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Managing the classroom is a task that should be considered among the first things for a teacher when preparing oneself for a new class. The way that it is arranged can be the deciding factor of efficiency for teaching. There are many variables to consider when preparing a classroom for students who will be attending. One of the variables is the amount of physical space that is available in the classroom. It is important to know how much space you have to work with so that you can plan accordingly. Another thing is the types of desks and chairs that will be used within the classroom. With this in mind, the teacher can strategize how they will optimize the desk formation so that the students can more comfortably engage in the lessons, be it in group tasks during the study phase or simply paying attention to the teacher during the engage phase. There are a number of other more specific factors in determining how the classroom should be arranged, such as the age, nationality, and personality of the students. For the nationality of students in a classroom where there is a lot of diversity, it is most likely better to mix the students as much as possible so that they do not get too comfortable speaking with one another concerning matters that are not in the target language. The idea is to keep students on their toes in such a way that they are constantly pressed to speak as much English as possible whenever they have questions or would like to express themselves. Mixing ages among students will also be helpful in order to balance the progression between the different age groups. Finally, it is important to take note of student personalities so that potential conflict can be predicted and prevented. Furthermore, mixing students who are less motivated with more highly motivated students will almost always lead to the best overall results in learning progression. It is extremely important to learn and remember each and every students’ name. By knowing the names of your students and calling on them using their name, it establishes rapport with them and makes them feel important and they belong in the classroom. For smaller classrooms, this can be relatively easy. Bigger classrooms on the other hand, can be more challenging to memorize everyone’s names. I believe that for bigger classrooms, it is the teacher’s responsibility to organize introductions, games, group projects, or other employed tactics to understand the many different students on an individual level. Doing this will not only help with learning and memorizing their names, but also to understand how they learn and how to approach them on an individual level. Finally, I believe that it is highly beneficial to periodically reassign seats for the students. It’s good to have students work together and make friends with one another, but it can also be counter-intuitive to have them become to familiar with each other. In the real world, they will need to get used to speaking to people in English whom they are not so familiar with. Changing their seats once in a while will allow them to get more experience with communicating with strangers and learning how to overcome their hesitation with speaking English. Breaking the ice with as many people as possible in the classroom will inevitably build confidence in their abilities in the classroom so that they can be better prepared for the future
