class management

teachers come in all shapes and sizes.

We come the job with our personalities already formed, but there are abilities and attitudes which can be learnt and worked on. As a teacher of young children it helps a lot if you have a sense of humour, you're open-minded, adaptable, patient, etc, but even if you're the silent, reserved type, you can work on your attitudes and abilities.

Abilities               

we may not all be brilliant music teachers like susan's mr. jolly,but most of us can learnt to sing even play a musical instrument. All music teachers would agree in any case that everyone can sing, although perhaps not always in tune!

attitudes

respect your pupils and be realistic about what they can manage at an individual level,then your expectations will be realistic too.

As a teacher you have to appear to like all your pupils equally. Although at times this will foreign language or any other subject need to know that the teacher likes them. Young children have a very keen sense of fairness. it will make all the difference in the world if you doing is essential. You can build up your own security by planing ,reading assessing and talking to others. hopefully this book will help you to know what you are doing.

Helping the children to feel secure

Once children feel secure and content in the classroom, they can be encouraged to become independent and adventurous in the learning of the language. Security is not an attitude or an ability, but it is essential if we want our pupils to get the maximum out of the language lessons.

Here are some of the things which ill help to create a secure class atmosphere.

·         As we said above, know what you’re doing. pupils need to know what is happening,and they need to feel that you are in charge

·         respect your pupils .In the school twelve-year-old gerd would like. PEOPLES AND TEACHERS WHOULD BE FRIENDS AND THEY COULD SPEAK TO EATS OTHER LIKE FRIENDS

·         whenever a  pupil is trying to tell something, accept whatever he or she says-mistakes as well. Constant, direct correction is  not effective and it does not help to create a good class atmosphere. correction has its place when you are working on guided language exercises, but not when you are using in the chapter on oral work.

·         just as Terry’s ideal teacher is one ‘who doesn’t mind children getting things wrong, sometimes’, ideal pupils shouldn’t laugh at others’ mistakes, and this has to be one of the rules of the class. children of all ages are sometimes unkind to each other without meaning to be and are sometimes unkind to each other deliberately. pupils have to be told everyone makes mistakes when they are learning a new language, and that it is all right.

·         establish routines:’Good morning, it’s Wednesday today, so let’s hear your news. ’friday is the day you read the book of month. have a birthday calender, so that you know when everybody’s birthday is, and have routine for what to do on that day. have a weather chart so that the weather can be written up everyday. have a calender with day, date and month. routines of  this type build up familiarity and security for both age groups.

·         give the children the responsibility for  practical jobs in the classroom –making sure the calender is right, sharpening the  pencils,giving out the library books ,watering the plants. These activities are genuine language activities and involve both taking responsibility for learning and helping others to learn.

·         as we said chapter 1,, avoid organised competition. although it can be great fun and usually  leads to a great deal of  involvement ,there almost always a winning team and a losing team. language learning is a situation where everyone can win. children compete naturally with each other – to see who’s finished first etc, but this is something different.

·         avoid giving physical rewards or prizes. it tells others that they have not ‘won’ and it does not help learning to take place. It is far better to tell the pupil that you like his or her work, or put it up on the display board,or read the story aloud for the others or do whatever seems appropriate. this gives the pupil a sense of achievement which doesn’t exclude the other pupils. include, don’t exclude.

·         Don’t give children english names. Language is a personal thing, and you are same person no matter what language  you are using.

The physical surroundings

Young children respond well to surroundings which are pleasant and familiar. if at all possible, put as much on the walls as you can –calendars, posters postcard, pupils' drawings, writing, etc. have plants, animals, any kind of interesting object, anything which adds character to the room, but still leaves you space to work.

encourage the children to bring in object or pictures or postcards and tell the rest of the class a little bit about them in English. it doesn’t have to be more than, physical objects are very important to young children,even children of ten.

Your classroom is probably used for other subjects or other classes as well, but try to have an english corner – you need shelves, a notice board and either a pile of cushions or a couple of comfortable chairs (preferably not traditional school chairs ). if you really can’t manage even a corner of  the classroom a section of wall that you can pin things on   is better than nothing.

make sure you mark all your files and boxes so that you and your pupils know to find what. mark the boxes with colour and/or pictures as well as words. pupils will respond to the organisation – it  shows you care.

Arranging the desks

Sometimes you may not be able to change ho the desks are arranged in your classroom, and sometimes you may how to make one arrangement which you can’t change. you may want to arrange the desks in different ways for different lessons, but it is much simpler if you decide on the most suitable arrangement for a lesson and stick to it. Moving desk during a lesson is a very noisy and time-consuming business.

Let’s look at three ways of arranging the desk in an ordinary classroom.

With arrangement A, you can teach the whole class easily,and you can have group work for some of  the time,  with the class working in groups of four. it is good for pupils to sit in groups, even if they are doing individual or class work, since it is then much more natural for them to talk to each other.

Arrangement a also lets you do pair work easily and leaves you a space in the middle of the classroom for more  general activities. It gives you room to play games, tell stories, act out dialogues, etc. The front of the classroom is not always the best place for these activities if you want to create a felling of involvement rather than performance.

Arrangement B works for individual and whole class work, and you can easily do pair work if half  the class turn their backs to the teacher, or if half the pupils move their chairs over to their neighbour’s desk. Arrangement B does not encourage natural communication since pupils can only see the back of the heads of the pupils in front of them, so it is not as suitable as arrangement A for language work.