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involved in a learning activity (individual, whole class, small groups, pairs). You may
also have to deal with discipline problems.
o The events occur rapidly. Things happen quickly and you need to make many of the
decisions right now. This need to make quick decisions can be almost overwhelming,
particularly for beginning teachers.
o Events often take unexpected turns. You must always plan your classroom activity,
and try to anticipate as much as you can of what will happen. And yet it is impossible
to plan for all of your pupils’ responses. Pupils and classroom activity are often
unpredictable, but experienced teachers get used to expecting the unexpected. The
unpredictable nature of classrooms increases their complexity and challenge.
o You teach in front of people. In a sense, you are on a stage and your successes and
mistakes occur in the public space. The pupils’ (and possibly other observers’)
perceptions of your actions can have unintended consequences.
Planning for
Pupil effective The
characteristi management physical
cs environmen
Procedures
and rules
(after Paul Eggen and Don Kauchak 2004 Educational Psychology, Pearson)
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SAQ 1
You know that pupils think, act and feel differently at different
stages of development. What are the general characteristics
affecting classroom management of the primary school pupils
(grades 2 to 4) compared to those of the lower secondary school
pupils (grades 5 to 8)?
Whether you teach younger or older children, your way of approaching them,
especially in the early stages of the classroom activity, will be a major factor that affects
your pupils’ confidence. Learners of all ages should be treated with care and respect.
Knowing your pupils by name, knowing their backgrounds and interests, knowing about
their previous language-learning experiences and their attitudes to English will enable
you to help them learn more happily and effectively.
Before you start teaching a new group, you will want to find out what your pupils
have already learnt.
Being able to address your pupils by name has considerable advantages both for
you and for them. It avoids confusion which might arise in identifying which pupil should
be responding. Also, it is the natural way to attract somebody’s attention; it speeds up the
organising of pair and group work; it generates a friendly relationship with the pupils and
among them, and it produces a secure atmosphere.
SAQ 2
What can you do if you have large classes and you are not
good at remembering pupils’ names?
A language class gives you more opportunities to discover details about your
pupils’ lives than most other classes. Very often you may find yourself wondering what
you can ask and what is better to be left unasked. A good principle is never to ask your
pupils anything that you yourself would not wish to be asked.
Your pupils will find their English lessons more stimulating if some of their work is
concerned with things that interest them. You will want then to find out what these things
are. Almost any hobby which a pupil has can be incorporated into an English lesson.
Think First!
Before continuing to read this text, think where you can find
information about your pupils’ previous experience of learning
English.
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Sometimes, however, you will find that the class is different from what you would
have expected. This may simply mean that the class, or individual pupils within it, have
changed.
Think First!
The best way to establish what your pupils already know is to start with a
diagnostic test to discover what they can and cannot do. However, when you give them
such a test, you must make sure that your pupils understand that the test is given only to
help you decide what gaps they have in their knowledge, so that you can help them to fill
these gaps.
In most cases, the young pupils’ attitude to English is more influenced by you than
by their wants or needs. Your enthusiasm and skills have an enormous effect on the
attitude of your pupils. However, positive attitudes to learning English need to be fostered
constantly, as pupils almost always reach a stage when they feel that they are not making
any progress. At this point you need to find new ways of motivating them and making
their study seem worthwhile by seizing every opportunity to make their learning
meaningful.
Remember that no matter what facilities the school offers, it is the lively, purposeful
class atmosphere with plenty to do, which you create, which will maintain your pupils’
positive attitudes. The most important factor in keeping your pupils motivated is your own
skill and enthusiasm.
It would be difficult to imagine that all your pupils show all the above mentioned
features and are all good learners of English. However, you should be able to show your
pupils how to be ‘good’, which clearly involves helping them to become independent.
Independence is a quality which seems to cut across most of the features listed above.
4 Class Atmosphere
The general atmosphere in the class can assist learning. Both your behaviour
and language and those of the pupils can contribute to this atmosphere.
Think First!
What factors are the most important, in your opinion, for
building a good atmosphere in your classes? Put in order the
following suggestions according to how important they are for you
and the pupils you are teaching.
4.1 Discipline
Discipline is an important matter. As a teacher, you should be able to solve a
number of questions, referring to maintaining order, the amount of noise you can tolerate,
what you consider unacceptable behaviour and how you can punish misbehavers.
SAQ 3
Here are some ways of making sure that you involve all the pupils.
• Use the class register list. Your pupils will know if you are calling on them in
the order of the class register list. To avoid this, use every second or third name, or some
other pattern, so that they may not realise what order you are using. Avoid looking down
at the list (by putting it where you can see it easily). Also, to prevent the ‘switching off’ of
pupils who have just responded, ask one or two for a second response.
• Think of your class as a set of lines or rows of pupils and address a
question to a pupil from each line or row in turn.
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• Set rules. If your pupils tend to shout out the answers before the others have
time to try, make a rule that the pupil who has responded once must miss the next three
questions before s/he can answer again. This keeps the pupils busy counting, while
waiting to join in again.
• Invite the pupil who answers to name the one who will answer next. If the
pupils get used to this system, it can move quite briskly and be successful. However, it
can become unpleasant if the pupils see it as a way of victimising their slower classmates
• Repeat the question and/or prompt. If the pupil you nominated is unable to
respond, help him/her by repeating or prompting, while insisting that the rest of the class
remains quiet. Sometimes, however, you may wish to pass a factual question to another
pupil, or the class in general.
5 The Teacher
5.1. Essential Teaching Skills
What kind of knowledge do you need to help your pupils learn as much as
possible?
• Knowledge of content. You should know not only English but also be familiar
with the concepts used in the lessons.
• Pedagogical content knowledge. You should be able to illustrate the
concepts used (with examples, drawings, charts, etc.)
• General pedagogical knowledge. You should know how to organise orderly
classrooms and use questioning skills that involve your pupils and lead to thorough
understanding.
• Knowledge of learners and learning. You should be able to understand
when your pupils need concrete examples and what kind of tasks increase motivation
and learning.
Positive teacher attitudes are also fundamental to effective teaching as personal
teaching efficacy, energy, enthusiasm, caring and high expectations promote pupil
motivation. For instance, if you are an elementary school teacher, you can communicate
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your personal efficacy and caring by calling a pupil’s parents and soliciting their help as
soon as the pupil fails to turn in an assignment or receives an unsatisfactory grade.
Besides all the types of knowledge and attitudes, there are basic abilities that all
teachers should have to promote order and learning in the classroom.
Think first!
You should know how to increase learning by using time efficiently. Different
types of classroom time influence learning in different ways:
Type of classroom time
Description
Allocated time The amount of time a teacher uses for a content
area or topic
Instructional time The amount of time left for teaching after routine
management and administrative tasks are
completed
Engaged time The amount of time pupils are actively involved in
learning activities
Academic learning time The amount of time pupils are actively involved in
learning activities during which they are successful.
As you move from allocated time to academic learning time, the correlation with
learning becomes stronger. Unfortunately, teachers do not always use time effectively.
Some teachers seem unaware of the importance of time, viewing it as something to be
filled or even ‘killed’. In order to increase learning, you should increase instructional,
engaged, and academic learning time to make as much use of the allocated time as
possible.
Organisation determines how efficiently time is used. It includes starting on time,
preparing materials in advance, establishing routines, etc. Routines reduce the load of
your working effort and memory, save your energy, and create a sense of order and
equilibrium in your classroom.
There is a strong link between effective communication, pupil achievement and
pupil satisfaction. The way you interact with pupils influences their motivation and
attitudes toward school in general and English in particular. Four aspects of effective
communication are especially important: precise terminology, connected discourse,
transition signals and emphasis.
Precise terminology is language without vague terms, which would leave the
pupils with a sense of uncertainty and detract them from learning.
Connected discourse is talk that leads to a point. If the point of a lesson is not
clear, if your talk is sequenced inappropriately, if incidental information is
included, discourse becomes disconnected. Keep your lessons on track,
minimising time spent on matters unrelated to the topic.
Transition signals indicate that one idea or activity is ending and another is
beginning (e.g. All right, now we’ll turn to…). They alert the pupils that the
lesson is making a shift and allow them to adjust and get prepared.
Emphasis consists of verbal (e.g. Listen carefully now…) and vocal cues (such
as raising the voice) and repetition, which alert pupils to important information
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in a lesson.
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SAQ 5
To check on your organisation and communication skills, you can ask another
teacher to visit your class and observe your language and nonverbal communication or to
see how many minutes you spend before actually beginning instruction. You can also ask
your colleague to see whether you clearly emphasise the important points in the lesson,
sequence the presentation logically, communicate changes in topics or the way you give
feedback.
Introductory focus attracts pupils’ attention and provides a framework for the
lesson. In addition, it can increase motivation by arousing curiosity. In an English lesson
you can use concrete objects, pictures, models, materials displayed around the room,
information written on the board – all meant to maintain pupils’ attention during learning
activities. Use objects, photos, maps, charts, etc. to provide introductory and sensory
focus during your lessons.
The information pupils receive about the accuracy or appropriateness of their
responses and work is crucial in promoting learning. Feedback gives pupils information
about the validity of their knowledge or skills. It also helps them to elaborate on their
existing understanding. Feedback is also important for motivation because it provides
pupils with information about their increasing competence. Effective feedback has four
essential characteristics:
it is immediate or given soon after a pupil response
it is specific
it provides corrective information for the learner
it has a positive emotional tone
Provide feedback throughout all learning experiences.
SAQ 6
Look at the following teacher – pupil dialogue. Which of the
characteristics of feedback listed above is not illustrated by this
dialogue:
Mr. B: What kind of an animal is shown in the picture, Jill?
Jill: A panther.
Mr. B: Not quite. Help her out, … Betty?
Using questions, you can guide learning rather than simply deliver information. By
questioning you can assess pupil background knowledge, cause pupils to rethink their
ideas, help them form relationships. You can also involve shy pupils, recapture pupils’
wandering attention, promote success, and enhance self-esteem. Questioning can also
maintain the pace and momentum of a lesson. Effective questioning
• is frequent
• is equitably distributed
• uses prompting
• allows adequate wait-time
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Lessons are more coherent when review and closure are used to summarise and
pull ideas together. Review is a summary that helps pupils link what they have already
learned to what will follow in the next activity. It emphasizes important points and
encourages elaboration. It can occur at any point in a lesson, although it is common at
the beginning and end. Closure is a form of review that occurs at the end of a lesson. It
pulls content together and signals the end of the lesson.
Begin and end each class with a short review. Guide the review with questioning.
For instance, say “We studied present perfect yesterday. Give me an example that
illustrates this, and explain why your example is correct.”
These skills are interdependent as none is effective alone, but only in combination
with the others. Their interaction and integration are crucial.
Besides knowledge, attitudes and essential teaching skills that are common to
teachers of all subjects, the teachers of English can use successfully a variety of other
abilities, skills and talents.
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SAQ 7
How big an advantage is, in your opinion, the knowledge of an
English-speaking country? Explain why you think this is so.
Before reading the next section, think of the practical skills that
a good teacher needs.
6 The School
6.1 Getting a New Job
No two schools are alike. Schools may range from very formal, with strict discipline
to very casual, where discipline is not considered important. School principals also range
from authoritarian to permissive. It is important for you to realise what type of school you
are in and to adjust your own behaviour accordingly. While you are new, keep your
teaching style rather formal until you learn more about how the other teachers work. It is
always easier to become more relaxed with your pupils as time goes on rather than to
become more formal with them.
It is important to respect the norms of the school in which you are working and not
to impose your own system from the beginning. Once you have become accepted by the
other members of the staff, you may perhaps suggest ideas which they can consider and
possibly adopt.
In the beginning, you need to be careful about how much noise your classes make.
You may need to try to convince the other teachers and the school principal that in order
to learn to speak English and understand the spoken language, your pupils will need to
make some noise, that group and pair work cause some noise.
School responsibilities are relevant for teachers of all subjects. They are important
aspects of school life and affect the status of English in the school. This in turn affects
what you can achieve. Understanding the system can save you a lot of time and trouble
and leave you to devote more energy to the actual teaching/learning process.
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6.2 The Classroom
Few classrooms are ideal. They may be too small or too large, too dim or too
bright, storage space may be limited, maps may cover the board, etc. Rearranging desks
is sometimes impossible, but if it is possible, try to experiment with different
arrangements to see what works best for you. Do not forget to consider the room
arrangement in your planning.
In most cases, you have to accept the room(s) you are allocated for your work. In
the schools where there are fixed rooms for English or language labs, you will have the
opportunity to create an appropriate environment (with wall-charts, posters photos, pupils’
work, and the like) so that everyone coming in knows immediately that English is the
focus of attention there. But if you must move from class to class, you can still do quite a
lot to ensure that the environment in which your classes are held is as encouraging as
possible.
SAQ 10
How would you describe the ideal room in which you would
love to teach?
What rules that you have already used with your pupils would
you like to add to the lists in the table above?
Such rules can be worked out together with the pupils. Although involving pupils in
rule making does not solve all management problems, it is an important step in gaining
their cooperation. Once established, rules create a sense of ownership, and contribute to
the development of responsibility and self-regulation in your pupils.
Try to find out what the norms there are in your school, and comply with them. For
instance, the pupils may be expected to stand (or not) when you come into the room.
Homework may be collected by a pupil rather than by you. The board may be always
cleaned by the pupil sitting nearest to it or by a pupil on duty. If there are no norms, it is
wise for you to establish some of your own.
Asking your pupils to put up hands is not always appropriate in a class where
everybody must speak. Sometimes you need responses from pupils who do not know
them, or who do, but do not put up their hands. Make sure you first ask the question and
then name a pupil to answer. Ask a second or a third pupil if the first pupil is unable to
answer.
Get your pupils to put up their hands before they want to ask a question. This helps
to prevent noisy interruptions. However, do not insist on your pupils’ always raising their
hand before asking, as one of the skills they must acquire is that of being able to interrupt
and seek clarification.
SAQ 12
Your pupils need to know in advance of the lesson what will need to bring to class.
You have to plan this and ask them to bring only what they will use. Then you should be
firm in reprimanding those who fail to bring what is needed to the first few lessons, so that
it becomes second nature for your pupils to bring the right things. On the other hand, if
you ask them to bring something and never ask them to use it, don’t be cross if someone
fails to bring that thing to the lesson when you finally decide to refer to it.
With younger pupils, insist that they do not keep on the desk things which are not
to be used during the lesson.
Help your pupils establish an organised way of keeping their notes by using the
lesson/unit titles of the coursebook and perhaps the exercise/section/activity number as
headings. The pupils can then write under these headings and the notebook can be
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referred to alongside the coursebook. If your pupils buy their own coursebooks, do not
forbid them to write in them or mark things they want to remember, or even colour the
pictures. If, however, books belong to the school, the notebook must become an essential
tool for the pupil.
There is almost always an established way in which young pupils will address you
and you them. With older pupils you may establish the form of address together.
However, this will depend largely on school custom and pupils’ expectations. Make it
clear from the outset what your name is and how you like to be addressed.
Summary
This unit presents the complexity of the job of being an English teacher and the
many requirements that you need to comply with: you must have a deep understanding of
the topics you teach, be able to represent the topics in ways that are understandable to
pupils, to organize and maintain productive learning environments, and understand the
learning and the characteristics of your pupils.
As a teacher, you are responsible for classroom learning and should be able to
increase it. You should be caring and enthusiastic, a good role model, and have high
expectations for your pupils. You should be well organized, know what is going on in your
classrooms, use your class time well, and communicate clearly. You should present
content in attractive ways, provide clear and informative feedback, and review important
ideas. You should use effective questioning strategies, prompt pupils who do not answer
successfully, and give pupils time to think about their answers. You should be able to
draw, write legibly and speak convincingly, and maybe have other talents, too.
You should be able to create a classroom atmosphere conducive to learning and
establish rules and routines which enhance the use of classroom learning time.
Key Concepts
• productive and orderly learning environment
• formal classroom learning
• multidimensional activities
• characteristics of classroom activities
• good English learner profile
• building a good atmosphere
• means for including all pupils in the activities
• types of knowledge needed by the teacher
• types of classroom time
• essential teaching skills
• language ability
• practical classroom skills
• factors affecting learning
• guidelines for beginning the school year
• establishing classroom rules
Further Reading
1. Harmer, Jeremy (2001) The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman
2. Underwood, Mary (1987) Effective Class management. A Practical Approach,
Longman
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3. Ur, Penny (1996) A Course in Language Teaching. Practice and Theory, Cambridge
University Press
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