Classroom Management

In this section well discuss various aspects of classroom management including the role of the teacher, student grouping, and discipline. In general we can say that class management is important in so far as it involves the efficiency of the teacher and the learning activities. The most effective activities can be made almost useless if the teacher does not organize them efficiently; if the teacher allows a discipline problems learning will be adversely affected. A teacher who always teaches to the whole class (e.g. who does not use pair or group work) is wasting valuable opportunities for the students to get maximum practice and to the learning to be therefore efficient. Note: This subject will be delivered now not only as a theory but also in practice; will be done by the PLPGs participants ! (on sided dialog, buzz group, finding jobs

The Role of The Teacher

There are various activities in class that range from presentation of finely-tuned input to the communication output of various communicative activities. The teachers behavior for these various types of activity the will also be different. Sometimes the teacher is in firm control but in communication output we can say that the role of the teacher should change (into gentle control). The role of the teacher, then will depend to a large extent on the function he performs in different activities. We will examine the roles of controller, assessor, organizer, prompter, participant, and resource.

Some terms relating to Classroom class room management

Class room activity can be divided into two main categories: those that give the students language input (language is put into the students brain), and those which encourage them to produce output. Language input is divided into two different type of input: roughly-tuned input and finely-tune input. Roughly-tuned input is done where students have to deal with language that is at a higher than they are capable of producing. .(reading passage and listening exercises). Finely-tuned input is language which has been selected for conscious learning, such as present simple, past continuous, language invitation etc. Such language is introduced to the students at a stage (often called presentation) where repetition practice is used and when students are encourage to employ the cognitive strategies. During this stage the teacher is act as a controller, selecting the language the students are to repeat and insisting on accurate reproduction of the new item. This means that students errors and mistakes will be dealt with when they occur (error and mistakes) Language output is divided into two category: practice and communication output Practice: student are asked to use new language in different context. Activities are organized which specifically promote the use of the new language, often in combination with English the students already know. The aim is to encourage communication while ensuring that specific language items are used. Communication output, on the other hand, is more fundamental in that we put students in situations in which they have to select appropriate language from the total language store. They task is to retrieve any and/ all the language they know in order to complete the communication task.

Significant and value: often the teacher gives examples which dont normally happens in real life situation (look Im opening the door! For present continuous), but not teach it is used (its value)

The teacher as controller

The teacher plays as controller when he is totally in charge of the class He controls not only what the students do, but when they speak and what language they use. Clearly introduction of new language often involves the teacher in controlling role, particularly at the accurate reproduction stage (e.g. drilling session). If the teacher wishes the students to use language in any way, the control then have to be relaxed since if the language is all determined by the teacher the students will never have the opportunity to learn properly. The teacher as controller then is useful during an accurate reproduction stage, and in general lockstep activities. But even during immediate creativity; for example; it is vital that this control should be relaxed in some degree, and during communicative activities or the practice or receptive skills, the teacher as controller is wholly inappropriate.

The Teacher As Assessor

A major part of teacher role is to assess the students work to see how well they are performing or how well they performed. There is two kind of assessing correcting and organizing feedback During an accurate reproduction stage, where the teacher is totally in control, he will correcting student error and mistake. Where student involves immediate activities , or where they are doing a drill type activity in pair, the teacher may still make correction but we suggest gentle correction.(without destroying the atmosphere of learning activities) Organizing feedback is done by waiting until the activity or task has been completed and the tells the students how well they did. There are two kind of organizing feedback: content feedback and form feedback Content feedback concerns an assessment of how well the students performed the activity as an activity rather than as a language exercise. Not to the form of accurate language but to how well the communication takes place. Form feedback, tells students how well they performed in terms of the accurate use of language.

The teacher as Organizer

The success of many activities depends on good organization and on the students knowing exactly what they are to do. The main aim of the teacher when organizing an activity is to tell the students what they are going to talk about (or write or read about), give clear instruction about what exactly their task is, get the activity going and then organize feedback when it is over. This sounds easy but it will be disastrous if the teacher has not thought out what he is going to say beforehand (lesson plan is badly needed). Teacher can not assume that students have understood the instruction or giving unclear ones. It is wise that you plan out what you are going to say to your students and use students language if

necessaryFor example if the activity is information gap then you should inform them not to look up to each others material. There are three kind of organizations: lead-in, instrucs, initiate. First teachers gives lead-in. Like lead-in for presentation or the treatment of receptive skills; this will probably take the form of introduction of the subject (discussing the subject or games to be done) When lead-in stage has done the teacher instructs This is where he explains exactly what the students should do (telling students to work in pair and designate students x as A and student y as B). In the describe and draw for example the teacher ask the student not to show the picture to his friend, but they have to do the task by asking and answering questions Finally the teacher initiates the activity. He gives a final check that the students have understood, eg. has anyone has understood ? The off you go In brief, his job is to organize the activity as efficient as possible, frequently checking the students have understood.

The teacher as Prompter

Often the teacher needs to encourage students to participate or needs to make suggestion about how students may proceed in an activity when there is a silence or when they are confused about what to do next. This one of the teachers important roles, the role of prompter (to encourage students to ask each other, or prompt them with the information if they have forgotten; help the students only when it is necessary)

The teacher as Participant

Teacher himself join a simulations (role play, communicative gap). But the teacher should do his role as participant as equal with other. Teachers must not have dominate the class. If the teacher join the activity as participant not only he will improve the atmosphere in the class, but he will also give the students a chance to practice English with someone who speaks it better than they do

The teacher as a resource

We have stressed the importance of teacher non-intervention where a genuinely communicative activity is taking place in the classroom and this means that the teacher is left, to some extent, with nothing to do. He still has two important roles, however. One is to be aware of what is going on in his role as assessor although discreetly and the other is to be a kind of walking resources. He is ready to help students if it is needed.

Student Groupings
Lockstep: takes place when all students are locked into the same rhythm and pace, the same activity; where a teacher controlled session is taking place. (drilling loud reading to the class, drilling out new expressions such as an introduction in formal or informal situations, etc).

Weakness: students have a little chance to practice or to talk at all. It always goes at the wrong speed! Too slow for good students too fast for weak one; and bad for shy n nervous one since usually they are exposed in front of the whole class Pair work It is done as question-answer practice, information gap, simulations, etc., and students can be put in pairs for a great variety of work including writing and reading. It increase the amount of student practice. The teacher can act as an assessor, prompter, or resource. Weaknesses; the use of students native language, incorrectness, but not only an aspect to judge; communicative efficiency is also important. Noise and indiscipline. The task is too long then students become bored or bad behaved It may be a good idea to familiiarise students with pair work at the beginning of the course by giving them this kind of very short, simple, task to perform. If the student get use to the idea of working in pairs the teacher can extend the range of activities. Group work

In some ways group work is more dynamic than pair work: there are more people to react with and against in a group and therefore a greater possibility of discussion. There is greater chance that at least one member of the group will be able to solve a problem when it arises. It more relaxed than working in pair; it is more exciting and dynamic than some pair work task Weaknesses: noise and indiscipline, program of selection of the member (popular, smart and weak students), group size; if the group is too big. More than seven people, it may start to disintegrate (but not always, depends on the activity being performed). We can ask one student to act as a group leader which has two functions: as a group organizer and as a mini teacher where he could conduct a drill or a dialog. Group work offers enormous potential. It can be used for oral work, tasks where decisions have to be taken, joint reading tasks, cooperative writing and many things; it is also allowing different groups of students to be doing different things in the same classroom.

Individual study
In individual study the students can relax from outside pressure (provided that there is no time limit or competitive element) and because they can rely on themselves rather than on other people. Both reading and writing work can be the focus for individual study. Ideally, where materials exist and where conditions permit, there would be stages at which individual students could have a choice of different activities (need to know some techniques in reading: survey, skimming, scanning, intensive & extensive reading).

DISCIPLINE
Discipline does not mean punishment but code of conduct A code of conduct which binds a teacher and a group of students together so that learning can be more effective. In other word, the object of discipline is not to take action when things get out of hand, but to ensure that things never reach the stage (for the teacher and for the students).

Causes of discipline problems: the teacher, the students, and the institution A) The teacher Do not go to class unprepared, dont be inconsistent, issue threats, raise your voice, give boring classes, be unfair, have a negative attitude to learning, break the code B) the students Time of day (not too early, just before lunch), attitude, a desire to be noticed, twos company (must be handled in fairly rapidly) C) The institution Ideally there should be a recognize system for dealing with problem classes and students. It is to be hoped that teacher can consult departmnt heads when in trouble, and that cases of extremly bad behavior can be acted upon such people or student.

Prevention rather than cure

It is much more difficult to deal with discipline problems than it is to teach a well-behaved class. Therefore it would seem to be that of ensuring that the class is well-behaved. We can make some proposals for preventing discipline problems from arising. a) Establishing a code of conduct b) Being fair and consistent c) Being well prepared d) Being adaptable and interesting Action in case of indiscipline Act immediately (or else it becomes worse) Stop the class (to show students that something wrong happens) Reseating (for trouble maker) Change the activity (if majority of the class is out of control) After the class ( if a student continually giving trouble) Using the institution (when problem becomes extreme)