Teach English in Hantai Zhen - E'erduosi Shi — Ordos

Classroom Management is oftentimes misunderstood by many due to its broad meaning. In ESL teaching, as a teacher, what we meant with Classroom Management is the practice we use when disturbing behaviors occur in the classroom. We have to understand that the classroom nowadays has a big change from the previous years. This time, many pupils or students are entering schools with behavioral problems. Teachers often have two ways in implementing classroom management, it could be a positive non-punitive or negative punitive. Non-punitive practices could be establishing rules, encouraging responsibility, promoting responsibility of the student to discuss involving behavior, with Punitive practices could be a verbal reprimand, intervention by yelling, time outs outdoor. Being a teacher in Early Childhood for more than 20 years, I’ve experienced that the children under the age of three and four years old have the most common behavioral issues which are being impulsive, hyperactivity and aggressive. These behaviors could be a result of short sleep, no proper meal or no proper eating routines, property destruction and feeling of being unwanted or neglected. Often, these behavioral issues are not being addressed well because some schools are not able to meet the needs of the students and sometimes because of the inadequate socialization of the learner. In my experience, I strongly agree with that being said, the inability of the school to meet the student’s needs and the inadequate socialization of the learners. My 12 years of teaching/managing an early childhood school in Cambodia and my year of experience of teaching the same preschool age group in Japan has a big gap in terms of students’ behavior. Since Cambodia is still a country counted as developing, it is understood that the standard of education is much far behind compared to Japan which is a developed country. In Cambodia, in an International Preschool, teachers hesitate to bring out the kids often due to weather, the temperature is always hot/humid, teacher and students ratio is big as to which greater possibility of accident might happen when doing an activity outdoor due to lack of adult to overseer, small an incident like skin scratch can be a big deal to parents and may cause an interrogation and debate between parent and teacher, unsafe environment due to limited playground/spaces. It’s all the other way around, in Japan, the weather is good in the four seasons, it is a government mandate that ratio should be 1:4, slight accidents are considered to be a positive experience for children to learn and be disciplined so there is a lesser confrontation between the teacher and parents. A cultural defect could sometimes lead to deeper confrontations in either country when the teacher is speaking English to parent tat has less knowledge in speaking English. Many times, the teacher creates an environment that supports and facilitates both academic and social-emotional learning to safeguard an exciting, enjoyable, secure environment and create a positive relationship in the class. In doing this, I ensure that I involved my kids in making a classroom Rules in which they know the consequences when they don’t follow. E.g. use your indoor voice and or raise your hand when you want to talk. These rules should be reminded to the children every single day…consistency has a big effect on the child’s development. During activities, we cannot expect that everyone will finish their work at the same time, so then we should also prepare a fast finisher activity for those who finish their work ahead of the others, this is to stop them in making untoward behavior that may disturb the engagement of the other learners who are taking longer in completing their task. Also, when the whole class is noisy, the teacher must be prepared with any attention grabber that can call the attention of the noisy students. We should also give rewards to excellent students. Rewards could add up as a positive reinforcement e.g. praising/complimenting the child for a positive act, positive touch and or giving hi5 as an immediate appreciation for an act done nicely. Teachers manage misbehaviors by developing routines and reinforcing expectations. Also, they enhance responsibility and provide reinforcement and specific praise to students who follow the rules. In addition, they use verbal reprimands and other aggressive strategies, as well. If we are consistent in practicing our classroom rules agreed with the student, the class will be perfect for learning. A class for 3-4 years old must be interactive and mobile which means consistency and routine are needed to be able to establish good behavior at all times.