TEFL Classroom management

The idea of classroom management is something that every future teacher must plan and contemplate thoroughly before starting his/her teaching career. While each teacher will approach classroom management in their own way, there are some major areas that must be covered.

First, a teacher must make the students understand the expectations and consequences concerning the class. In order to ensure that classroom learning is conducive to both the physical and emotional growth of the student, rules that explain what behavior is expected need to be reviewed. After rules and procedures are established, it is important that the teacher admires good performance and provides negative consequences for unacceptable behavior. Simple physical signs like a ?thumbs up? or a verbal ?good job? will show the students that good behavior is recognized. You can use gold stars, or whatever, as long as it gives them a bit of pride for a good job. Also, a teacher must be consistent with punishments for those who disregard the rules. ?How you handle a situation with any student will teach that student something ? as well as everyone else in the room?.

Keep good lines of communication open at all times. The best way to ensure a good classroom environment is to make sure that communications remain open between school officials, teacher, and parents. This creates a feeling of trust within the classroom. Without being able to communicate effectively, learning can not take place. Students with dialects, different languages, and backgrounds will make up many classrooms. Adjusting to different languages and cultures is a difficult task. Therefore, it will take everyone?s help to create a safe environment in the classroom.

Know and respect your students. Teachers should never discriminate and always respect each child as an individual. . Seeing students as individuals with different backgrounds may give the teacher greater insight into specific needs they might have. The students need to have a sense of themselves, and by seeing themselves as individuals they are more able to produce their own creativity. It is very important, as a teacher, to be able to understand why and what influences this, since it can affect learning. Many problems may be easily resolved by simple communication with the student, parents, and teacher. Respect for everyone is vital to a child?s education.

Keep your expectations reasonable. I wouldn?t want to come into the profession with expectations that are so high that no student would be able to meet them. If this occurs, everyone gets frustrated. It causes both the students and the instructors a great deal of difficulty, because they find that they can not get what they need from their students, and their students can not get what they need from their instructor. Also, abilities vary greatly among students. There are many differences among students connected with the way they learn and the things they require. This can cause problems requiring teachers to use different strategies with different pupils

Teach the students self responsibility. One of the most important things that a teacher can do is to teach students how to make responsible choices, both in and out of the classroom. Good classroom management sets clear boundaries which can guide the way. Students are then able to make personal choices for their behavior. When they make positive ones that are considered responsible, they will gain not only better self-esteem, but also more self-control. They will eventually realize that their choices can have a positive effect on their fellow students as well as themselves. In order to teach self responsibility, a teacher must make sure students have individual goals to meet. This is an essential part of classroom management. Individual assignments will show students how to work independently. By doing this, students are able to focus on personal interests and use their inner resources to motivate themselves.

Keep the classroom as comfortable and exciting as possible. A classroom should always be appropriate for all students and make them feel safe. Utilizing the management techniques previously mentioned, will help teachers achieve this. When students feel welcome and safe, they will be more relaxed and open to learning.

It can be very difficult to find the perfect way to manage a classroom. It takes time and patience to learn what works best with what students. It is important to establish clear expectations and consequences from the first week. Communication is also imperative and it must always remain open. Along with that, one must respect and get to know their students. This way your expectations can be reasonable. When teaching, we should gradually increase student responsibility because students need to learn this in order to grow. The environment of the classroom has a big impact too. It should be a comfortable and exciting place which promotes learning .There is a lot to keep in mind, but if done properly, classroom management techniques will promote a healthy learning environment and foster a positive attitude in students towards school. Hopefully, this will carry on with them throughout their life.

References:

http://esl.about.com/od/teachingbeginners/a/ab_beg_intro

http://www.englishclub.com/

http://www.usingenglish.com/lesson-plansl#beginner

TEFL 20 unit training course-ITTT

Bree (My tutor)

Author: Don Brand

Date of post: 2007-04-12