Classroom Management

Dealing with classroom management, there are several variables that should be thought by
the teachers in order to achieve the goals in teaching and learning process.

A. Teacher in the Class

It is obvious that every teacher has their own habits and physical characteristics which are
taken by teachers into the class. All of those including the way teachers move, stand, demonstrate
and respond something will directly bear on students’ perception about the teachers. Therefore,
teachers should consciously consider about how close they are with the students, how they
approach the students, how they act in front of students, and how aware they are with the students’
feelings and thoughts.
Voice, on the other hands, is a crucial instrument needed by teachers to deliver the
materials. Thus, they should manage the way they speak such us the voice projection, voice
varieties, and voice conservation. More importantly, the teachers have to concerns the manners
they use when talking to their students, and have the ability to rough-tune the language to make
the students understand what the teachers are talking about. Apart of those, the teacher also should
naturally use facial expression to show the emotions, gestures to demonstrate things using, or mime
to demonstrate actions as an adjunct to the language used, especially to the early young learners.

B. Instructions
By using the technique of how to speak appropriately to students, teachers are assumed to
give any instructions which are more simple and logical to students, so they will become easily
understand the activity they will do and how to do it. Their understanding, meanwhile, could be
checked by asking them or several of them to explain the learning plans the teachers will
implement later. Although the students may sometimes explain it or speak using their mother
tongue language in the class, particularly when they are beginners and share the same L1, the
teachers still become a controller by responding them in English and talking in English as much
as possible to create the English environment in the class. Nevertheless, the teachers need to
decrease their predominant talking in the class and only talk when it is demanded, and encourage
students to speak more to practice their language.
 C. Seating Arrangements and Students Grouping
Not only comprehensible instructions do the teachers need to convey, but also they need to
create organized lesson plans including the stages, sitting arrangements, and students grouping.
The stages mean the teacher know well what to do and how to encourage students to involve
actively in the first, middle, and in the last phases of the classroom activities. To support the
participation of students, the teachers must set the classroom well and arrange the chairs, in which
students can learn effectively. In addition, there are several ways in managing the seats like orderly
rows if the class focused on a task at the same time, circles and horseshoes if the teachers want to
provide more feeling of equality and share information more intimate, and separate tables if
teachers want to group the students in small bunches and help them collaborate. Furthermore,
grouping the students can be organized in various ways whether as a whole class, groupwork,
pairwork, solowork, or class-to-class work, which depend on what lessons teachers want to apply
in the classroom, and what the students are expected to get and achieve from the classroom
activities.

D. Lesson Plan
Lesson is a popularly considered to be a unified set of activities that cover a period of
classroom time, usually ranging from forty to ninety minutes. The Format of the lesson plan:
1. Goals may be quite generalized, but it serves as a unifying theme for you in teaching.
2. Objectives, It is very important to state explicitly what you want students to gain from
the lesson:
a. Terminal Lesson Objectives
b. Enabling Objectives
3. Materials and Equipment, You need to know what to take to have in your classroom.
4. Procedures, in general ways your procedures could include:
a. An opening
b. A set of activities
c. Closure
5. Evaluation, in an assessment in order to assessing the success of your students, and
making adjustment in your lesson plan for the next day.
6. Extra Class Work, sometimes misnamed by “homework”, actually it only be done
outside the home in purpose to give extra opportunity for student learn beyond the
classroom hour.

Guidelines for Lesson Planning:

1. How to begin planning

a. Familiar with curriculum, then create overall plan and tone
b. Based on your perspective, determine the topic and purpose in order to create
overall goal
c. States terminal objective
d. Choose the best exercises in the textbook to support your lesson
e. Create skeletal outline
f. Plan step by step procedures.
2. Variety, Sequencing, Pacing, and Timing
a. Various technique
b. The techniques sequenced logically
c. The learning activity is proper
d. Lesson duration is appropriate
3. Gauging Difficulty
Create an optimal technique based on students’ condition
4. Individual Differences
Create average ability range
5. Student Talk and Teacher Talk
Balance student and teacher talk
6. Adapting to an Established Curriculum
Formulate the lesson plan based on current curriculum
7. Classroom Lesson “Notes”
Create notes, as the guidelines in teaching
 E. Using course books
Course book is a textbook that students and teachers use as the basis of a course, but in the
real in classroom, there are so many problems like on the content course books there are 4
alternatives to consider that some parts of a textbook are not appropriate. the first, omitting lessons
from textbooks that are inappropriate in class activities or not sequencing in the textbook and the
teachers develop an approach with students. Second is to replace the lesson in the course books
with what our own, which students may have more interest and it may more appropriate for
students. Third option is the teacher can add activities and exercises that extend students’
engagement with the topic if the lesson is rather boring. The last option is how the teacher to adapt
what is in the book, if the sequence is too easy to predict and non-creative way, the teacher replaces
some activities, rearranges activities or reducing the number of activities. However, they will use
the parts that are the most appropriate for their class, and make suitable changes to other materials
so that it is exactly right for their students.
The teacher can then adding, adapting, and replacing course books by adding material to
books that are suitable for students with more content that they are prepared for, and appreciating
them directly. Adapting by interacting creatively with course books is a good teaching skill that
deserves to be trained and developed. Replacing course books can use the course book’s
grammatical, functional and lexical syllabus but provide the teacher own content for students to
work with.
Some of teachers have bad opinion about course books, They say they are boring, stifling
(for both teacher and students) and often inappropriate for the class in front of them, in fact the
textbook has been carefully researched and has a consistent grammar syllabus and provides
appropriate vocabulary exposure and practice, along with work writing and writing assignments,
but teachers are required to be more creative because textbooks are proposals provided they realise
that course books are proposals for action rather than obligatory instruction manuals. Teachers
have to decide what books to use, the first thing teachers need to do analyse the books considering
and ask their opinion on what looks best to them. They may not make our decision for us, but their
opinion can help us come to a final decision.Probably the best way of doing this is to select areas
that interest us (e.g. layout and design, methodology, topics, etc.
F. Commercial and Authentic Materials
1. Commercial Materials
Materials which are created to fulfil the curriculum demand, but implicitly have
economic value (commercial) for marketing purposes. The examples of commercial
materials can be EFL/ESL texts, audiotapes, a disk with accompanying workbooks,
videotapes with worksheets for students, and computer programs. According to Gebhard
(2009) there are some reasons that teachers should use commercial materials as follows:
 If you teach in a public school in a country with centralized educational system,
you might find yourself teaching with materials produced (or selected) by a
government education agency or committee.
 If you teach at certain universities, well-established private language schools,
some ESL K-12 schools, and corporations with language programs, you could find
yourself teaching with locally designed texts and materials.
 If you are among the teachers who are not completely satisfied with the textbook,
you probably adapt the text or design entire lessons with materials you create
yourself.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Commercial Materials:

a. Advantages of Commercial Materials

According to Gebhard (2009) there are some advantages of commercial materials:
 Saving time
 Well organized; can systematically guide teacher and step by step through a series
of lessons.
b. Disadvantages of Commercial Materials
 Problem of ideological conflict in teaching beliefs
 Students experience ignorance
 Culturally diverse and geographically dissimilar

2. Authentic Materials
Authentic materials are additional materials used to overcome the lack of information
of the main material used (commercial materials) to develop students’ knowledge. In other
words, the materials to move beyond the limitations of a text include anything that are used
to communicate (Gebhard, 2009). There are several types of authentic materials according
to Gebhard, are as follows; Authentic Listening/ Viewing Materials (any audio media’s
like), authentic visual materials (any visual materials’ like), authentic printed materials,
and realia used in EFL/ESL classrooms.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Authentic Materials:
a. Advantages of Commercial Materials
According to Gebhard (2009) there are some advantages of authentic materials:
 More communicative
 Various language input
b. Disadvantages of Commercial Materials
 Taking too much time and effort
 Students’ neglection of valuable learning sources
c. How do EFL/ESL teachers use authentic materials and media?
Firstly, the teachers begin by giving an idea in a text and based on their
understanding of students' needs and interests they then locate authentic materials and
create additional activities that uses them. Secondly, according to Garber and Holmes,
teachers used authentic video to have students in their foreign language classes write
and produce their own commentaries. Thirdly, the teacher includes the authentic
materials on reading boards similar to a bulletin board. It can include quick quizzes,
problem solving, quote from famous people, cartoons, and news items. Additionally,
the teacher uses authentic mixed media to create an activity in which the students use
the material as a substitute for a trip to a particular place. Some of the authentic
materials include city street maps; tourist brochures; public transportation, shopping,
hotel, and restaurant guides, etc.
d. What kind of technology do EFL/ESL teachers use?
English classes can be taught using computer with fast internet access, radio and
telephone. Using radio can open up our understanding of the world and can develop
the English speaking skills. The telephone can also be used to boost confidence in
students who are shy to use English in public to speak up.
e. What problems do some EFL/ESL teachers have with materials, media and
technology.
Problem 01: The “I Am Forced to Teach from the Book” Problem.
Teachers having problem as they are forced to teach from the book as to follow
a particular text which they find that the administration’s policy is tough. Sometimes
the teacher can’t be creative with the materials and media because the actual lesson
plans were provided and there are supervisors that monitor them to make sure they
follow the prescribed lesson while being under pressure.

Problem 02: The “Let the Textbook Do the Teaching” Problem.

Teachers can learn something about teaching from follow a text from the teaching
manual, but doing that can affect the students as it can make light to the experience
gained by the students because they are not negotiating a meaning with each other and
the teacher. Some teachers won’t accept the constraints because they want to be more
technicians by doing more rather than mindlessly following the text in the materials.

Problem 03: The “How Do I Locate Useful Websites for My Students?”

Nowadays there are plenty of websites the teacher can use but they find it
difficult to recommend the useful one for the students in the EFL/ESL classes.
References

Brown, H. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (2nd

ed.). New York: Longman.
Gebhard, J G. (2006). Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language (2nd). United States:
The University of Michigan Press.
Gebhard, J G. (2013). Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language (2nd). United States:
The University of Michigan Press.
Harmer, J. (2007). How to Teach English. United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited.