As a teacher trainer, I often enter a classroom, observe a class that a trainee conducts, make notes and then discuss what happened. One of the elements that we discuss, is the trainee’s class management skills. The following account is what I would describe as ‘typical’ of trainees who go into the classroom with very little experience and with a somewhat incomplete grasp of what classroom management means in practice.

Following the account below are my comments and advice given to the trainee. The trainee (who is now a working teacher) was informed of this article and has agreed for it to be published. The name of the ex-trainee has been withheld. For practical purposes, I’ll call her ‘Sheila’.

Class Level: Intermediate
Class Description: 14 students, 10 males, 4 females aged 14-15

Sheila entered the classroom and wrote her name on the board. She then informed the class that she was going to teach them the passive voice. She asked them what the passive voice was and a boy in the back answered in Greek that it was when someone enjoyed being punished. Another boy shouted (in Greek) that Kosta (the boy who answered first) loves pain and that she should beat him. The class burst out laughing and the two boys who had spoken first swore at each other.

Sheila asked for quiet and told the class that the passive voice was important because many questions in the use of English are based on it. She then asked if anyone knew how the passive voice was formed. There was no response, and there was a steady murmur going on in the classroom. Quite a few students were smirking and suppressing their laughter.

Sheila went on to give a succinct and clear explanation of passive voice, providing examples and making effective use of the board. Following this, she went on to see if the students had understood the passive by asking them to transform some statements from the active to the passive voice.

She wrote “Tom gave Mary some flowers” and “Mary sent Tom a letter” on the board and asked one of the girls to come up and do the exercise. The girl went to the board reluctantly, took the marker in her hand, looked at the statements for some time and confessed “Miss, I can’t do this”. She then gave the marker back to Sheila and walked back to her seat with an attitude. The class laughed and her classmate (another girl) gave her a ‘high five’ when she returned to her seat.

Sheila was quite distraught at this point, and I was ready intervene and end the class, when Sheila began to make her presence felt, scolding the students about their performance. Doing this she walked up and down the one aisle the classroom was composed of and kept eye contact with the more disruptive students. She then told all the students to take out their notebooks and write the correct response to the question on the board. They did this and she went round to every desk and checked that this had been done. The class had become quiet.

Sheila next gave them a two page passage (an account of someone involved in a traffic accident and then being taken to hospital) and asked the students to find examples of the passive voice. The students were quiet for a little while and then started talking to each other again. Shield stopped the class and had them read the passage aloud in turns. This brought the class to order. She then again asked for examples of the passive voice and this time there were some responses. However, most hadn’t been found. She recited the remainder of the examples but few if any students made any note of them.

Following this she asked the students rewrite ten of the examples in the text into active voice. She gave the class five minutes to do this. She sat at the teacher’s desk and from time to time asked for quiet. After five minutes few students had done more than a couple of sentences. Sheila then spent over ten minutes reading over the passage, indicating the use of the passive voice and how it could be re-stated using the active voice. She was about to go into the use of the passive voice to describe procedures when the class bell rang.

At this point, dear readers, I’d like you to think about Sheila’s actions. What Feedback You Would Give Sheila?

MY FEEDBACK:

I told Sheila later that she had made a brave effort with the given class she was asked to teach and that even an experienced teacher would have had trouble with them. I also told her that she showed some very positive elements as far presenting the material was concerned, especially when she explained the formation of the passive voice and use of the board. There were, however, other aspects of her performance that needed to be improved.

To begin with, the start of the lesson was very dry, taking into consideration that she hadn’t taught this class before. She seemed rather distant; she didn’t make any particular effort to get the class on her side or even to learn their names. I suggested that she ask her classes in the future to write their names on a folded piece of paper in front of them so she could call them by name. There is nothing sweeter, I told her, than the sound of your own name.

I also suggested that before we begin any given activity, we do a warm up activity to stimulate interest. And, before we wish to present or practice a structure, especially with a class that we are not familiar with, we should elicit what the students already know about the structure by seeing if they can produce it. Based on this, we modify the material we have prepared for them. Unfortunately, Sheila did not do this.

I also told her that she could have personalized some the activities more. For example, to ask students to write about things they were given as presents, things that are or have been done to them, etc. The passage that she chose was fine as far as content and level were concerned. However, it was much too long and therefore many examples did not serve any particular purpose. The way it was taken up was rather confusing and proved to be a waste of time. It could have been taken up paragraph by paragraph and again it should have been edited. The last thing I suggested was that she vary the roles she plays as far class management is concerned.

When presenting material she should check that the students are following as she is presenting, not only after she finishes. Complete control is needed here. She also needed to give students interesting activities to do which would motivate them. Pacing plays a major role here, especially with more difficult classes because such classes are difficult to control when they are asked to perform long, non-motivating activities.

I told her that her monitoring during pair work was quite good at times, but needed to be more consistent, again especially with a difficult class like the one she had. To finish off, I told her that she displayed some promising elements but she needed to expand her scope in terms of what activities she employed in the classroom.

Now it’s time to ask yourselves, what advice you would have given her.

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