Classroom Management Tool

Classroom management is the hardest thing for a teacher. One student over there comes to board, writing something ; one over  there is trying to find his books while you are giving instructions ; and one over  there is talking with his peer and does not understand and follow what you are talking about. There are at least 15 or 20 of them. And.. You have to deal with ALL of them. If you are teaching especially in primary school, what I will say to you is “ Allah kolaylık versin”.  I was observing first and eighth graders this semester, and teacher is shouting at one of those who is interrupting his frienSd all the time and is saying “ Enough Efe!”. So what? Will Efe listen to you? NO! He does not do what he is supposed to do. Besides, he stands up, moves around, and when he wants, he sits. That is it. He does not listen to teacher, me, his friends or anybody. So, here starts the action. You should do something, but what?

It is big question mark. Efe is 13 years old, and what can you do for him? Can you give him punishment, will it be effective to stop him? Can you give him reward, and like what?  Is he a child? No! Then, what can you do for him as a teacher?

In my opinion, before desinging a tool for classroom management, you should love them, know them, respect them. Although they are kids or  teenagers, they are human and have feelings; you can’t simply shout at them and wait them to be silent. When you are teaching to young  learners, they are, let’s say, more easy to manage. You can do kinestetic activities that require movements, and physical activities, like singing , dancing, role-playing etc. You should keep them busy in order  for them not to cause any trouble.  For example, one of my  co-operative teachers in Doğus chooses 2 policemen from the class. Every student is dying to be a policeman for that lesson. Then, during the whole lesson, these two students, one of them being a male, and the other being female, are observing their friends and when they see any problem, any interruption, they run to the board, and write their names.  The students are fourth graders and they enjoy doing that. I am not sure whether this kind of a method is suitable or not, because students are just peaching on their peers. It may hurt some students and maybe some students would not want to write their best friends’ name on the board. It is like a black list. When teacher sees names on the board, those students could not go out for a break and have to stay in class and do extra exercise. However, for this class, this method works well. Nobody has any problem with it, and everyone wants to be the “BAD” guy who is informing on his friends. They may be accustomed to it, and because nobody wants to miss the break, they go all silent in order not to enter the “black list.”

When it comes to my methodology, I probably would not use such kind of a tool. I generally try to be polite as much as I can. I am not in favor of punishment, but instead I may use rewards although it is not that beneficial,as well. Together at the end of the lesson, we will do whichever activity they want ; it can be speaking about a particular topic, discussing on interesting facts or ideas that they want to talk, singing a song, watching videos, playing games, of course related with English, drawing, and  so on.