show the authority of the teachers but also help students remember.
Also, these instructions contain a lot of obvious information that does not need to
be included. For instance, “I have here telephone calls and actually it is the
situation when someone is calling someone else.” In addition, these instructions
are not really well-organized. The student teachers repeated himself many times,
which is unfortunately not for the sake of emphasis and when they did not finish
explaining about one thing, they moved on to another and then come back to the
previous after all. For example, “I have here telephone calls and actually it is the
situation when someone is calling someone else. And we have the caller for C, and
receiver for R. And in each telephone call, we need a caller and we need a
receiver.”

Another problem teacher trainees have with giving instructions during their
teaching practicum is they spent too much time explaining to the students what
they were required to do. In the interviews, 62.5% the interviewees stated that they
sometimes wasted a lot of time instructing the students. As observed by the author,
they spent an average of one-fifth of the total time of an activity giving
instructions. In many cases, the amount of time spent on instructions was greater.
For example, it took the teacher in video 14 nearly 9 minutes to give instructions
and demonstrate the activity while the main activity only lasted for 3 minutes. Or,
the teacher in video 5 wasted 7 minutes instructing the students to do a discussion
activity. The bottom-line is, the more the teachers explained, the more confused the
students seemed to be.

Moreover, the teacher trainees also have the problem of giving instructions at
appropriate times. For most of the cases, the teachers gave instruction after they
passed the handouts so the students concentrated on reading the handouts more. In
other cases, the teachers gave more instructions when the students were almost
finished the activity so they had already conducted the task in a different way from
the teachers’ expectation.

Lastly, in many cases, the student teachers forgot to check whether the students had
understood what they are supposed to do after giving instructions or they just
raised such questions as “Ok?”, “Are you clear?” or “Got it” to answer by
themselves or just for the sake of asking. In fact, 62.5% of them admitted to have
had such a problem.

4.2.2.2. Causes and solutions

The most common reason suggested by the teacher trainees themselves and their
supervising teachers for the problems they have with giving and checking
instruction is the lack of preparation. When interviewed, 87.5% of the participants
stated that actually they had not paid appropriate attention to the issue. Before the
class, they mostly specified what to do in each activity without planning what to
say in the instructions of that activity. Also, they did not have a clear knowledge of
the students’ language proficiency so it took them much time to explain to the
students the unnecessary things they assumed to be difficult.

The solution is to have a detailed script of what the teachers should say and do to
instruct students. In this way, they can plan the most effective instructions which
satisfy the following criteria. First and foremost, the instructions should be short
and concise. Supervising teacher C emphasized that teachers should avoid long
sentences with too many indicators of who is speaking and who is listening, “I
will” or “You will” for example. Instead, the instructions could be in the form of
short phrases or expressions or imperatives. Supervising teacher E also advocated
this idea when she elaborated that short phrases or imperatives not only help
students understand and remember the instructions better but also indicate the
teacher’s authority in the class. Besides, it is advisable that teachers should use
signpost words “first”, “second” to help distinguish between different steps in the
task and to repeat key information if necessary. Second, teachers should use visuals
or written cues to aid students’ understanding. Mentors A and B both argued that
when students can hear and see what they are required to do they will remember
and understand the instructions much more quickly. In a well-equipped classroom,
teachers may show the instructions on the PowerPoint slides. Otherwise, they may
consider having the instructions written out on pieces of papers. Third, mentors A
advised that if possible, the teachers show the class what to do by modeling or
demonstrating. They can demonstrate the activity themselves or ask the students to
join in under their guidance. Normally, the students comprehend the instructions
better when they can see what they have to do. Furthermore, it is of great
importance to deliver the instructions at appropriate time. The teachers need to
make sure that when they give instructions all the students are attentive. They can
do this by using signals like “listen” accompanied by a clap of their hands to signal
to the students for the students’ attention. Supervising teacher D added that if the
activity consists of different steps with different instructions, teachers should break
the instructions into segments to deliver one by one or they can give only some of
the instructions and allow time for them to be conducted before moving on to
another. For example, if the activity requires reading before discussion or changing
the seats before a role-play, it is better to give the instructions and make changes
before going on to assign the roles and give further instructions about what they
are supposed to say or do.
Another important point teachers should bear in mind is they need to check
whether the students have understood the instructions or not. Mentoring teacher D
said that “don’t assume anything” and it is not enough for the teachers to ask such
questions as “Have you understood?” or “Clear?” These questions, in her
opinion, are “imposing” and normally students will answer “yes” for fear of losing
face. A better way of checking instructions is to ask the students to re-explain to
you what they are required to do. If the students forget some part of the
instructions, teachers can assist them with some cues or re-explanation.

4.2.3. Checking understanding

4.2.3.1. Problems

From the observation of the researcher, when posing questions, teacher trainees did
not allow their students appropriate time to digest the information and
formulate the answer. In 66.7% of all the lessons videotaped, students were given
no more than one second to respond to questions posed by the teachers. Such
observation is supported by Stahl’s findings in “Using “Wait Time” and “Think
Time” Skillfully in the Classroom” (2005). Stahl estimated that a teacher normally
pauses on an average of 0.7 to 1.4 seconds after his/her questions before allowing
the students to respond. Meanwhile, Rowe (1986, as cited in Fisher & Frey, 2007,
p.39) proved that three to five seconds is the most ideal amount of wait time during
which students can take in information and form the response. Due to the lack of
wait time, the students could only recall short information or they gave no answer
at all instead of giving detailed and insightful answers. To illustrate his point in a
speaking lesson, teacher trainee D asked the students to express their opinions
about the issue of the conflict between parents and teenagers in a reading text. She
did not wait more than two seconds to call the first student to answer. Due to the
lack of time to brainstorm, of background knowledge and of language input, the
student’ answer was “I think there is a conflict between Bill and his father. Bill
wants to become a ballet dancer but his father wants him to be a boxer.” which is
merely the short summary of the reading text. Similarly, other students could only
give very short and poorly supported opinions. The bottom-line is when students
cannot answer teachers’ questions or cannot give satisfactory answers, they often
feel discouraged and hesitant to raise their voice again. In fact, as observed by the
researcher, the first student called to answer the aforementioned question seemed
to become quite shy and inactive in other activities after the “incident” happened.

Another problem student teachers encountered when checking the students’

understanding is the lack of authentic questions which are defined by Fisher and
Frey (2007) as “questions that engage students in deeper thinking and not merely
prompt them to recall information that they have read or been told” (p.42). From
the observation of the researcher, student teachers often failed to put ‘good’
questions. Mostly, they posed display questions such as “What does...mean?”,
“When do we use ...?” or “What is next?” which only required the students to
recall the information or knowledge that they had just been taught. Also, they
tended to overuse Yes/No questions that are not likely to elicit a true or helpful
response. In 50% of all the speaking lessons videotaped, teacher trainees used such
questions as “Do you understand?”, “Clear?”, “Ok?” or “Got it?” to check
whether the students had understood the instructions or guidelines of an activity.
While, they raised questions like “Do you know the meaning of...?”, “Do you know
what does... stand for?” or “Do you know what does... mean?” to check students’
understanding of new vocabulary in 50% of all the reading lessons filmed.
However, according to Burden (2003, as cited in Bond, 2007, p.19) and
supervising teacher C, students are afraid of making mistakes and losing their face
so for such questions they often give the answer “Yes” even though they may not
thoroughly understand the point. The teacher trainees, therefore, could not know
what the students were really getting out of the lesson.
Besides, the student teachers often failed to call on different students when
raising questions. As observed by the researcher, they mostly concentrated on the
action zone where the students are most active and attentive (Adam & Biddle, as
cited in Savage & Savage, 2010). Yet, students seating in that spot are just the
minority. When the teachers focused only on that area they could not assure that
the majority of the students have understood the contents of the lesson. Moreover,
the students who are not called upon will have the feeling of being ignored, which
results in a decrease in their learning motivation and an increase in disruptive
behaviors such as having private talks or falling to sleep. They are also less
engaged in thinking. In fact, as observed by the researchers, students who were
rarely called upon seemed to be quite sleepy and bored.

4.2.3.2. Causes and solutions

When interviewed, all the teacher trainees reported that they were constantly under
time pressure. During the class time, they were “always in a rush to conduct and
complete all the planned activities” so they tried to “speed up and cut down on
unimportant activities” (teacher trainee H). In the researcher’s viewpoint, student
teachers might assume that it was unnecessary to wait for a while after posing the
questions to the students so they often cut down on the wait time to save time for
other activities. Such a false assumption may be attributed to the students’ lack of
awareness of the importance of the wait time. According to Jones and Jones (2004,
as cited in Bond, 2007, p.20) to answer a question, average learners need to
complete four mental steps in their mind. The students must first hear the question
and decide whether they understand it or not. Second, they must recall the
information from their memories needed for the answer. Then they consider
whether their answer will be accepted and lastly they must anticipate the teacher’s
reactions to their answer. Understanding this process, teacher trainees in particular
and teachers in general should allow the student sufficient wait time after posing a
question. In fact, Rowe (1986, as cited in Bond, 2007, p.20) proved that when
teachers increase the amount of wait time, the length and correctness of the
students’ responses increase while the number of “I don’t know” answer decreases
The responses reflect deeper thinking and the number of students volunteering to
answer greatly increases.

After studying the student teachers’ lesson plans, the researcher could conclude
that the reason they could not generate authentic questions is because they did not
write out the questions in the lesson plan. Normally, they produced them
extemporaneously during the lesson. This lack of preparation led to vague
questions that did not engage students in high quality thinking and reflection. The
suggested solution is that student teachers should plan carefully what they need to
ask the students to check their comprehension. When designing the questions,
supervising teacher D suggested that they should consider employing an
organization structure such as Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy. This taxonomy presents
different ways of classifying information and knowledge, from which different
questions directed at gathering a specific type are listed. Teacher trainees may use
this taxonomy to develop questions representing the range of knowledge taught in
the classroom. Besides, supervising teacher D advised them to have a balance
between display questions and referential questions that require the students to
provide information, express opinions or give explanation.
 Level Key Words Prompts

Knowledge: recall data or Define, describe, identify, know, Where is ...

information label, list, match, name, outline, What did ...
recall, recognize, reproduce, Who was ...
select, state When did ...
How many ...
Locate it in the story ...
Point to the ...
Comprehension: understand Comprehend, convert, defend, Tell me in your own words ...
the meaning, translation, distinguish, estimate, explain,What does it mean ...
interpolation and extend, generalize, give Give me an example of ...
interpretation of instructions examples of, infer, interpret, Describe what ...
and problems paraphrase, predict, rewrite, Illustrate the part of the story
summarize, translate that ...
Make a map of ...
What is the main idea of ...
Application: use a concept Apply, change, compute, What would happen to you if . . .
in a new situation or construct, demonstrate, discover, Would you have done the same
unprompted use of an manipulate, modify, operate, as . . .
abstraction predict, prepare, produce, relate, If you were there, would you . . .
show, solve, use How would you solve the
problem . . . In the library, find
information about . . .

Analysis: Separate material
or concepts into component
parts so that its
organizational structure
may be understood.
Analyze, break down, compare,
contrast, diagram, deconstruct,
differentiate, discriminate,
distinguish, identify, illustrate,
infer, outline, relate, select,
separate
What things would you have
used . . . What other ways
could . . .
What things are similar/different?
What part of this story was the
most exciting?
What things couldn’t have
happened in real life? What kind
of person is . . . What caused
_______ to act the way he/she
did?
 Level Key Words Prompts

Synthesis: Build a structure Categorize, combine, compile, What would it be like if . . .

or pattern from diverse
elements. Put parts together
to form a whole, with
emphasis on creating a new
meaning or structure.
compose, create, devise, design,
explain, generate, modify,
organize, plan, rearrange,
reconstruct, relate, reorganize,
revise, rewrite, summarize, tell,
write
What would it be like to live . . .
Design a . . .
Pretend you are a . . .
What would have happened if . . .
Why/why not? Use your
imagination to draw a picture
of . . .
Add a new item on your own . . .
Tell/write a different ending . . .

Evaluation: Make Appraise, compare, conclude, Would you recommend this

judgments about the value contrast, criticize, critique,
of ideas or materials. defend, describe, discriminate,
evaluate, explain, interpret,
justify, relate, summarize,
support
book? Why or why not? Select
the best . . . Why is it the best?
What do you think will happen
to . . . Why do you think that?
Could this story really have
happened? Which character
would you most like to meet?
Was _____ good or bad? Why?
Did you like the story? Why?

Figure 8 - Bloom’s Taxonomy

From Checking for Understanding - Formative Assessment Techniques for Your Classroom (p.
44-45) by Fisher. D. and Frey. N., 2007. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.

One of the reasons why student teachers called mostly students in the action zone
to answer their questions is, as explained by student teacher H, they were more
“attracted” to those students than others. Students in this spot were normally more
active and involved in the activities. As a result, student teachers tended to focus
more on these students. Whereas, supervising teacher D advised the teacher
trainees to call upon a variety of students. According to her, the elements of
surprise and uncertainty help maintain the students’ attention during the whole
lesson. The teacher trainees can do this by extending their viewing range to include
as many students as possible in the “calling range” and call upon them randomly.
One tip is that they should not preface a question with a student’s name, “Hoa, can
you tell the class how you understand this sentence?” for example. The moment,
teachers call a student’s name, other students tend to stop thinking since they are
convinced that that person will answer the question, not them. Instead, teachers
should pose the question to the whole class first then call upon some certain
students if no one volunteers to answer. In this way, more students are engaged in
thinking since they do not know upon whom the teacher will call.

4.2.4. Monitoring
4.2.4.1. Problem

The most noticeable monitoring problem the teacher trainees were faced with is
that students are likely use their mother tongue instead of English in group-work.
The issue is much more serious in speaking classes when all the student teachers
were observed to be unsuccessful in making the students discuss in English.
Whenever the students were under supervision they used English but when the
teachers moved away they immediately tuned to their native language -
Vietnamese. From the observation of the researchers, the problem occurred in
every speaking lesson and in listening and reading lessons as well whenever there
involved pair or group discussion.

4.2.4.2. Causes and solutions

In order to encourage the students to use English more, it is necessary that student
teachers should understand why the students often refer back to their mother
tongue in discussion. According to mentors A, B, D some of the reasons are:

• Because the students do not have the sufficient input of knowledge and language
to express themselves in English so it is easier for them to tune to their mother
tongue.
• Because the students are afraid to make mistakes in front of the whole class.
• Because the students may not feel comfortable when speaking English and their
use of native language is still their instinct in discussion.
• Because students follow each other to use Vietnamese.

These teachers also suggested some solutions to the problem. First, teachers should
move around to supervise the class more frequently so that the groups do not have
the chance to switch back to Vietnamese. If necessary, assign someone in the group
to be the “language monitor” (mentor D) whose task is to make sure English is
used in the group. Second, it is of great momentum to create a learning
environment where it is natural to use English, not special or frightening. In fact, in
“Leaning Teaching”, Scrivener (2005) recommended the same thing when dealing
with students’ using a lot of their mother tongue in class with specific ideas to
consider:

• Use lots of listening materials for bathing in English.

• Put English-language posters on the walls.
• Have short, clearly demarcated sections of the lesson when English is the first
language, at other times, other languages are possible.
• Discuss the purposes of the activity or task with the students to make them realize
and understand why it is important to use English.
• Respond positively to every effort to use English.
• Spend a lot of time on fluency practice without correction.

Besides, mentors may consider providing students with some input of the language
and knowledge of the subject matter so they are not at a loss for words or ideas.

4.2.5. Dealing with disruptive behaviors

4.2.5.1. Problems

During the interviews, the types of misbehaviors reported by the interviewees are
noisy students, domineering students and challengers to teachers’ authority.

In their opinion, noisy students are those who held side conversations while doing
group work or listening to the teacher lecturing or who used mobile phones or
suddenly made loud noises in class. 37.5% of the student teachers admitted that
they failed to deal with such behavior. At first, the teachers tried to quiet the class
by saying “Silent, please!” or use hand signals, which proved to be quite effective.
Yet, the next times, students seemed to grow “resistant” (teacher trainee A) to such
methods.

Meanwhile, challengers to teachers’ authority are “uncooperative ones” (teacher

trainee D) who made the habit of disagreeing with or questioned what the teachers
said. They also challenged the teachers’ authority implicitly like remaining silent
during groupwork, not trying to do a task at 100% of their capability or not raising
their voice while they knew the answer. Although only 25% of the teachers are
confronted with such disruptive behaviors, all of them were at a loss what to do.

Domineering students were meant by those who were most talkative in the group,
who always wanted to share their ideas and opinions at the expense of others’.
Normally, “these students were not aware that their behaviors were annoying and
disruptive” (mentor B). 100% of the teachers had no idea about how to manage
such behaviors. Majority of the students were quite shy and hesitant in raising their
voice. If the student teachers had not called upon the domineering students, there
would not have been many interactions between teachers and students.

4.2.5.2. Causes

Suggested by the mentoring teachers, the main reason why such misbehaviors
occurred is the teacher trainees did not show the students their position and
authority in the class. First year students, explained by supervising teacher A, are
very sensitive to teachers’ actions and behaviors. They can sense “whether the
teachers are confident or skillful enough in teaching and managing the classroom”.
Therefore, some of the teachers’ behaviors such as “lack of eye contact”, “lack of
confidence”, and “lack of contact withes students outside the classroom” may
attribute to the students’ lack of respect and discipline. In fact, these behaviors
were also proposed by Scrivener (2005) as the reasons why teachers cannot show
their presence in class.

Lack of sufficient eye contact and attention. In general, the teacher trainees had
very good eye contact when they tried to cover as many students in their viewing
range as possible. However, when a student or a group of students are talking or
delivering a speech, they tended to “focus mainly on these individuals while
ignoring the rest of the class” (supervising teacher B). In this way, they could not
notice the signs of unrest in the class and the students who were going to commit
disruptive behaviors might feel that they were unlikely to be caught. Therefore,
teachers should sometimes take a glance at the rest of the class to maintain
discipline and signal them to pay attention to the speaking ones.

Lack of confidence. Students “show more respect and have more trust in teachers
who appear to be confident of themselves and the subject matter they are
teaching” (supervising teacher B). They can normally sense whether the teachers
are confident or not by judging the teachers’ voice, posture, gestures or the way
they answer the students’ questions. Therefore, experienced teachers who may not
know the subject thoroughly but know how to disguise that fact effectively still
manage to turn the lecture into “a shared learning journey” (Scrivener, 2005, p.
85). However, teacher trainees are not experienced and skillful enough in
“disguising their lack of confidence” (supervising teacher E), which results in the
lack of trust in and respect from the students for them.

Lack of contact with students outside the classroom. Different from those who
had their practicum at high schools, teacher trainees at English Division 1, FELTE,
ULIS-VNU, were not required to be met up with the students often. Most of them
met the students only once a week during the teaching periods and had little
contact with them outside the classroom. Even the form teacher practice content of
publishing an e-magazine did not involve much face-to-face communication since
“most of the work can be done online or via emails” (student teacher E). In
addition , the teacher trainees themselves neither felt it necessary nor could manage
time to hang out with the students to get to know them better. “The students are
mostly from different provinces and they often go home right after Friday’s last
period so we could not make it to get together.” explained teacher trainee G. Only
teacher A and D reported to have correspondence with some students via emails for
a few times. As a result, teachers did not have an opportunity to build up a close
relationship with large groups of students. For them, teacher trainees were simply
those who came to their class at a certain time of the week, which resulted in the
lack of trust and understanding. Students find it hard to cooperate with those who
do not show interest in and care for them.

4.2.5.3. Solutions

When dealing with noisy students, supervising teachers B and C both suggested
that student teachers should avoid direct confrontation and approaches that lead to
the students losing face or student challenging the teacher’s authority like
reprimand. Sharing the same opinion, Scrivener (2005) elaborated on the strategy
with some techniques as follows.

• Stop talking in mid-sentence and look in a non-aggressive way at the student

making the noise. Peer pressure may quieten them.
• Try speaking more quietly, which causes the noisy students to become more
obvious in contrast and other students may ask them to quieten down.
• Make direct eye-contact with the students so that they know they are watched.
• Direct a question to the area where the noisy students are sitting to focus attention
on that area of the class.
• Try physically moving to the area of the room where the students are and
continue to lead the class while standing next to them.
• If you hear a students make an interesting comment, you could respond to it,
thereby encouraging comments from other students.
• Consider legitimizing the chatting by breaking the class into mini-discussion
groups.

Similarly, the best way to deal with those who challenge teachers’ authority is
not to get furious or approach them in a manner that creates more opportunities for
them to question the teacher’s authority. If the disruptive behavior is minor such as
anonymous complaint of the assigned workload, “teachers may pretend that
nothing is going on to maintain the flow of the lesson” (student teacher A). If the
students disagree with everything the teachers say, they should consider
“recognizing the students’ opinions, and turning the argument between them and
the students into a class discussion so that frictions can be
minimized” (supervising teacher D). If the misbehaviors are serious, it is advisable
that teachers should arrange a meeting to discuss the issues with the students out of
the class time. In brief, supervising teacher D emphasized that teachers should
always try to discover the main reasons behind the students’ misbehaviors before
imposing any ideas or punishments on them.

Lastly, managing domineering students requires teachers to be very tactful.

Explained by mentoring teacher B, the fact that they constantly raise their voice
means they are interested in the lesson. If the teachers do not find solutions to
“calm down” these students, others will feel bored and discouraged for not having
the chance to raise their voice and for not being paid proper attention to. Shy
students who are always hesitant in expressing their opinions will become more
hesitant when comparing themselves with domineering students. However,
teachers should be aware that most of the time the domineering students “do not
recognize that by dominating most of the talking they are affecting and hindering
the contributions and learning of others” (mentoring teacher A). Therefore,
teachers should not approach the issue by ignoring these students since “they will
feel hurt and embarrassed and will very probably turn into silent students or
challengers to teachers’ authority” (student teacher A). The best way to deal with
domineering students, as suggested by mentoring teacher B and C, by student
teacher A and also by Scrivener (2005), is to ask these students to become the
monitor of the group whose main task is to ensure that everyone has a chance to
speak up and raise their voice. In this way, domineering students have to reduce
their talking time and can help teachers encourage other members to talk more. In
class discussion, teachers should not make much eye contact with or direct much
attention to where the domineering students are seated but to other places to
indicate that they are expecting other students to raise their opinions. If the student
“persists in dominating the discussion, summarize their point and ask others to
speak, or indicate that you are ready to move on by starting to prepare for the next
activity” (Scrivener, 2005, p.89).

*****

In summary, the whole chapter has provided consecutively answers to each of the
research questions via a thorough analysis and discussion of the collected data. The
major findings would be summarized in details in the conclusion as the final
chapter of the study.
 Chapter 5 - CONCLUSION

The previous chapters have thoroughly elaborated on the introductions, literature

review as well as the implementation and results of the research. Finally, this
concluding chapter will summarize and evaluate the outcomes of the whole paper
by summing up and discussing the findings, presenting the contributions along
with the limitations of the paper, and putting forwards suggestions for further
studies.

5.1. Major findings of the research

On the whole, the research performs as a fairly comprehensive study on the causes
of and solutions to the problems student teachers met with during their teaching
practice in English Division 1, FELTE, ULIS-VNU. Through in-depth analysis and
discussion of data collected from questionnaires, interviews and classroom
observation, key findings concerning the research questions were revealed as
follows.

First, from their own perspective, student teachers participating in the study rated
time management, giving and checking instructions, using non-verbal
communication, using blackboard, checking comprehension, motivating students,
giving feedback and dealing with misbehaviors as difficult management skills.
Meanwhile, the skills of forming groups, positioning and moving around, keeping
eye-contact, using voice and monitoring were considered less challenging. The
participants also reported that during the practicum, they had problems with the
skills considered difficult more often than the less challenging ones.
However, from the observation of the researcher and the mentoring teachers,
during the practicum, they did not encounter serious problems with some of the
skills they reported they had. To be more specific, they did quite a good job in
giving feedback, in motivating the students and in managing classroom space
which includes forming groups, using blackboard, using non-verbal
communication, projecting voice, keeping eye-contact as well as positioning and
moving around. Among these skills, using blackboard, establishing non-verbal
communication, giving feedback and motivating students had been regarded as
problematic to them. In fact, as observed by the researchers as well as the
mentoring teachers, the skills they have problems with most were time
management, giving and checking instructions, checking understanding,
monitoring and dealing with disruptive behaviors.

Except for the overestimation of their monitoring ability, all the teacher trainees
participating in the research seemed to be aware of their weaknesses in managing
the classroom. To be more specific, they were not successful in managing the
classroom time when 75% of them in 83.3% of the lessons videotaped exceeded
the time limit. The major trend is that they were not aware that the time was up
until the last minutes, which led to many “inappropriate reactions” such as cutting
down on the students’ talking time, skipping the summary of the lessons or
omitting a main activity. They also allocated time illogically among different
activities in a task and among different tasks in a lesson. Regarding, the skills of
giving and checking instructions, the student teachers’ most serious problem was
giving lengthy and complicated instructions. When interviewed, 87.5% of the
teacher trainees were reported to encounter that problem by their supervising
teachers while 75% of them confessed they did. In addition, 62.5% of the student
teachers stated that they sometimes wasted much time instructing the students. As
observed by the researcher, they spent an average of one-fifth of the total time of
an activity on giving instructions. They also made the mistake of delivering the
instructions at inappropriate time when the students were not attentive enough,
when they were busy conducting a task or when they almost finished an activity.
As a result, it took them extra time to explain the instructions to the students. In
many cases, they even forgot to check whether the students had understood what
they were required to do or just raised the checking questions to be answered by
themselves and for questioning only. The teacher trainees did not master the skill
of comprehension checking either. First, they made the mistake of not allowing
the students sufficient wait time to respond. Normally, the learners need three to
five seconds to digest information and formulate the answer. However, in 66.7% of
the lessons filmed, the allocated time was no more than two seconds, which
resulted in the fact that the students could only recall short information or could
not answer at all. Another problem student teachers met with when checking the
students’ understanding is the lack of good questions that engaged students in high-
quality thinking. They tended to overuse display and Yes/No questions. Such types
of questions only require the students to recall information and cannot elicit a true
or accurate response. Besides, they had the tendency to call upon students in the
action zone while ignoring those in other spots. Dealing with disruptive
behaviors also caused trouble to the teacher trainees when they were not
successful in controlling noisy students, challengers to teachers’ authority and
domineering students. Particularly, the skill of monitoring which were considered
“not challenging” by the student teachers proved to be quite problematic to them.
The most noticeable problem is that the students use their mother tongue instead of
English in group-work. From the observation of the researcher, the problem
occurred in every speaking lesson, listening and reading lessons as well whenever
there involved pair or group discussion.
The causes to these problems were also identified by the teacher trainees
themselves and by their mentors. Each problem is caused by different factors.
However, they still share some causes. The first cause is the lack of preparation.
The most typical example is the student teachers’ lack of practice and preparation
for giving instructions. When interviewed, 87.5% of the participants stated that
they actually had not paid appropriate attention to the issue. Before the class, they
mostly specified what to do in each activity without planning what instructions to
give for that activity. As a result, many of them gave lengthy and complicated
instructions and wasted much time explaining the instructions to the students.
Similarly, they did not write out the questions used to check students’
understanding when planning the lesson. Normally, they produced them
extemporaneously during the lesson. This lack of preparation led to vague
questions that did not engage students in high quality thinking and reflection. To
solve the problem, the suggested solution from the supervising teachers is to have
a detailed and thorough lesson plan, in which student teachers should anticipate
all the unexpected problems that may occur including the situation of exceeding
time. To be more specific, they should plan more activities with different purposes
and time allocation than needed so that they can choose the most appropriate one
in case of lacking time. Also, a detailed and thorough lesson plan can assist the
student teachers in allocating the time for each activity more logically. With all the
activities mapped out in the lesson plan, student teachers can put them into
consideration to decide the necessary time spent on each activity. The decision is
based on its level of difficulty and purposes, the student levels and the classroom
settings as well. The lesson plan may as well include a detailed script of what the
teachers should say and do to instruct students and what they need to ask the
students to check their comprehension. Inadequate understanding of and
contact with the students is another reason leading to many classroom
management problems. For instance, due to the student teachers’ lack of sufficient
knowledge of the students’ language proficiency, the activities designed or the type
and amount of information transmitted to the students did not really suit them. In
fact, all the mentors pointed out that the student teachers did overestimate the
students’ ability and 75% of them reported the same problem during the interviews.
As a result, they tended to plan too many activities in a lesson, to introduce too
much knowledge to the students at a time or to spend little time for students to
carry out a task that they considered easy. That’s why, they had to spend much time
re-explaining the subject matters to the students or allocated more time on a certain
activity, which results in the violation of time of others. Similarly, the lack of
understanding of and contact with the students restricted the teacher trainees’
opportunity to build up a close relationship with large groups of students. For
them, teacher trainees were simply those who came to their class at a certain time
of the week, which resulted in the lack of trust and understanding. Students find it
hard to cooperate with those who do not show interest in and care for them.
Therefore, student teachers in particular and novice teachers are recommended to
study the student carefully and try to have more contact with them so that the
teacher-student relationship can be strengthened. In this way, it becomes easier for
the teacher to plan the lesson activities and manage the students’ behaviors.

Compared to the findings of Vo (2009), the teacher trainees having their practicum
at the high school were also confronted with problems of exceeding time limit,
dividing time illogically and spending too much time giving instructions. Another
similarity in the findings of the two studies is that lack of practice and preparation
was the common cause for many classroom management problems. For instance,
Vo pointed out that student teachers’ lack of careful preparation for and thorough
practice of giving instructions led to their lengthy and complicated instructions in
class. Therefore, in Vo’s research, the same solution of having a detailed lesson
plan was recommended. However, those having their practicum at high schools
were not as skillful as the student teachers having their practicum at English
Division 1, FELTE, ULIS - VNU in using the blackboard, forming groups, giving
feedback and motivating students. Particularly, the latter student teachers were
assessed in a more thorough way when the components of using non-verbal
communication, monitoring, dealing with disruptive behaviors and checking
comprehension were also included in the checklist. Therefore, the findings of this
paper promise to provide a complete and comprehensive look at the student
teachers’ classroom management skills.

5.2. Contributions of the research

In general, the findings of the research could be considerably helpful for student
teachers, their mentors as well as their English Language Teaching (ELT) lecturers.

As for the student teachers, the research helps them recognize their problems in
managing the classroom. These problems are:

• Exceeding time limit, dividing the time illogically;

• Giving lengthy and complicated instructions, spending too much time instructing
the students, delivering instructions at inappropriate time, forgetting to check
instructions;
• Failing to allocate sufficient wait time, failing to make authentic questions,
failing to call upon different students;
• Failing to control the students’ use of mother tongue in pair and group-work;
• Failing to deal with noisy students, challengers to teachers’ authority, and
domineering students.

Realizing their difficulties and problems helps these pre-service teachers improve
and perfect their classroom management skills that will in return facilitate their
future teaching career. Also, the solutions suggested by the student teachers
themselves, by their supervising teachers and from books, articles, magazines are
expected to serve as good references for those who are going to do the teaching
practicum.

Regarding the mentors, understanding the difficulties student teachers have in

managing the classroom, they can offer more timely and appropriate advice and
assistance. To be more specific, mentors should raise the students awareness of
having a detailed and carefully prepared lesson plan that may help reduce problems
with time management, giving and checking instructions and checking students’
comprehension and the awareness of getting to know the students better in terms of
their language proficiency, their characters as well as their needs and expectations
to help prevent problems from misbehaviors. Besides, mentors can provide teacher
trainees with tips and suggestions to help them perfect their classroom
management skills.

Lastly, findings of the paper are also expected to be a good source of reference for
the ELT group when making changes and amendments to the course to help
students achieve better classroom management skills and to facilitate their future
teaching career.

5.3. Limitations of the research

To some extent, the paper depicts a clear picture of the classroom management
difficulties teacher trainees encountered during their teaching practice. However,
there still exist some limitations.

First, the paper was carried out among a limited population of 8 out of 20 pre-
service teachers having their practicum at English Division 1, FELTE, ULIS-VNU.
Though the data collected from survey questionnaires, interviews and classroom
observations during 3 weeks’ teaching of these 8 teachers relatively ensure the
sufficiency, reliability and validity of the ultimate findings, the researcher really
expects to involve more participants. The more participants are involved in the
study, the richer the data base is. As a result, more significant and useful findings
can be discovered.

Another shortcoming is that the paper could not involve students from the classes
the pre-service teachers had their practicum. How these students acted and behaved
largely affected how the pre-service teachers reacted and responded. Conversely,
whether the pre-service teachers had good eye-contact, projected fine voice, gave
clear instructions, treated every student fairly or greatly motivated the students to
learn could be most accurately assessed and evaluated by the students. However,
due to the limit of time, the researcher had to move from class to class to start a
new observation session so she could not make full use of the data collected from
this source. If the students had had the chance to participate in the study, the
researcher believes that the findings would be more accurate and comprehensive.

5.4. Suggestions for further studies

Classroom management is a very broad research area. It offers other researchers
large room to conduct further studies in different approaches.

They may concentrate on investigating a single element of classroom management

such as motivation or comprehension checking. In this way, they are enabled to dig
deeper into the issue and discover more hidden problems which cannot be found in
a large scale research like this one, the main purpose of which is to provide the
student teacher a broad and holistic view of their classroom management skills.

Another way is to conduct the research with another target population. Since it is
the first time student teachers have been allocated to have their teaching practicum
at a college degree, the researcher wants to be the pioneer in investigating the
classroom management skills of these teachers. However, pre-service teachers are
also allocated to conduct their teaching practice at high schools or secondary
schools. Another target population means another set of problems and difficulties
and another approach to look at the issue.
 INTERVIEW SCHEDULE
<Teacher Version>
Xin thầy/cô cho biết đánh giá, nhận xét của mình về kỹ năng quản lý lớp của giáo
sinh trong kỳ thực tập vừa qua? Giáo sinh đã mắc phải những lỗi gì hay có
những lúng túng gì trong việc quản lý lớp? Xin thầy/cô cho biết thêm nhận định
của mình về nguyên nhân của các khó khăn trên cũng như hướng khắc phục.

Classroom Management Problems/Difficulties Solutions

Issues
Time Management

Board writing & organization

Eye contact

Voice projection

Posture, gesture & standing

and sitting position

Wo r k a r r a n g e m e n t
<individual, pair and group
work>

Instruction giving and

checking

Concept/comprehension
checking

Guiding, facilitating and

monitoring

Correction and feedback

Dealing with students’
questions and arising
problems

Motivating students

Xin cảm ơn sự tham gia của các thầy cô!!!!!

 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE
<Student Version>

Question 1

In your opinion, how difficult is it to practice the following skills? Please give mark
(from 1 to 5) to each item.

1= Very easy 2= Easy 3=Neutral 4= Difficult 5= Very difficult

Skills 1 2 3 4 5
Managing time

Forming pairwork, groupwork

Positioning and Moving

Using non-verbal cues

Using the blackboard

Keeping eye contact

Using voice

Giving and checking instructions

Checking for understanding

Monitoring

Dealing with students’ misbehavior

Giving feedback

Motivating students
Question 2

How often do you encounter problems with the following skills? Tick the appropriate
column.

Problems Never Rarely Sometimes Often Usually

Managing time

Forming pairwork, groupwork

Positioning and moving

Using non-verbal communication

<eye-contact & voice projection>
Using the blackboard

Keeping eye-contact

Using voice

Giving and checking instructions

Checking for understanding

Monitoring

Dealing with students’ behavior

Giving feedback

Motivating students

Thank you very much!

 INTERVIEW SCHEDULE
<Student Version>>

Kỹ năng quản lý lớp Câu hỏi

1. Quản lý thời gian • Bạn có bao giờ bị quá giờ dạy không? Nếu có thì theo bạn nguyên
nhân là do đâu?
• Khi bị quá giờ dạy, theo bạn nên làm thế nào để khắc phục?
• Khi phân chia thời gian cho các hoạt động học bạn cân nhắc những
yếu tố gì? Theo bạn yếu tố nào là quan trọng nhất?

2. Quản lý không gian • Bạn thấy sử dụng bảng có khó không? Cụ thể là khó ở điểm nào
<chữ viết bảng; cách phân bố, trình bày nội dung bảng>? Nguyên
nhân nào khiến bạn gặp khó khăn trong sử dụng bảng? Theo bạn nên
làm thế nào để dùng trình bày bảng và viết bảng hợp lý?
• Bạn thường phân chia nhóm sinh viên như thế nào? Bạn có gặp khó
khăn gì không? Bạn có gợi ý gì để phân chia và quản lý nhóm được
hiệu quả?
• Khi giảng bài, bạn thấy mình nói đủ to chưa? Theo bạn giọng nói
của giáo viên chỉ cần to thôi đã đủ chưa? Bạn có cách nào để sử
dụng giọng nói của mình hiệu quả hơn không?
• Khi nói hay thuyết giảng bạn có quan sát được hết sinh viên không?
Bạn có khó khăn gì trong việc quan sát lớp không?

3. Hướng dẫn làm bài 1. Có trường hợp nào sinh viên không hiểu hướng dẫn của bạn không?
Theo bạn nguyên nhân là do đâu? Cách nào để khắc phục và tránh
tình trạng đó?
2. Trong trường hợp giáo viên mất quá nhiều thời gian để hướng dẫn
sinh viên thì nguyên nhân là gì? Hướng khắc phục?
3. Bạn có bao giờ đưa ra hướng dẫn làm bài vào thời điểm không thích
hợp không (ví dụ như lúc lớp học vẫn chưa ổn định, sinh viên còn
chưa tập trung hoàn toàn)? Nguyên nhân và hướng khắc phục?

4. Kiểm soát tiến độ • Theo bạn, kiểm soát tiến độ làm bài của sinh viên khó nhất ở điểm
làm bài nào?
• Bạn thường làm cách gì để đảm bảo rằng sinh viên tập trung làm
bài tập độc lập, theo cặp hoặc theo nhóm?
• Bạn thường làm gì để đảm bảo rằng sinh viên sử dụng tiếng Anh mà
không lạm dụng tiếng Việt?
• Bạn thường làm gì để sinh viên bắt đầu và kết thúc việc làm bài tập
trên lớp?
5. Quản lý sinh viên • Bạn gặp những khó khăn gì trong việc quản lý sinh viên trên lớp?
• Bạn xử lý thế nào với những sinh viên
• mất trật tự?
• không chú ý nghe giảng hoặc làm bài?
• quá nổi trội hơn so với các bạn khác?
• chống đối giáo viên?

6. Kiểm tra mức độ • Bạn thường làm thế nào để đảm bảo sinh viên hiểu bài? làm được
hiểu bài bài?
1. Khi đặt câu hỏi cho sinh viên, bạn dành cho sinh viên bao nhiêu thời
gian để trả lời?
1. Bạn làm thế nào khi sinh viên lúng túng không biết trả lời hoặc trả
lời chưa đúng?

7. Nhận xét, đánh giá - Bạn thường đưa ra nhận xét về mặt nào của sinh viên (gợi ý: các kỹ
năng..)?
- Bạn có nhận xét, góp ý được nhiều cho sinh viên không? Nếu không
thì nguyên nhân là gì? Và bạn làm thế nào để khắc phục?
- Bạn có tạo điều kiện cho sinh viên tự nhận xét về phần bài của mình
và các bạn trong lớp nhận xét chéo cho nhau không?

8. Tạo hứng thú 1. Bạn thường khen sinh viên bằng những câu như thế nào?
2. Theo bạn để duy trì hứng thú trong suốt một giờ học có khó không?
Làm thể nào để tạo hứng thú cho sinh viên?
3. Nếu sinh viên không nhiệt tình trong giờ học thì nguyên nhân là do
đâu? (gợi ý: mức độ khó của hoạt động, sự đa dạng của các hoạt động,
giọng nói của giáo viên…)
 OSERVATION SCHEME

Classroom Management Issues Difficulties/Problems

Time management
Instructions giving

Concept/comprehension checking

Guiding/facilitating/monitoring

Correction and feedback

Questions and problem dealing

Work arrangement

The use of facilities and resources

Eye contact

Voice projection
Standing and positioning

Board writing and organization

Student motivation
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