6.

1 With children
In the initial stages of meeting and familiarising yourself with a new class, it will be
important to strike the right balance between establishing authority, and warming
the children to you to ensure they’re not intimidated and therefore inhibited in class.
One of the great pleasures of teaching children is the amount of enthusiasm they
have, and the amount of affection they might direct towards you. Of course both of
these are extremely gratifying, but popularity is not an honest measure of your
success as a teacher. It is much easier to be initially firm and relax over time, than
it is to attempt to re-establish control over a class that doesn’t respect you and only
liked you when you were being “fun”.

New teachers should familiarise themselves with the school’s policies regarding
discipline and the integration of antisocial children into the class. Ask the other
teachers at the school what the school enforces and if they "back up" their
teachers. Some don't, so it is better to know that before you have to press the point
and lose.

However, to reduce the possibility that individual students will behave

problematically there are certain preventative steps teachers can take.

Preventative measures
Keep high expectations in your class - Expect that your students will behave,
not that they will disrupt. Reinforce this with the way you speak to your students.
When you begin the day, tell your students your expectations. For example, you
might say, "During this whole group session, I expect you to raise your hands and
be recognised before you start speaking. I also expect you to respect each other's
opinions and listen to what each person has to say." You should start teaching your
class each day with the expectation that students will behave. Don't assume that
because one student has disrupted your class everyday for a week, she will disrupt
it today. By doing this you will not be treating that student any differently and
thereby setting things up for disruption again.

Routine - Familiarise pupils with classroom rules and norms. Good behaviour can
be almost scripted and clear examples of model behaviour can be given to the
children. Remember that lessons in an L2 can be bewildering, especially for young
children, and having a strong sense of routine will be reassuring. Using songs,
rhymes and chants can be a great way to start the class in a friendly, well-
structured way.

Consistency and balance - Teachers should be firm but encouraging; you need
to ensure your boundaries are reasonable from the children’s perspective, and in
line with the rules and regulations of the school. Older children can participate in
creating rules for both teacher and students to give them a greater sense of
personal commitment. Above all, once rules have been established they must be
consistently applied. One of the worst things you can do as a teacher is to not
enforce your rules consistently. If one day you ignore misbehaviours and the next
day you jump on someone for the smallest infraction, your students will quickly lose
respect for you. Your students have the right to expect you to basically be the
same everyday. Moodiness is not allowed. Once you lose your student's respect,
you also lose their attention and their desire to please you.

Getting attention – Be sure you have the attention of everyone in your classroom
before you start your lesson. Don’t attempt to teach over the chatter of students
who are not paying attention. Inexperienced teachers sometimes think that by
beginning their lesson, the class will settle down. The children will see that things
are underway now and it is time to go to work. Sometimes this works, but the
children are also going to think that you are willing to compete with them, that you
don’t mind talking while they talk, or that you are willing to speak louder so that
they can finish their conversation even after you have started the lesson. They get
the idea that you accept their inattention and that it is permissible to talk while you
are presenting a lesson.

The focusing technique means that you will demand their attention before you
begin. It means that you will wait and not start until everyone has settled down.
Experienced teachers know that silence on their part is very effective. They will
punctuate their waiting by extending it 3 to5 seconds after the classroom is
completely quiet. Then they begin their lesson using a quieter voice than normal.

Have a specific mechanism which you use to bring students focus back to you or
the task. This can consist of a key word or noise. Try to learn names quickly and
use these, along with eye contact to calm lively children. Do not be tempted to
shout over the children.

Maintaining attention - Remember the old rule that a child’s attention span is no
longer than double their age minus two. Thus a four-year-old child can probably
only tolerate an activity of six minutes or less and then you had better move on to
something else. Working with children means you should plan a variety of different
activities and different interaction patterns. Have activities that enable the kids to
expend some physical energy as well as activities that will help to calm and soothe.

Acceptable noise level - There’s a difference between a short burst of noise to re-
establish their focus, and prolonged shouting to compete with a class of noisy
children. Find an appropriate noise level (which will obviously be higher during
communicative activities) and ensure this is maintained, bringing it down when
noise reaches an excess.

Give praise - This encourages good behaviour and good relationships between
teachers and students. Behaviour that should be rewarded with praise includes
thinking before answering questions, persisting through difficult tasks, helping and
sharing, listening and following instructions, observing rules, being tidy and
efficient. Quieter children should be rewarded for contributing, whereas more
dominant students, for letting others have a go. Praise can be given in English, and
a visual ‘reward board’ is often a popular and motivating visual record of good
behaviour. Praise should always be sincere, enthusiastic and varied.

Don’t reward bad behaviour - Children will often act out for your attention and it
would be best to study some basic psychology and behaviour modification
techniques to keep a handle on them. Generally speaking, giving a child attention
for unwanted behaviour is not a good idea. It is far better to target the child right
next to the misbehaving child and reward them for doing what you want the
problem child to do, like sitting down, or working on an assigned task.

Use students’ names - While lecturing to your class, head off potential problems
by effective use of name-dropping. If you see a student talking or distracted by
something, simply drop the youngster’s name into your dialogue in a natural way.
“And you see, David, we carry the one to the tens column.” David hears his name
and is drawn back on task. The rest of the class doesn’t seem to notice.

Avoid confrontational escalation1 – This is when what should be a minor issue

ends up getting out of control because the teacher mishandles the situation.
Frequently this is because of the language or tone he or she uses when
reprimanding a student. For example, compare the following two situations:

 The teacher scolds Jimmy, “Stop talking, turn around and do your work.” Jimmy
tosses his head and snaps, “I wasn’t talking!” The teacher reacts aggressively,
“Don’t tell me you weren’t talking!” Like a trap spring releasing, another minor
offense has just escalated into a major discipline problem.
 Jimmy is talking to his classmate behind him. The teacher, instead of snapping at
him, focuses on the behaviour she wants, without drawing attention to the
misbehaviour. “Jimmy, the rest of the class is working quietly now. You need to
turn around and get going with your assignment, too.” There is not a lot there for
Jimmy to challenge - he doesn’t feel threatened or rebuffed. Jimmy turns around
and starts working. He may even apologise.

1
This section draws extensively from the Honor Level System, available at www.honorlevel.com
Another technique for when a student directly challenges your authority by refusing
to do what you have said is to repeat back to the student, calmly, what he or she
has said. For example:

 Mary is distracted during a classroom discussion, chatting to the students around

her. The teacher says, “Mary, I think it would be better if you come and sit over
here next to me for the rest of the class”.
 Mary says belligerently, “I don’t want to sit over there”.
 Calmly, but firmly, her teacher repeats Mary’s challenge. “You don’t want to sit over
here. I can understand that. I know you would rather sit with your friends, but I think
we can help you stay out of trouble if you move over here.”
 Mary becomes a little more anxious. She is reluctant to get up and move in front of
her peers. “Why do I have to move?”
 “Why do you have to move?” her teacher rephrases the question. “I have tried to
give you the opportunity to make things work where you are sitting. You are leaving
me with fewer and fewer choices. I would like you to come sit over here.
Remember our first classroom rule, Mary. I expect you to follow directions.”
 Mary reluctantly makes her way across the room. “This isn’t fair.”
 “I’m sorry you don’t think this is fair. We can talk about this later when you’re less
upset. Thank you for moving now.”

TEACHING TIP: No matter what the problem, the best policy

is to keep your cool. In fact, the best advice is to always act
on a problem BEFORE you get upset, while you can still
think rationally and calmly about solving it.

Dealing with late students

Being late is a problem that needs to be dealt with head on. As a teacher, do not
allow students to get by with being late early in the year or the problem will
escalate. The most effective way to stop this is through the implementation of a
school-wide late policy that is strictly enforced. While many schools do have this,
many more do not. If you are lucky enough to teach in a school with a system that
is strictly enforced you will simply need to make sure that you follow through as
required by the policy. If you are not quite as lucky, you will need to create a
system that is easy to enforce yet effective against late students.

Talk with your fellow teachers and find out what works for them. Each school has a
different atmosphere and what works with one group of students might not be as
effective with another. Try one of the listed methods below or another method, and
if it is not working do not be afraid to switch. However, just remember that your late
policy is only as effective as you are in enforcing it. You should realise, however,
that you must create an effective, enforceable policy or you will eventually be
faced with a problem in your classroom.
The following are some methods that teachers have used which you might want to
consider as you create your own late policy.

Late cards - Late cards are basically cards given to each student with a space for
a specific number of 'free late'. For example, a student might be allowed three per
semester. When the student is late, the teacher marks off one of the spots. Once
the late card is full, then you would follow your own discipline plan or the school's
late policy. On the other hand, if the student gets through a semester without being
late, then you would create a reward. For example, you might give this student a
homework pass. While this system is most effective when implemented school-
wide, it can be effective for the individual teacher if strictly enforced.

On time quizzes - These are unannounced quizzes that take place as soon as the
bell rings. Students who are late would receive a zero. They should be very short,
typically five questions. If you choose to use these, make sure that your
administration allows this. You can choose to have the quizzes count as a single
grade over the course of the semester or possibly as extra credit. However, make
sure that you announce the system in the very beginning and that you start using
them right away. There is a chance that a teacher could start using these to
specifically punish one or a few students by not giving them unless those particular
students are late. To be fair make sure that you randomly place them on your
lesson plan calendar and give them on those days. You can increase the quantity if
you find that late students are becoming more of a problem over the year.

Detention for late students - This option makes logical sense: if a student is late
then they “owe” you that time. You would want to give your students a certain
number of chances before initiating this.

Locking students out - This is not a recommended means for dealing with late
students. You must consider your liability for student safety. If something happens
to a student while locked out of your class, it would still be your responsibility.

Dealing with problems with pair and group work

Some problems you might find when setting up pair and group work with children
are:

 Young learners, especially the youngest ones prefer to work alone.

 They prefer personal praise.
 There may be disputes over what or how things should be done, or more general
bickering.
 There will be a tendency for some to dominate and others to become distracted.
 With mixed ability groups it can be difficult to decide how the children should be
grouped.
Some ways of dealing with these problems could be:

 Think about the seating arrangements, should children be facing each other, back
to back, around a table, or on the floor? Do they have sufficient space to move
around if the activity requires they do so?
 Ensure children get used to working within the boundaries of time constraints, and
you have the authority to initiate or stop tasks promptly.
 Ensure tasks are achievable and fun, exemplify how tasks are made easier when
pupils work together, and praise cooperative behaviour noting WHY it was good.
 Make sure classes are dynamic, involving both stirring and settling activities.
 Ensure activities are meaningful to pupils, and they understand the objectives of
the activity at the outset.