Unit 5
Classroom Management
Background information:
Students: 50 sophomores
Lesson duration: 2 periods
Teaching objectives:
By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
 1. know the roles teachers play in in the
classroom
 2. grasp the different ways for student grouping
 3. know how to maintain discipline in the
classroom
 4. master the technique of questioning in the
classroom
 5. master the technique of dealing with errors
Teaching contents:
1. the role of the teacher
 2.classroom instructions
 3. student grouping
 4. discipline in the language classroom
 5. technique of questioning in the
classroom
 6. technique of dealing with errors

Key and difficult points:

the role of the teacher

the rules for making classroom instructions

technique of questioning & dealing with errors
Teaching approaches:
1. Lecture ( Computer-aided
Instruction)
2. Demonstration
Teaching aids:
Multi-media, whiteboard, pictures
Teaching procedures
Step one Introductory Remarks

In this unit, we are going to discuss how language
teachers can manage the classroom more
effectively and efficiently. Classroom management
is the way teachers organize what goes on in the
classroom. The goal of classroom management is
to create an atmosphere conducive to interacting
in English meaningful ways (Gebhard, 1996:69).
Efficient classroom management can be achieved
when the following six conditions are met:
1) The teacher plays appropriate roles.
 2) The teacher provides clear instructions
 3)The students are grouped in a way suitable
for the learning activities.
 4) The teacher asks appropriate questions
 5)There is discipline and harmony in the class.
 6) The students’ errors are treated properly

Step two Presentation
I. The role of the teacher
1.1 Lead-in activities

Although many people consider the role of
the teacher an important component of
efficient classroom management, some
researchers regard it as part of the design
of a methodology or approach. different
approaches stipulate different roles for the
teacher. we are going to discuss the most
common roles that teachers play in
present-day second/foreign language
teaching.
1.2 Discussion
Let Ss brainstorm the issues that teacher roles are
related to, think about what a teacher does before,
during and after the class. Then work in groups and
share your ideas.
Before the
During the
class
class
planner
?
After the class
an evaluator
1.3 Presentation
In the following sections, we will confine
our discussion to the roles that the
teacher plays during the class.
 Based on the functions that the teacher
performs in different activities, Harmer
defines the teacher s roles as controller,
assessor, organizer, prompter, participant
and resource provider (Harmer,
1983:201).

1.3 Presentation
roles
functions
Controller
the pace / everyone has an equal chance/ make
sure Ss use certain target language items/time
Assessor
correcting mistakes (be gentle)
organizing feedback (Don’t be critical)
Organizer
design and organize tasks (give clear, concise
instructions) While Ss are doing the activity, the
teacher should walk around the classroom and
monitor what the Ss are saying.
Prompter
When students are not sure how to start an activity,
or what to do next, or what to say next, the teacher
should give appropriate prompts.
Participant
participate in students' activities
Resourceprovider
a good and convenient resource for the students.
1.4 Practice

Ask students to work in
groups and finish the TASK
3 (page 69-70) to decide
what role the teacher is
playing in each activity and
then present the reasons for
their choices.
2. Classroom instructions
2.1 Lead-in activities

Classroom instructions refers to the type
of language teachers use to organize or
guide learning. they are very important, as
a teacher, if you couldn't give clear and
concise instructions, Ss would be
confused, and your tasks and activities
couldn’t be done successfully. Your
meaning couldn’t really get across.
2.2 Presentation
There are rules to follow for making
instructions effective.
 Use simple instructions and make them suit
the comprehension level of the students.
 Use body language to support your
instructions
 Use the mother- tongue only when
necessary.( teaching grammar)
 Demonstration is more effective than words ,
don’t speak too much.
2.3. Practice

Ask students to prepare some
classroom instructions and
then let some of them make
performance in the front of the
classroom. Teacher makes
some comments on their
presentation.
3. Student grouping

An important feature of today's
language classroom is that
students do not always study
as one big group. Rather, for
much of the class time,
Students are broken down to
groups of different sizes. The
most common student
groupings are the following
3. Student grouping


Lockstep is where all the students are
under the control of the teacher. They
are all doing the same activity at the
same rhythm and pace.
Pair work is where the students work in
pairs. It could be a competition over a
game or co-operation in a task or project
between the two students. They could
also do certain exercises together or oral
practice.
3. Student grouping

Group work is where the students
work in small groups. Each group has
3, 4, or 5 students, depending on the
activity. What students do in group
work is similar to pair work. Only there
are more members in the group.
Group work is most beneficial when
the activity requires contributions from
more than two students.
3. Student grouping

Individual study is the stage
during the class where the
students are left to work on
their own and at their own
speed. Usually they are doing
the same task, but the teacher
may give them a choice of
tasks. Some activities cannot
be done in pairs or groups, for
instance, reading and writing.
3. Student grouping

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Note: The biggest problem for group work is
the selection of group members. Below are some
possible ways to group the students:
Group the students according to seating
arrangement;
Students select their own group members (risky);
Strong students and weak students are mixed
together;
Strong students and weak students are grouped
separately to do different tasks;
Group the students by drawing lots.
3. Student grouping

All these grouping methods have
advantages and disadvantages. The
teacher should use the most
appropriate method and should vary
the form from time to time. Besides,
the teacher should also pay attention
to the group size. In order to make
each group self-organized, a group
leader could either be “democratically”
selected or assigned by the teacher,
who can act as organizer or a miniteacher.
4.Discipline in the language classroom
4.1 Lead-in activities


Discipline here refers to a code of conduct which
binds a teacher and a group of students together so
that learning can be more effective. It is important to
realize that the code of conduct that determines the
behavior of a class is as necessary for the teacher
as it is for the students (Harmer, 1983).
Listed below are some possible characteristics of a
disciplined ELT classroom. Do you agree with them?
Can you add any more? When you finish, go into
groups of four and decide on the three most
important characteristics which are typical of a
disciplined ELT classroom.
4.1 Lead-in activities


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1. The class is under the teacher's control.
2. The classroom is quiet.
3. The teacher and students are cooperating smoothly.
4. The teacher and students show respect to each other.
5. Indisciplined students are punished.
6. The lesson is proceeding according to plan.
7. The teacher appears to be the authority.
8. Learning is taking place.
Although discipline is a necessary but not sufficient
condition for effective learning, a thoroughly
indisciplined atmosphere will surely yield no learning at
all.
4.2 Discussion
Let Ss list some indisciplined acts about students
and teachers:
 Certain acts on Students’ part:
 arriving late for class
 coming to class without a textbook
 failing to do homework, making noises in class
 not paying attention
 refusing to cooperate with peers, or causing
disturbances
4.2 Discussion
Certain acts on the teacher's part:








being late for class
going to class unprepared
being inconsistent
threatening students
being absent-minded
giving boring lessons
being unfair
being rude to students.
4.2 Discussion

Although discipline is often discussed together
with classroom management, classroom
management skills are not sufficient if discipline
is to be achieved. Rather, a variety of teacher's
behaviour contributes to discipline, such as the
teachers' choice of methodology, their
interpersonal relationships with students, and
their preparation for the lesson. Besides,
students' motivation, which can be enhanced
by teacher action, is extremely important for
discipline (Ur, 1996).
4.3 Presentation

Read through the following
practical hints for maintaining
discipline in the classroom and
choose the ten most important
hints. When you are ready, go
into groups of four and share your
choices.
Practical hints for teachers on classroom discipline







1. Start by being firm with students: you can
relax later.
2. Get silence before you start speaking to
the class.
3. Know and use the students' names.
4. Prepare lessons thoroughly and structure
them firmly,
5. Be mobile: walk around the class.
6. Start the lesson with a "bang" and sustain
interest and curiosity,
7. Speak clearly.
Practical hints for teachers on classroom discipline






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8. Make sure your instructions are clear.
9. Have extra materials prepared (e.g. to cope with
slower/faster-working students).
10. Look at the class when speaking, and learn
how to "scan".
11.Make work appropriate to pupils' age, ability,
cultural background.
12. Develop an effective questioning technique.
13. Develop the art of timing your lesson to fit the
available period.
14. Vary your teaching techniques.
Practical hints for teachers on classroom discipline

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

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

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15. Anticipate discipline problems and act quickly.
16. Avoid confrontations.
17. Clarify fixed rules and standards, and be
consistent in applying them.
18. Show yourself as supporter and helper to the
students.
19. Don't patronize students; treat them with respect.
20.Use humor constructively.
21. Choose topics and tasks that will activate
students.
22. Be warm and friendly to the students.
(Taken from Ur, 1996:263)
Practical hints for teachers on classroom discipline

Factors in an ELT classroom, such as culture, age,
sex, motivation, vary so greatly that there cannot be
sure "wise advice" for classroom discipline. An
indisciplined act frequently occurring in one culture
may rarely occur in another. A management skill
effective in one class may be fruitless in another. In
most cases, teachers have to search for and develop
their own strategies to maintain discipline in their
classroom. And when indiscipline does occur, they
should take the most appropriate measures to put
things right.
Harmer (1983) suggests the following measures for
indisciplined acts and badly behaving students:


1) Act immediately: Stop indisciplined acts
immediately so that less damage is caused.
Of course, the teacher's action on a
particular student's indiscipline should not
be done at the expense of other students'
time and attention.
2) Stop the class. If the indiscipline is so
disruptive as to hinder the progress of the
whole class, the teacher should stop the
class and make it clear what is wrong.
Harmer (1983) suggests the following measures for
indisciplined acts and badly behaving students:
3) Rearrange the seats: Separate
troublesome students. Besides, if
students are moved to the front of the
class they may behave better.
 4) Change the activity: If indiscipline
occurs due to inappropriatcy of the
activity, a change of activity will often
restore the class.

Harmer (1983) suggests the following measures for
indisciplined acts and badly behaving students:
5) Talk to students after class. Talk to
the troublesome student after class.
Give students a chance to explain why
he/she behaves in this way.
 6) Create a code of behaviur: The
teacher and the learners can work
together to create some basic rules for
the class during activities.

Notes:
Problem-making students are not necessarily
"bad" boys, and sometimes students are not
aware of their indisciplined acts. So when the
teacher is trying to act against indiscipline,
he/she should be careful not to hurt the
students. Ur (1996) gives the following advice
about problems in class:
 Deal with it quietly.
 Don't take things personally.
 Don't use threats.
5. Questioning in the classroom
5.1 Lead-in activities
to focus students’
attention
 to invite thinking and
imaginations
 to check understanding
 to stimulate recall of of
information

5.2 Classification of question types
Types
closed questions
open questions
display questions
genuine questions
Definition
questions with one correct answer
questions with many different answers
answers known to T and are use d for checking
questions used to find out new information,they
are more communicative
lower–order
questions
higher-order
questions simply require recalling of information
or memorisation of facts
questions
reasoning ,analysis,evaluation
questions require more
5.3 Practice

Ask the students to learn the
material in TASK 9 (page 84--85),
and discuss the differences in
teachers’ questioning strategies.
Ask some students to present their
results of discussions. Teacher
make some comments on their
presentation
6. Dealing with errors

6.1 Lead-in activities
Errors are an inevitable part of the
learning process, it is through errors
that we learn something. teachers’
behaviours in dealing with errors can
reflect their different attitudes towards
errors.
6. Dealing with errors




6.2 Presentation
This part we will focus on how to deal
with spoken errors
When to correct
Generally speaking , it is best not to
interrupt students during the fluency
work unless the communication breaks
down; during accuracy work, we may
need to intervene more because the
purpose of the activity is to get what is
learned right .
6. Dealing with errors
6.2 Presentation

How to correct
different ways and
techniques for
correcting errors
self correction
peer correction
whole class correction
6. Dealing with errors
6.3 Discussion

Let students work in groups and do
TASK 10 , discuss whether the ways
to correct students’ errors are
suitable or not ( page 88)
6.3 Discussion
Conclusion

In this unit we started with the discussion of the
teacher's roles in the language classroom. Different
assumptions about the teacher's roles will stipulate
different classroom management policies; and
different methodologies entail the adoption of
different teacher roles. Borrowing Harmer's concepts
of the teacher's roles, we believe teachers are multifunctional in the language classroom. This is
especially true if the class is conducted in a variety of
formats such as whole class activity, individual study,
pair work and group work. varying student grouping
can help to create a dynamic language classroom
and thus improve learning effectiveness.
Conclusion

Another important issue in classroom
management is maintaining discipline.
However, teachers should be careful when
judging what behavior is indisciplined. It
should be noted that different cultures
have different assumptions about discipline.
If ever possible, problems around
indiscipline should be dealt with in friendly
rather than hostile ways.
Assignments
1. How can language teachers manage the classroom
more effectively and efficiently?
2. What is controlled practice, half-controlled practice, and
free practice?
3. How to treat the students with indisciplined acts ?
4. Write some classroom instructions as much as you can.