FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT - INTERNATIONAL HOUSE LITTI 2

Comparative study: Orderly rows and semi-circle

seating arrangement.
Is there a difference on how it influences on students
participation in class?
Candidate: 2015LITTIN244

CONTENT

OUTLINE OF THE RESEARCH 2

REVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK 3
General considerations

Orderly rows 4
Horseshoe or semi-circle 5
PRECISE STATEMENT OF THE SCOPE AND AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCEDURE, SAMPLE AND TESTS OF MEASUREMENT 7

STATEMENT OF RESULTS

10

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 14

Orderly Rows:

14

Horseshoe or semi-circle 15
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES

18

APPENDIX A

19

16

C.O.I 19
APPENDIX B

20

Questionnaire

20

OUTLINE OF THE RESEARCH

Much of what happens inside a classroom has to do with the variety of skills and
techniques that teachers use to keep students organized, focused, attentive, on task, and
academically productive during a class. In other words, the techniques teachers use to
maintain control in the classroom. In this project, I am going to focus about one of these
strategies: the seating arrangement.
Experienced educators and classroom management experts say that the decisions
teachers make about whether students will be allowed to select their own seats and about
the physical arrangement of the classroom can have an impact on classroom discipline and
the effectiveness of instruction. The right seating arrangement will not only help a teacher to
control student behaviour but it will also help to monitor the students work by allowing the
teacher to move freely about the room. Seating arrangement can also be associated with
other aspects of classroom management such as instruction, classroom interaction, forming
groups, and maintaining discipline. If the seating arrangement of a classroom is not set up
properly, it becomes difficult to grab learners attention, which leads to disruptive behaviour
and a decrease in the students motivation.
Therefore, there are many ways of organising the desks in a class, the aim of this project is
to compare two of the most common seating arrangements in ESL classrooms; rows and
horseshoe, and try to see if there is a real impact on the students participation in class.

REVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK

General considerations
According to Savage and Savage (2009:6) management refers to how order is
established and maintained in a classroom. Bringing order to complex classrooms includes
arranging the physical environment, (). As for Locke and Ciechalski (1995:101) The
physical environment of the classroom has much to do with the general atmosphere for
learning. There are various aspects that must be taken into consideration when referring to
the classroom physical environment, one of the most important is the spatial dimension
the size, shape, and organization of objects within the space (...) This dimension creates
the setting where activities will take place, and the setting influences the types of activities
that are possible (Savage and Savage, 2009:67). In addition to this, Locke and Ciechalski
(1995:101) state The physical environment of the classroom serves to convey a message
to the children about goals of learning and about how they should work.
The physical environment of a classroom includes different items; one of the most
important is the seating arrangement. Locke and Ciechalski (1995:101) believe that The
seating pattern used in a classroom will have major influences on the degree of
acquaintance, friendliness, talkativeness and productivity. As Savage and Savage
(2009:68) explain quoting Rosenfield, Lambert and Blake (1985), The arrangement of the
desks provides the major setting, or frame, that shapes teacher-student interaction and
the behaviour of students. They also state that Because different arrangements influence
behaviour in different ways, there is no best way to arrange desks. On the other hand, it
could be said that A good seating arrangement is one which facilitates specific learning
tasks and activities and communicates a teachers beliefs about learning and teaching
Ming-Tak and Wai-Shing, (2008:48 & 49).
Bellow I shall describe two of the most common seating arrangrments; orderly rows and
horseshoes, and the differences between them.

Orderly rows

(https://gjismyp.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/classroom-desk-arrangements-rows-clusters-or-u-shape/)

In this type of arrangement the desks are arranged in rows all facing one direction
(Savage and Savage, (2009:69), and the teacher is the identified leader (authority) (Locke
and Ciechalski, (1995:101). Also this arrangement communicates that the major task of the
students will be that of listening and working independently (Savage and Savage,
(2009:69)
When organising a class in rows, Harmer (2001:41) states as an advantage that The
teacher has a clear view of all the students and the students can all see the teacher (...) It
makes lecturing easier, enabling the teacher to maintain eye contact with the people he or
she is talking to, besides he explains that Orderly rows imply teachers working with the
whole class. All in all, It requires less work and skills than the circle or horseshoe. It works
well for teaching that is manly delivering factual information and note-taking(Seeman,
1999:209).
The major drawbacks against this arrangement method are that it is harder to involve the
whole class (West, (2010:15) as students in this arrangement are unable to have eye
contact with each other (Locke and Ciechalski, (1995:101), the class will not be prone to
participate much in your lesson. () Also, students will seldom share ideas or feelings with
each other about the lesson and wont listen to each other so much. (Seeman, (1999:209).
To overcome this, West (2010:15) suggest that (teachers) make sure that everyone is

involved in what they are doing; when asking questions, remember to engage students at
the back of the class.
Horseshoe or semi-circle

(https://gjismyp.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/classroom-desk-arrangements-rows-clusters-or-u-shape/)

The horseshoe arrangement means that the classroom becomes a more intimate place.
(West, (2010:15), (...) the teacher is often located in a commanding position but, (...), the
rigidity that comes with orderly rows, for example, is lessened. (Harmer, (2007:42).
The main advantage this system presents is that the classroom becomes a more intimate
place. This gives the students more potential for sharing ideas, information and feelings all
so essential for speaking activities (West, (2010:15). As Harmer (2007:42) explains, If,
therefore, teachers believe in lowering the barriers between themselves and their students,
this kind of seating arrangement will help.
Seeman (1999:207&208) indicates some of the disadvantages this arrangement present,
it generates energy that, unless channeled by the teachers very organized lesson,
assertiveness, and follow-through rules, can merely become noisy and cause disruptive
behavior. It requires that the teacher control the interaction of the group with facilitative
skills.

PRECISE STATEMENT OF THE SCOPE AND AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

The purpose of this research is to compare two of the most typical seating arrangements in
ESL classrooms, more specifically I will concentrate on classes that are arranged in rows and
in semi-circle and if there is a relation with the impact it has on students participation in the
class.
I will focus my study on a bilingual school and I will observe six different classes. The impact
on the children participation in lessons according to the different seating arrangements will
be studied in the observed classes, and compared to what is proposed by authors.
As it was seen in the previous section, authors agree on the fact that seating pattern used
in a classroom will have major influences on the degree of productivity of the students. The
authors I have consulted seem to agree that even though there is no perfect seating
arrangement, a good one facilitates specific learning tasks and activities.
The present research has certain limitations that need to be taken into account when
considering the results. One possible limitation could be the fact that as children participation
is such an abstract concept, it might be hard to measure it. Besides, it is necessary to think
about the class as a whole, regardless the fact that there might be some children who are
always willing to participate, as they are intrinsically motivated.
Another limitation may be that teachers might not provide authentic answers to the
questionnaires. However, these limitations are minimized by asking the teachers to answer
the questionnaires in an anonymous way.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCEDURE, SAMPLE AND TESTS OF MEASUREMENT

In order to start this project, I had to choose a topic of profound interest to me as a future
teacher, something that would encourage me and engage me in a way so as to investigate,
read different authors, collect data from several sources, and get involved in the research
process. Choosing the topic was the hardest part of the assignment. A few months ago, the
teacher I am working with, suggested me to change the seating arrangement in our classroom
as a way to deal with the misbehaviour some of our students were presenting and to help
some other kids that were shyer and did not participate much in class.
The reason for making the decision about writing an entire research dedicated to
investigating if there is an impact on the kids participation in class depending on the seating
arrangement was not only because of my personal experience, but also to try to help other
teachers and raise an awareness on the matter. Classroom management in general should
not be taken lightly and I think that the classrooms seating arrangement is an important
aspect that must be thought about.
Nevertheless, I had to be more specific about what was it that I wanted to achieve with this
project. Just talking and investigating about a proper seating arrangement was not going to
be enough. Therefore, I decided that it would be a good idea to compare classes where two
different types of seating arrangements are used and to try to measure the different level of
students participation in each of them. That was how I decided to make my project as a
comparative study.
When doing this kind of a research it is paramount to carry out several methods to gather
reliable information. To begin with, I did a research on the different authors who wrote about
this matter. What is more, even though I found an important amount of information I had to
select what was crucial and what could be left aside. In this sense, I had to read once and
again what the aim of my research was and then decide what bibliography to choose. Due to
the fact that there were many authors involved in this issue, I had to rewrite many times the
authors view on the topic. In addition, I had to manage to include most reports, to give a
context of previous work, to select and to relate the selected information to the study.
In order to carry out my research in a reliable way and to ensure the consistency of
measurement over different samples, I observed six different classes at a bilingual school; in
three of them, the seating arrangement was set in rows, and in the other three in horseshoes.
Once I got to classrooms and observe, I realized that there was a great number of points that
7

would be relevant to my research, so I have decided to make a Classroom Observation

Instrument (C.O.I., see Appendix A). These means will enable my research to show data
reliably collected.
As validity is such an important element for effective research, in order to achieve it as well
as to avoid worthless research, I used more than one method of data gathering. Apart from
class observation, observed teachers were interviewed and questionnaires (Appendix C)
were delivered among them. This enabled me to obtain broader information on which to base
my work. While questionnaires are a means to gather specific information from a great
number of teachers (as it can be easily delivered), interviews let me obtain more specific
information that could be compared to what I had previously observed in the lessons.
At the moment of creating the questionnaire, I thought of specific questions which would
enable me to have concrete data to compare and contrast to my observations as well as
facilitating their analysis. It is formed by close questions, including multiple choice questions,
rating scale and dichotomous scale together with an open-ended question. I began the
questionnaire with a concrete question to have information about the teachers experience.
Then I moved on to close questions enquiring habits or opinions of the teachers. (see
Appendix B).
When creating the interviews, my questions covered similar topics to those in the
questionnaires. However, the main difference between them is that from the first questions,
participants realised that I was interested in researching about young learners participation
in class and its relation with the seating arrangement. Besides, the interviewees were the
ones I had previously observed so this allowed me to compare it against the data I had
gathered during the lessons. I wrote six questions out of which teachers had to answer five,
depending on the seating arrangement they preferred. These questions were on opinion and
experience. The interviews were carried out after the last time I observed each teachers
class (see Appendix C).
Even though the results will be precise, there are certain disadvantages in the instruments
I used. I believe that in order to be a valid instrument, it takes lots of time and preparation, as
questions must be carefully prepared so that accurate results can be reached. It is also
inflexible, as I dont have the chance to ask students or the teachers for clarification or doubts
I might have. Also, the information obtained tends to be descriptive and my objective is to
turn that information into an explanatory description of the results.
8

I also take into account that the questionnaires I presented do not involve feelings; they go
directly to analyze the key and theoretical concepts. Through emotions, researchers can see
how students feel in the class and with the teachers, which also influence the learning
process. In this particular study, that intends to investigate the level of participation in a
classroom, the emotional factor has a great influence. This is why so many data gathering
techniques are necessary, in order to achieve a valid and reliable result.
These pros and cons, plus practical observations and an analysis of what some of the most
well-known authors consider about this topic, will help me to triangulate results and get to the
conclusion on whether classroom seating arrangement has an influence on the learners
participation in class.

STATEMENT OF RESULTS
1. Questionnaire (Appendix B):
Questions 1 and 2: As it is shown in the following graphic, most of the teachers who
answered this questionnaire were less than 30 years old.

Age

less than 30

30/35

plus 30

And all of them have been teaching for 3 or more years.

Time teaching

less than 3

btw 3 and 5

plus 5

10

Question 3: Only 25% of the teachers who answered this questionnaire said that they use
other seating arrangement different from rows and semi-circle.

Seating Arrangement

row

semi-circle

other

From this moment onwards, the results shown will be from those teachers who use rows
and semi-circle seating arrangements in their classrooms, as they are the ones that are
relevant for this comparative study.
Question 4: The percentage of teachers who plan their seating arrangement is the same
for rows and semicircles, and most of them (almost 70%) do not plan it.

Plan - Rows

yes

Plan - Semi-circle

yes

no

11

no

Question 5: All the teachers who use rows in their classrooms have never thought about the
impact the seating arrangement may have, whereas among the teachers who order their
classes in semi-circles, approximately 33% think it does have an impact.

Impact in class - Rows

Impact in class - Semi-cirlce

120

70

100

60
50

80

40

60

30

40

20

20

10

0
yes

no

yes

never thought

no

never thought

Question 6: When asked to think of a reason for their preference on an specific seating
arrangement, there were many different opinions, as it can be seen in the graph bellow:
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
concentration

participation
Rows

easier

other

Semi-circle

2. Classroom Observation Instrument (C.O.I.) (Appendix A):

I observed six different classes, bellow there is a table with the details of each class:

ROWS
class 1
class 2
class 3

Students in the
class

Length of the class

13
20
23

45'
45'
45'
12

SEMICIRCLE
class 1
class 2
class 3

22
15
23

45'
45'
45'

With all the results from the C.O.I.s, I did an average result, bellow there is a table and graph
to illustrate it:
Students in the
class

Students that
interact w/ Teacher

Students chatting

ROWS
SEMICIRCLE

56
60

41
57

8
22

TOTAL

Length of the class

Time T centred
(aprox)

Time S centred
(aprox)

ROWS
SEMICIRCLE

135
135

70
40

65
95

TOTAL

Disruptive
situations (class had
to stop)
5
20

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Sts that interact w/ T

Sts chating

Disruptive situations
(class had to stop)
ROWS

SEMI-CIRCLE

13

Time T centered
(aprox)

Time S centered
(aprox)

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

The main aim of this research project is to compare two of the most common seating
arrangements in ESL classrooms; rows and horseshoe, and try to see if there is a real
impact on the students participation in class.
Observation and questionnaires were assistants in this research that allowed me to see
whether teachers are aware of the importance seating arrangement has in a classroom.
Seventy-five percent of the teachers organize their classrooms using either rows or semicircles. Nevertheless, only about a thirty percent of them plan it. This could lead to two ideas:
whether teachers believe seating arrangement makes no impact in their classes or they have
never thought about it. As many authors have mentioned, the physical environment of the
classroom has much to do with the general atmosphere for learning, and among the aspects
that must be taken into account one of the most important is the organization of objects within
the classroom space.
When teachers were asked to think of a reason explaining why they use that specific seating
pattern in their classrooms, the most chosen one was because it helps students participate
in class. This agrees with what many authors have said; the seating arrangement used in a
classroom will have major influences on the degree of friendliness, talkativeness and
productivity of the students.
Bellow I will analyse each seating pattern separately according to the C.O.I. and interviews
results.
Orderly Rows:

According to the answers teachers provided, almost forty percent of them (37,5%) use
orderly rows as a seating arrangement patron in their classes. Nevertheless, none of the
teachers has ever thought about the impact this seating arrangement may have in their
classroom; what is more, most of them (seventy percent) do not even plan how they are going
to organise it. In fact, many of these teachers claimed that the reason for using orderly rows
instead of some other seating pattern is that they find it is easier to manage a class when the
students are sitting in rows. This allegation is also made by Seeman, who wrote that this type
of arrangement requires less work and skills from the teacher comparing it to the semi-circle.

14

Another important aspect to bear in mind is the role the teacher has when using this seating
arrangement; as it was already said, the teacher is going to be the identified leader authority
inside the classroom. Besides, it implies that the teacher will have a clear view of all the
students, enabling the teacher to maintain eye contact with the people he or she is talking to
and it will allow him or her to work with the whole class. This can be clearly seen when
analysing the COI results, as approximately fifty-two percent of the time the lessons were
teacher centred, and there was a considerable amount of teacher-student interaction.
Horseshoe or semi-circle

As it occurs with organizing the seats in rows, almost forty percent of the interviewed
teachers decides to use a semi-circle pattern for their seating arrangements. Moreover,
seventy percent of these teachers do not even plan how they are going to organise it; but, a
small proportion (thirty-three percent) do think the seating arrangement will have an impact
in their classes. Regarding the reasons for using the horseshoe organization, teachers had
many different opinions. Some of them (thirty-five percent) think that it helps with the students
level of concentration in class; however, there is no bibliographical data to support this
statement. In fact, according to Seeman, this type of arrangement generates an energy that
can merely become noisy and cause disruptive behaviour. This last statement was also
proved by the results of the COI, which show that for every two hours of class there were an
average of 20 disruptive situations.
Another reason teachers gave to support why they use a semi-circle seating arrangement
is that it encourages classroom participation; this affirmation is also made by several authors,
who say that using this type of organization gives the students more potential for sharing
ideas, information and feelings.
Regarding the role of the teacher in the classroom, the COI results show that most of the
time the students were interacting with each other instead of the class being teacher centred
(approximately seventy percent of the time during the class). The previously mentioned
authors also support this; they explain that the horseshoe seating arrangement lowers the
barriers between the teacher and their students, and consequently, the classroom becomes
a more intimate place.

15

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The main aim of this research was to accomplish a comparative study between classes that
use an orderly row seating arrangement and classes that use a semi-circle (or horseshoe)
seating pattern; and to try to state if there is a relation with the impact it has on students
participation in the class.
This research project was carried out by an extensive reading of literature and previous
research papers regarding classroom management in EFL classes, and deepening into the
seating arrangement aspect of it. After investigating previous authors data, observations
were implemented as a data gathering process. Six classes were observed at a bilingual
school and teachers were interviewed and answered a questionnaire in order to link the
theoretical and practical information obtained.
Authors agree on the fact that the physical environment of the classroom has much to do
with the general atmosphere for learning; so, it helps to convey a message to the children
about goals of learning and about how they should work. Among the aspects that should be
taken into consideration one of the most important is the spatial dimension, because this
dimension creates the setting where activities will take place; and the setting influences the
types of activities that will be carried out in class.
My first thought after carrying out this research and analyzing the results, is that even though
some of the interviewed teachers think of a reason for using a specific arrangement; most of
them do not consider seating arrangement to be of great importance, and consequently they
do not plan how they are going to organize their classrooms. In addition, based on
observation and on information provided by the teachers, I am able to say that many of them
prefer a specific type of arrangement just because they think it will be easier for them to
control the class -which might be true, according to some author-.
Regarding the issue of participation in class, it is possible to say, as a first approach on the
topic, that students who sit on semi-circle have more interaction with each other and are more
actively involved in the lesson. Because of this, the lesson becomes more student centred
than teacher centred, and the children have more room for sharing their ideas and feelings.
However, it is necessary to remember that if this energy is not well controlled, it could
generate many disruptive situations.

16

To conclude, I would like to state that, as the seating arrangement provides a setting that
shapes the interaction between the teacher and the student, and the behaviour of the
students; teacher should not take it lightly, they should plan it and think carefully about it.

17

REFERENCES

Locke, Don C.; Ciechalski , Joseph C. (1995), Psychological Techniques for Teachers.

Savage, Tom V.; Savage, Marsha K. (2009), Successful Classroom Management and

Discipline: Teaching Self-Control and Responsibility.

Harmer, Jeremy (2007), How to teach English, Pearson Longman.

Ming-Tak, Hue; Wai-Shing, Li (2008), Classroom Management: Creating a Positive

Learning Environment, Hong Kong University Press.

Seeman, Howard (1999), Preventing Classroom Discipline Problems: A Classroom

Management Handbook, R&L Education.

West, Keith (2010), Inspired English Teaching: A Practical Guide for Teachers, A&C

Black.

Pak, Liam (2011), Classroom desk arrangements; Rows, Clusters or U Shape?

https://gjismyp.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/classroom-desk-arrangements-rows-clusters-oru-shape/

18

APPENDIX A
C.O.I

ROWS
class 1
class 2
class 3
SEMICIRCLE
class 1
class 2
class 3

TOTAL
ROWS
SEMICIRCLE

Sts in the
class

Sts that
interact w/ T

Sts chatting

13
20
23

10
15
16

3
3
2

Disruptive
situations
(class had to
stop)
1
1
3

22
15
23

20
15
22

8
5
9

9
5
6

Sts in the
class

Sts that
interact w/ T

Sts chating

56
60

41
57

8
22

Disruptive
situations
(class had to
stop)
5
20

19

Length of the
class

Time T
centred
(aprox)

Time S
centred
(aprox)

45'
45'
45'

20'
20'
30'

25'
25'
15'

45'
45'
45'

15'
15'
10'

30'
30'
35'

Duration of
the class

Time T
centered
(aprox)

Time S
centered
(aprox)

135
135

70
40

65
95

APPENDIX B
Questionnaire

1. How old are you?

o Less than 30
o Between 30 and 35
o More than 35
2. How long have you been teaching?
o Less than 3
o Between 3 and 5
o More than 5
3. How is the seating arrangement in your classroom?
o Row
o Semi-circle
o Other:_______________________
4. Do you plan the seating arrangement in your classroom?
o Yes
o No
5. Do you think the seating arrangement has an impact in your class?
o Yes
o No
o Ive never thought about it
6. If you had to think of a reason, why do you prefer your chosen seating arrangement?
o Sts are more concentrated
o Sts participate more in class
o It is easier to give a class and maintain the order
o Other: _____________________________________________

20