One of the jobs teachers have is to foster student participation. After all, ‘class time’ is for students to practice and produce language expression and skills. I’m sure you will agree it’s not for ‘teacher talking time’ (TTT). However, if you find yourself ‘all talked out’ at the end of a lesson, it’s useful to examine whether most of your time is spent explaining things, and how much of your time and effort is spent trying to maintain discipline and interest levels.

It’s been argued that almost 30 percent of class time is spent on discipline. In a 60-minute lesson, that represents 18 minutes. If you are constantly fretting about how little time there is for you to accomplish your aims, then you should understand where you are losing precious time.

It’s also important to consider the emotional impact all that struggling with discipline has on you, as well on your students. It’s unfortunate when you reach the point where you dread walking into your classroom. And obviously, if this is the case, you really aren’t doing your students, let alone yourself, a service. Retaking control of class (and your sanity!) is one thing, but as they say ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’. So, I want to share with you a few ways that will help you stave off classroom discipline problems.

Keep Walking

A teacher should not be chained to his desk or the front of the class  so much so that he or she begins to grow roots there. This should be a given, but to many it’s not. Walking around amongst the students, or even giving task instructions from the back of the classroom requires students to expend a bit of energy tracking your presence as you move around. This means the students have to focus their attentions on what’s going on around them, as opposed to a single solitary object … or even though their own distracting thoughts. This is also one of the reasons why using video and electronic white boards garner more attention that a static blackboard or coursebook does. After all, staring at a non-moving object too long is boring. Moreover, young learners, especially, need visual stimulation that keep them focused and their interest levels high.

Keep Things Social

In EFL lessons, the need for pair and group work cannot be overstated enough. You need to find as many opportunities as possible to get students working together. In fact, there’s really no reason that any practice or production task can’t integrate pair work just to foster some meaningful discussion between students. At the very least, we’re talking about including some peer editing. Tacking on an extra 2 minutes of having students review each other’s work will pay dividends down the line, and not just in terms of discipline, but also in terms of increased ‘student talking time’. This advice also relates to maintaining the pace of the lesson. If students are actively involved with each other, they have less time to goof off. If you are concerned about finding an extra 2 minutes per task, well how about tapping into that 18 minutes you lost trying to control thing? Yes, fostering more language use is where that lost time is supposed to be spent.

Keep Smiling (and the world will smile with you):

Having a sense of humor will make you more endearing to your students. Laughter and warmth is infectious. I’m not suggesting you be a clown, but I am suggesting you remember that to some extent you need to be engaging. There is no better way to warm people to your cause than by smiling and letting them know you are someone getting to know. Being genuine and having a sense of humor will help students lower their ‘defensive shields’. This approach also suggests that they will have more fun in class. It’s wrong to think that being an authoritative asshole will earn your students’ respect.

Keep Remembering It’s Not Personal

There are things you can control in life, and there are things you can’t control. Stop taking ownership of problems that aren’t yours. In psychology, this is referred to emotional detachment, and it is also related to ’emotional intelligence’. Distancing yourself emotionally from student misbehavior will help you to think clearly during times of stress. This is important because lashing out at students really only fans the flames of discord.

There are many reasons why students in engage in disruptive behavior in class. The reasons don’t necessarily include you, so don’t take everything personally. Your students are most likely not trying to ‘piss you off’ on purpose, so don’t give them good them reason to. If you are having a bad day before you step into your classroom, don’t take it out on your students. They’re not responsible for your problems, and you are most certainly not responsible for theirs. Bearing this in mind and staying emotionally detached will help you regroup and spin things to both your and your students’ liking.

Keep Searching: Identify The Causes of Disruptive Behavior

It goes without saying that problems require solutions. Before a solution is found, a good understanding of the problem must be facilitated. Reacting to a behavior problem while you’re teaching may prove temporarily effective or ineffective, but it does not guarantee that the problem won’t arise again in the next lesson, or even 10 minutes later.  Talk ‘one on one’ with students and ask questions that get them to open up to you. This can also be done via a class level group discussion. Sometimes students just need a friendly and non-judgemental ear, as well as an opportunity for them to air their grievances in a non-threatening environment.

In this vein, it’s also important you identify why at times things go right in your classroom, as opposed to only analyzing why things go wrong. Increasing the time spent on doing what works is more highly advised than constantly trying to experiment with new approaches you may be unsure of. Afer all, if it works, don’t fix it.

Keep Students Responsible

Learning occurs when there is a good partnership between teacher and students. the latter need to take responsibility for their own learning experiences and behavior, and they need to be reminded of this. One suggestion is to draw up a ‘contract’ with the students that lists classroom rules you have pre-agreed on by discussing things together. The contract should list student responsibilities and even teacher responsibilities. The contract should also be displayed in the classroom so when significant problems arise, it may be referred to. I’ll write more in detail in a future post about developing such a contract, and also include some ideas for creating tasks for when you need to refer to it.

Remember that part of what helps stem the tide of misbehavior is making sure that students are involved and participating. It’s vital, therefore, to make sure that students understand the importance of contributing back to the class. Some students need to be reminded of this, and encouraged to do so on a regular basis.

Keep The Pace

As I mentioned before, maintaining a good pace of the lesson is vital. Keeping students busy at all times will help prevent boredom and distraction. The way to do this is simply by planning your lessons and actually writing down how much time each task should take on a lesson plan. Tasks that are too long need to be pared down to an acceptable time frame. Also, having a variety of tasks that support varying learning styles is crucial, as well. Having students getting up and moving around will help them expend all that pent-up restless energy. This is especially true for young learners who are very kinesthetic in terms of their learning styles. This is also why ‘play’ is important to children, and sometimes even adults! Moreover, younger students are just naturally restless, so tasks should never last more than 5 minutes. You can’t really blame a child for being a child, can you?

When using video or audio, pause from time to time to check comprehension and give students something to do ‘while’ they are listening/watching. This helps with their attention. Why would you expect students to devote 5 to 10 minutes of their attention to something they might find boring?

Keep Perspective

Lastly, I want to mention that tomorrows teachers are students today. It is quite possible that you might inspire some of your students to follow in your professional footsteps. In this respect, I find it interesting how some teachers are very motivated by their own learning experiences, especially if there was a teacher who was a good role model. What’s funny is that I also have some colleagues that are very dedicated teachers … specifically because their own learning experiences were terrible! They therefore vowed that no student of theirs should have to suffer the same fate as they did! Keep that mind!

Related Posts:

• Taking Control: Classroom Management
• Classroom Dismanagement
• What You Think Of Me: An ‘Emotional Intelligence’ Lesson Task

Suggested Reading:

 

Reference:
Henley, Martin. “Six Surefire Strategies to Improve Classroom Discipline.” Learning. August 1997, p.43-45.