مقاله به زبان انگلیسی:CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

                                                  AND                                                                                                                                                

                      LANGUAGE TEACHING 

 

INTRODUCTION 

While taking courses, prospective teachers may consider students needs and what they may do in the classroom to meet those needs, and while teaching, the may pause during rare quiet moments in the classroom to contemplate how well they are meeting the needs of their students.

However, amidst the myriad of responsibilities the face while the class is in progress, the exigencies of taking attendance, covering the exercises in the book, collecting and returning homework papers, and maintaining order may take precedence over students’ needs and cause them to lose sight of their overall goals.

Serious oversights may creep unobtrusively in to the daily class routine. The students’ need for order and organization may be abandoned in an effort to do what the teachers think the students want. Their need to learn may be sidetracked by a desire to keep them from being bored.                                                                       Their need to learn discipline may be subverted by an attempt to entertain them. Their need to grow personally and to progress in the subject matter may be thwarted by a lack of effort on their part and honest feedback from the teacher. Their true achievement may be masked by inflated grades that represent the completion of textbook exercises rather than the amount of information understood and stored in long-term memory.

Students have many needs, most of which cannot be met in the classroom

.However, the have some needs that are specific to the classroom

and others that are affected by their classroom experiences.   

 

                                                                     

 

 

                                                              1

Classroom Management                                          

Classroom Management means to establish and maintain order in the class and to organize classroom activities. In some classes students seems to realize that they have work to do that they can complete successfully, and they are busily engaged in accomplishing the assigned tasks. These teachers have developed an environment in which students can and are expected to learn. In other class, however students seem not to have anything worthwhile to do, and they spend the class hour in series of disconnected distractions trying to entertain themselves or waiting impatiently for the bell to ring. Both the incentive and the environment for learning are absent. Even students who want to learn suffer a debilitating handicap in class of this type.

    Time-on-task studies reveal that during a significant portion of the class hour students are often not involved in learning. They may take several minutes to clam down after the break between classes and to get involved in the activities of the new class. They may be slow to move from one activity to another and quick to entice the teacher onto a nonproductive tangent. They may even expect a few minutes prior to the end of the period to get ready to go to their next class. The teacher’s responsibility is to minimize these delays , distractions ,and interruptions and to maximize the time spent on learning.

    Successful classroom management requires that teachers focus at the beginning of the course on organizing the class in an efficient manner with recognized, worthwhile goals. Since this direction requires that they establish order and maintain control, they need to develop a working base of leadership grounded in their position as the teacher and on their personal relationship with the students. Their tasks thus include ( Hawley,1982 ):

1.      Establishing the necessary rules to govern classroom activities.

2.                                          Clarifying the responsibilities of the students.

3.                                                          Directing class activities according to established procedures.

4.                                                          Maintaining the limits set for students.

5.                                                          Encouraging students to become self-directed learners.       

       Effective teachers follow procedures in each class that are consistent with the academic orientation established at the beginning of the course. They begin each class promptly and purposefully. They move quickly and smoothly from one activity to another with a minimum of non learning activities. They develop routines that promote efficiency in the classroom and that students can easily follow. They strive to provide clear and concise explanations and direction because clarity relates directly to learning and indirectly to time-on-task. They limit and control the number and extent of classroom interruptions and disruptions. They move around the room to encourage all students to be actively involved. They provide necessary feedback to all students ( Lasley and Walker, 1986 ). They end the class promptly and on a positive note.

                                                                       

 

                                                            

 

                                                                       2

 

Discipline in the Classroom

Good discipline is not synonymous with absolute quiet. The teacher should not expect the staid, stilted atmosphere of the Latin grammar schools. Although she may not be interfering with the progress of the class, a quiet student may not be learning anything. Any study behavior that disrupts the learning process can be considered a discipline problem. This behavior may be quiet or noisy; it may be malicious and sly or open and unintentional. In any case, the teacher’s job is to reestablish and maintain the learning situation.

    Before the prospective teacher enters the classroom, he should realize that rapport is not a matter of being able to entertain the students or of being their “ buddy “. In spite of what they may say, students need a teacher they respect rather than an over grown adolescent with whom to clown around. Rapport implies a classroom atmosphere in which learning id taking place. It is this establishment of learning situations that is the teacher’s prime task. Unless he can assume that responsibility, he should not be come a teacher. He may sympathize and empathize with the students but always from his position as a teacher. Crossing the line to be come, in effect, a student again destroys his image as a teacher and neutralizes his potential effectiveness.

     The prospective teacher should also expect courtesy at all times in the classroom. Much undisciplined behavior is simply a matter of bad manners, and the teacher should emphasize respect for the rights and feelings of others. In addition to courtesy, he should also establish and maintain certain standards of work and behavior in the classroom that will encourage the students to do their best at all times. Permissiveness and lowered students aggravate and magnify discipline problems rather than solve them. The students may forget all the language they learn, but they should remember the importance of courtesy, self-discipline, and sincere effort to do one’s best.

    The first other of business with regard to discipline is to make rules clear to everyone in the class. Establishing guidelines is not a matter of “ laying down  the law “ , but one of making concise statement comprehensible to all. However, stating the rule is only the beginning. Next comes the process of establishing the validity and applicability of the rules. The classroom is a social situation, and the students must determine in practice the limits of behavior ( Ausubel and Robinson,  1969 ).

     The best approach to discipline is avoid circumstances that create discipline problems. The following suggestions will help prevent the occurrence of discipline problems during the class hour.                                                                              

 

                                                            

                                                               3 

 

 

1.  Start the class promptly and with a spirit of enthusiasm and vigor.

2.  Get everyone’s attention before starting the recitation.

3.  Have all possible material that may be needed written on the chalkboard before the bell rings 

4.  Have your plan and all teaching aids ready.

5.  Learn to “ ride the class with your eyes”. The teacher should be able to see all the students all the time.

6. Talk to all the students and ask them to talk to the entire class. The class recitation period is not appropriate for a series of private conversations between the students called upon and the teacher.

7.  Call on those students who are beginning to lose interest.

8.  Emphasize a “we” feeling of class responsibility for all that transpires.

9.                   Encourage all students to attempt to answer the questions silently whether they have been called on or not.

10.  Study the seating arrangement of the students. Those who affect each other adversely may need to be moved.

11.    Be businesslike.

12.  Watch your voice. Be expressive, and speak loudly and clearly.

13.                         Stand in the class and move around.

14.  Keep the pace moving.

15.  Learn to “feel the pulse” of the class, so that changes can be made as the class progresses. For example, there no need to spend ten minutes on activity if the students obviously do not need the practice. At other times, the teacher may need to spend ten minutes on some exercise that he had expected to do more quickly.

16.  Hold every member of the class responsible for all that takes place during the period.

17.   State the question before calling on the student.

18.  Call on students in a random fashion rather than by rows.

19.  Have a variety of activities.

20.   Use examples in preference to abstract explanations.

21.  Keep those students at their seats busy during chalkboard exercises.

22.  And last, but certainly not least, know the material before attempting to teach it.

 

In addition to the positive practices presented in the preceding list the teacher should not do the following:

 

1.                                 Use sarcasm.

2.                                 Play favorites.

3.                                 Insist on apologies.

4.                                 Make threats.

5.                                 Give overly difficult assignments.

6.                                 Punish the entire class for the misbehavior of one or a few students.

7.                                 Appeal to fear.

8.                                 Get sidetracked by irrelevant questions.

9.                                 Tie herself to the textbook.

10.   Use vocabulary over the students’ heads.     

       11- Talk too rapidly or nervously.

       If discipline problems do occur, the teacher should first ask him self if his teaching merits the attention he expects. Second, he should try to find out more about the student causing the problem. Misconduct may have nothing to do with the class itself. Economic and social status, physical health and development, mental ability, problems at home, community conditions, group influence, emotional stability, and so on-all influence class conduct. A private conference with the student may help to determine the problem and to improve conduct in the class. If not, a counselor or a dean may be able to help in solving the problem.

LEARNING AND TEACHING

 

The students’ greatest need both in and outside the classroom is to learn.

humans are intelligent beings who live in a complex, interdependent world in which their success or failure as individuals depends greatly on what they know about that word and about themselves. People need to learn to learn and to develop the discipline needed to learn, and in most modern societies school are the institutions in which young people focus their attention on these important task. Therefore, any class in which students are not engaged in learning activities is not serving the need that students have.

Learning and teaching involve much more than dispensing information, directing activities, requiring students to display their knowledge, and correcting errors. The goal is to establish a learning environment that promotes positive attitudes, productive efforts, and maximum achievement for all students in the class. The proper focus of attention is always on the students rather than the teacher.

Standards

Teachers cannot assume that students are aware of their need for learning. Students are often immature and impulsive, and without encouragement , guidance , and even insistence they may fail to develop their full potential. Effective teachers set standards at a level that require students to expend maximum effort, and they expect students to strive to meet those standards. Ravitch (1985, p. 180) says, “Students respond to teacher’s expectation, and constant reinforcement of high expectations can contribute to good behavior and to increased academic effort”. He contends that recent widespread practices-such as grade inflation; the decline of enrollments in foreign languages, science, and mathematics; the proliferation of insubstantial courses; the reduction in the amount of homework assigned; and the decline in content courses-all reflect lowered expectations.                                                            

References:

 

Kenneth Chastsin 1988.Developing Second-Language Skills , Printed in the United States of America

Adrion Doff 1990.Teach English , Cambridge University Press

 

                                              GOOD LUCK