UNIVERSITY OF ISTANBUL

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT

Education of English Language

EXTENSIVE VARIETIES OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING RESEARCH PAPER ON THE SUBJECT OF

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Presented by

Tuba İnce

 Lecturer

Suzan Hatipoğlu

January 2000

Istanbul

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION

 WHAT IS CLASSROOM MANAGMENT

 PREVENTIVE MAINTANANCE FOR CLASSROOM BEHAVIOUR PROBLEM

  A)Setting the rules    B)Withitness   C)Overlapping   D)Lesson Momentum

 TECHNICAL TEACHING SKILLS  

  A)Verbal Skills   1)Set Induction 2)Voice Control 3)Varying Instructional   Method

 B)Nonverval Skills  1)Time on Task 2)Eye Contact

 SOLVING IMMEDIATE PROBLEMS

  A)Using Silence  B)Proximity Control  C)Teacher-Student Conferences

 PUNISHMENT AND DISCIPLINE

  A)Time Out  B)Respond Out 

PEER RELATIONS

  A)Rejection by Peers  B)Peer Prejudies  C)Peer Tutoring

CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING

        A) Example of a Contingency Contracting B)     Example of Home Contract

 CONCLUSION

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

    Being a teacher does not mean only giving the grammatical rules, practicing and evaluating the students. Because these don’t mean nothing if the students attention is not raised on them. If there is no motivation , there can not be proper teaching and learning. Especially first-year teachers’ biggest problem is  the motivation of the students which is classroom managment’s main concern. The teacher shouldn’t be threatening authority in the classroom, he/she should teach the students to be their own managers so that the teacher wouldn’t be seen as despot and strict. The teachers should know to manage the class and to teach the students to manage themselves , this means to expose the students behave properly. In this paper I’ll try to express and define what is classroom managment, what are the student an teacher roles, and I ‘ll  try to give clues not to have problems in the classroom. Now let’s start our subject.

 WHAT IS CLASSROOM MANAGMENT?

   There are different expressions about classroom managment. “It can be defined as the teacher’s ability to cooperatively manage time,space,resources and student roles and student behaviours to provide a climate that encourages  earning”(Alberto&Troutman,1986;404).

   Sometimes teachers and students see things different and the differences in perception between the teacher and the students contribute a discipline problems. Mostly the differences have their origins outside the class and this effects their relation whith the teacher. In order to reduce those differences  the teacher should have the qualities of effective and good teacher that the students call. “ In order to be effective, teachers must be proactive facilitative , imaginative classroom managers” (Henson&Eller,1999;405). Unfortunatly  many beginning teachers  lack even the most basic managment skills. Smith(1995;89) expresses that “what makes a teacher  good, is the organization of a classroom and the tecniques involved rely heavily on the teaching ‘style’. He looks what should happen in an ideal classroom by attemting to identify “ good” an “ bad” teaching style”. Also there is a common idea that the better the teacher and  the more effective the classroom the higher the the quality of teaching and learning process. This is primarily  concerned with the managment of pupils and resources within the  finite space of a classroom and is concerned with the following(Smith;1995;89):

-         Pupils should be involved in the work they are doing and ‘own’ part of it because they have been involved in the planning process.

-         What the pupil brings to the task has been noted and taken into account, thus helping to match the task to the pupil.

-         There are opportunities for framing and solving problems.

-         Each pupil is helped to make sense of the world they live in.

-         Pupils are encouraged to work co-operatively in groups. When the short-term curriculum planning is organized, targets and outcomes are built into the programme together with the flexibility necessary for pupils’ individual needs.

-         One of the teaching style used is that of facilitator , so that pupils do not rely on adult help all the time.

-         Record-keeping is thorough and realistic.

-         The curriculum has breadht and balance.

       Smith’s (1988) “good” teacher is able to raise pupils’ self-esteem, develop a positive work ethos without resorting to apunitive regime, praise rather than criticize and use pupils’ enthusiasms and interests in a creative and positive way. According to students what makes ateacher is good are; kindness, being patient, tolarant, paying attention to students.

 PREVENTIVE MAINTANANCE FOR CLASSROOM BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS

   While teaching it is difficult for the teacher to teach and control the students behaviours at the same time so that  in order to  avoid from that problem the teacher will get the students to discipline themselves. This preventive approach  the classroom managment must have  two important facilities; teacher must seek students  input and be willing  to use it to  shape the classroom environmet,establishing a self-discilining environment requires focusing on positive student behaviour as opposed to negative or inappropriate  student beheviour. Early studies on classroom managment conducted by experts compared the behaviours of effective an ineffective classroom managers. Effective clasroom managers establish a guidelines for seting  class rules had an awarness of total classroom, kept lesson active.

 A)Setting Rules:

   Effective  managment requiers proactive teachers to define their expectations for their students. Therefore the teachers should communicate her/his  social and academic expectations at the beginning of the school year. Many teachers find it necessary to establish a list of rules that clasifies their expectations from student behaviours. There are some properties of a list of ruler(Henson&Eller,1999;410-1)):

-         Establish the list during the first few class meeting.

-         Keep the list short.

-         Include only these rules that you consider necessary to be prepared to explain why each rule is needed.

-         State each rule simply.

-         Involve students in setting rules.

-         Focus on student behaviour  need  to achive lesson goals.

-         State consequences for breaking rules.

-         State rewards for the follow in rules.

            Although this list is teacher’s responsibility but the students should be involved ,too. Such involvements can motivate the students  to obey and accept the rules. But  most of the teachers don’t involve the students because they think they give the control of the authority to students. On the other hand by involving the students  on the list ,  the goal of self- discipline  can be established.

 B)Withitness:

   The teacher whose students are at high level of achievement  , do not wait for the trouble to disturb and then respond to the undesirable behaviour. Also there teachers  are aware of events that can uccur during a classroom day. A teacher’s ability to be aware of events occuring simultaneusly  in the classroom called withitness. During times when students completed their seatwork assignments, these teachers monitor the students’ beviours. If the students demostrate unexpected behaviours, these teachers calmly intervened and stopped the unwanted behaviour by getting students back on task.

 C)Overlapping:

   The teacher’s  ability  to manage more than one classroom activity  at a time  is called overlapping. Effective teachers can manage this. While  the teacher is working with one group , he/she has the ability to attend to other students. Also these teachers use managment tactics while conducting the activities. Teacher can effectively overlap by pausing momentarily to comment on each student’s work and by periodically looking up and controling the class. Another way to overlap is to casually direct a question or comment to a student who appears to be disengaged in the lesson, especially who is disturbing the class.

 D)Lesson  Momentum:

   Kounin(1970) found that the best classroom managers  were careful to keep the lesson moving at a brisk pace. Inappropriate student behaviours increase when the lesson becomes boring. Effective teachers set a time limit for the task so that they motivate students.

 TECHNICAL TEACHING SKILLS

   Most of the  inappropriate behaviours result from ineffective instructions so that teachers use verbal  and nonverbal technical skills  as a part of effective instruction.

A)Verbal Skills:

1)Set Induction:

   Students often   disturb their  classes because they do not understand the lesson. The beginning of each lesson is important  because this time is the foundation  for understanding so that the rest of the lesson is established. Consequently effective proactive teachers get the attention of students before starting the lesson.

   Technical  teachers use to get  all the students’ attention are collectively called set induction(Henson,1996). This skill is several ways. For example, teacher can start the lesson by telling interesting stories about the lesson. Other teachers start the lesson setting the instructions about the lesson to get the attention of students or the teachers  speak softly that the students listen carefully to hear.

2)Voice Conrtol:

   Teachers can communicate verbally , if they are heard so that sufficient vocal volume is crucial. Unfortunately  many teachers find it diffucult to overcome the voice control at elementry and secondary classrooms. On the other hand , most of the

teachers can overcome the voice control problem by taking a few simple precautions. Beginnig teachers and experienced teachers do the same mistakes because beginning teachers  look at he students from the front of the class and speak  loudly enough for these students hear and experienced teachers ask questions to the students which are in the front  so that  they speak softly that the students in the back  can’t hear. In order to correct this faulty the teachers must comment their questions  to the students in the back of the classroom or farthest from you. With another method, by arrenging the class in semicircles every student can hear the teacher sufficiently.

3)Varying Instructional Methods:

   Young students typically respond positively to stimulation and variety in the classroom curriculum(Henson& Eller,1999;413). The variety of activities in the lesson increase student participation, attention and motivation. When planning to avoid to avoid classroom managment problems, the teacher use the same method. They prepare a variety of activities and alternatives into their lesson to prevent student behaviour problems and to motivate the students. The activities are varies that such as lecture, games, discussions,groupwork studies,. Also a variety of media  can help such as TV, computer , radios, cd player,...etc.

B)Nonverbal Skills:

1)Time on Task:

   Students who are kept busy  doing a task , don’t cause inappropriate behaviours or disturbance. The difference  in amount of time spent on task vary from school to school. According to Henson& Eller(1999;414) a distinction should be made between assigned time and engaged time: for example the students could be assigned the last 15 minutes of the period to work problems only an average of 2 minutes; the time on task should be the teacher’s focus. Effective teachers first plan assigbed time and the engaged time.

2)Eye Contact:

   While teachers are speaking they focus their attantion on their notes, textbooks, or they may look on the floor, ceiling but not to students. But they don’t know that  direct eye contact tells the students that the teacher knows what they are doing.

   In order to improve eye contact the teacher may use few notes and plan, a few very general state or use overhead projector so that he/she will not lose the control of the students. While using blackboard the teacher turn his/her back so that loses the control.

SOLVING IMMEDIATE PROBLEMS

   An effective proactive teacher spends much time on preventing problems rather than solving problems. But there are times when all teachers face troubles that occur during a lesson.

 A)Using Silence:

   Most teachers talk too much because of the responsibility for maintaning and directing class interaction. Also they think that they are authority in the class so the person who talks much should be them. But silence can be effective to discipline students. Unfortunatly  the teacher find this very difficult. Think of a lesson; you are talking too much  and the attention is decreased and  students start to talk with each other . When the teacher  suddenly starts to speak softly and with a low level of voice , the students’ attention will be raised  to the teacher and the lesson because they will try to hear what  the teacher is talking about.

 B)Proximity Control:

    While the teacher is talking , if he/she moves closer to students, this will have different meaning. According to Elleson& Henson(1999;417) first it means “ I am standing close to you”, secondly  “I don’t like  your company”, an the last “We have something in common”. With this approach  you control the students easier than other approach  because the distance with you and the students are very nearby. On the other hand in a lesson several managment skills should be used.

 C)Teacher-Student Conferences:

   Some students who don’t change their inappropriate behaviours in to appropriate , have big problems. In order to solve these problems, a conference is a good way. The success of the the conference depend on the manner in which it is conducted. Because the teacher’s manner shouldn’t be to attact to student rather the teacher should be positive , calm, kind in order to communicate with the students, to help the student make behavioral progress.

 PUNISHMENT AND DISCIPLINE

   Another strategy used to solve  discipline problems is punishment. Punishment is defined as the presentation of an avarsive stimulus that weakens the behavior it follows(Skinner;1953). Through the years this approach was very popular an all over the world but today it is forbidden. Punishment and threat of punishment play a destroying role between the student, school and the teacher because this method prevents the students to be active and to study. Consequently the student starts to dislike to school.  Later it is seen that  punishment is just a temporary solution, it doesn’t  bring  an end to disturbance  student behaviors.

 According to Henson&Eller(1999;419-20) following are several qualities that deter many teachers from using corporal punishment:

-         Corporal punishment attacts the person , not the behavior

-         Corporal punishment addresses only  undesirable behavior; it doesn’t address desirable alternatives

-         Corporal punishment does not attempt to seek out the underlying cause(s)  of inappropriate behavior

-         Corporal punishment can lower students’ self-esteem , thus promoting further misbehavior

-         Those teachers who use corporal punishment the most  are apt to be the ones who have the least understanding  of its ramifications

-         Corporal punishment can and at times does result in permanent physical  damage

-         Corporal punishment carries the subtle  message that the best way to deal with life’s problems is by using force

-         Corporal punishment is often used as a substitute for good planning

-         Corporal punishment establishes a barrier between teachers and students

-         Corporal punishment lowers other students’ respect for the teacher and causes students to be fearful of teachers and school

-         Perhaps most important, there are alternatives to corporal punishment that are more effective in reducing inappropriate behavior and don’t have the negative side effect.

  A)Time Out:

   A way alternative to corporal punishment for reducing inappropriate behavior is called time out. With this procedure the misbehaving student is removed for a short time from the situation. The time out place should be  dull and simple. There shouldn’t be anything  reinforcing the disturbing behaviour so that the student  will be cut from the classroom activity. Bu it musn’t be forgotten that the time out  shouldn’t be used to frighten the student. For the time out to be effective , a student shouldn’t stay isolated  for a long time. Often 5 or 10 minıtes is enough for the appropriate behaviour. After that the teacher establishes the calm atmosphere in the lesson.

 B)Respond Cost:

   This is another way which is consisted of removel of a quantity  of reinforces connected to a response. For example a teacher can take a student’s water paints from his desk because he was painting his friends hands. Within the school environment  typical responce cost procedures are ; removing points on a grade for unacceptable academic performance, loss of class free time for disrupting class during a test, loss of tokens  or privileges as part of a classroom managment system . It is said that  response  cost is a very effective way of reducing inappropriate behaviours.

PEER RELATIONS

   Peers play an important role in a student’s schooling. Peers serve as reinforces bu giving or withdrawing attention and approval; they also serve as model and basis for social comparisons(James& Egel;1986). Educators emphasize the relationship between teachers and students because the relation socialize attitudes, values and abilities of the students. Peer relations contribute the students’ perception of their sucesses. On the other hand the poor peer relations during childhood can result as isolated from society and psychological problems occuring during childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Positive peer relationships can reduce social isolation and improve social academic abilities.

 A)Rejection by Peers:

   Students who notice that they are accepted by their peers ,are more willing to to take part in the classroom interaction and increase their academic abilities. Students who notice that they are rejected by their peers , are often anxious and have less confidence and these students’ academic abilities are poor. Also this kind of students have negative attitudes towards to school ,teachers and the peers.

   Peer interaction should be build in the clasroom to enhance to academic and social development of students. “One way that teachers can build positive peer relationships is to promote interaction between students during contreversy. Contreversies occur when one student ‘s idea , attitudes , information or conclusions are incompatible or disagree with those of another student (Henson&Eller;1999;423).”.

   Teachers should form a cooerative climate for such controversies by requiring students to give accurate and complite information during disagreements and requiring each to listen. On the other hand the teacher should define controversies as problems that can be solved so that when they are discusin they don’t attact to each other.

 B)Peer Prejudies:

   In multicultural classes prejudice is often a catalyst for misbehavior( Henson& Eller,1999;424). A good strategy  for addressing prejudice is through the use of conversation ,but, many people isn’t ready or capable of constructing conversations.

 C)Peer Tutoring:

   When one student helps another about an academic task, both the student being tutored and the student acting as a tutor have great benefits. Tutors can be high-ability students or students at high grades. Also low-ability students can help to lower-ability students. Tutoring may be conducted in a group of students or with pairs of students.

 CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING

   The development of  a contingency contract system represents an effecient way to organize classroom preceeding(Jones&Jones;1995). A classroom contingency contract is basiclly an agreement , preferably written , between the teacher and students, as to how the classroom will be managed(Sulzer-Azaroff&Mayer,;1991).

   A contingency contract  usually provides three major of information : a) specification of appropriate student behaviours; b) specification of inappropriate student inappropriate student behaviours;c) description of consequences for both appropriate and inappropriate  behaviours( Henson&Eller,1999;426). A primary objective in developing a contract is to encourage students to monitor their own behaviours and secondary objective is to identify consequences for behaviour that would have a facilitative effect on student academic performance and social  behaviours. With this contract the teacher  and the student will know their commends between each other.

   While you are forming the contract  first of all the teacher and the student should determine the appropriate and inappropriate behaviours. The students should be aware of that the teacher is trying to develop a good classroom. The teacher list the students suggestions on the board. Also the teacher ask what kind of thing reinforces them  while working and then add them  to  the list. After the contract is formed every student should  have the copy of the contract  and everybody should obey the rules.  If there are students not voluntary, the teacher will tell them that they are responsible  from all class assignments but will not have the oppurtunity to get the rewards defined in the contract.. Later the students choose to enter the contract agreement  during some period.

   On the other hand  the help of the the parents should be taken in to consideration while establishing  students’ self-esteem build. Often parents ask teachers what is their role in their children’s developing. If the students are doing well and have appropriate behaviours, they will go on doing what they are doing. If the student is having problems at school  a home parent –student contract  should be designed between the student and the parents. It should iclude the activities , behaviours and outcomes that will be rewarded. This contract’s main reason is to demostrated appropriate behaviours and academic success at school.

   Summarizing , Homme , Csanyi,Gonzales, and Rechs(1970) suggest basic rules for implementing classroom contracts:

-         The contract payoff (reward) should be immediate. This rule follows what has been stated as one of the essential elements of an effective reinforcer: ıt must be admistered immediatly upon performance of the target beheviour.

-         Inıtial contracts should call for and reward small approximations. This form of successive approximations- this is , progressive steps toward the target behavior- is particularly useful for behaviours the student has never performed before. A criterion level set too high , or a behaviour category that is too broad is not useful. A better alternative might be , “ First , pick up all toys, books, and  games from the floor and place them on shelves. Second , vacuum the floor. Third , make your bed. And fourth water the plants.”

-         Reward frequently with small amounts.

-         The contract should call for and reward  accomplishment rather obedience . contracts that focus upon accomplishments lead to independence.

-         Reward the performance after it occurs.

-         The contract must be fair the weight of the reinforcement should be in proportion to the amount of behaviour required.

-         The term of the contract must be clear. Ambiguity causes disagreement.

-         The contract must be honest. An honest contract is one that is (a) “carried out immediatly, and(b)carried out according to the terms specified in the contract.

-         The contract must be positive.

-         Contracting as a method must be used systematically. As with any form of reinforcement strategy, if contracting is not done systematically  and consistently.

    Also an example contract done at school and at home with parents  are given in the other page taken from Henson& Eller(1999;428-432):

CONCLUSION

   I have tried to define and explain classroom managment but I have learnt too much tecniques. First-year teachers think that  calssroom managment is the biggest problem because getting the attention of the students and motivate them is very difficult. I was also thinking what I am going to do when I start teaching but when I have read books on that subject I saw that it has some tactics to be used . Silence is the easiest managment skill to use , yet it is the least used. If a first-year teacher uses this and the other explained, he/she will act as an effective teacher. Also I am going to use these methods and I am sure they will work because while studying on this subject I have read some interwievs done with professors. It was written that those methods were very effective on the students.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alberto,P.A., Troutman,A.C.,(1986),Applied Behavior Analysis For Teachers ,

     ed.  K.T. Henson&B.F.Eller(1999;404),Educational Phychology For  Effective

     Teaching,Wadsworth Publishing Company,USA                                                    

Allwright,D,&Bailey,K.M.,(1991),Focus On The Language Classrıım, Cambringe    

     University Press Company , USA

 Henson,K.T.,(1996),Methods And Strategies For Teaching In Secondary And Middle

     Schools(3rd Edition),ed.K.T.Henson&B.F.Eller(1999;412), Educational    

     Phychology For  Effective  Teaching,Wadsworth Publishing Company,USA

 Henson,K.T.,Eller,B.F., (1999), Educational Phychology For  Effective

     Teaching, Wadsworth Publishing Company,USA

Homme,L.,Csanyi,A.P.,Ganzales,M.A.,Rechs,J.R.(1970),How To Use Contingency

     In The Classroom ,ed. K.T.Henson&B.F.Eller(1999;431-3), Educational    

     Phychology For  Effective  Teaching,Wadsworth Publishing Company,USA

James,F.A.,Egel,A.L.,(1986),A direct prompting strategy for increasing reciprocal

     interactions between handicapped and nonhandicapped sibling:Jurnal of Applied

     Analysis,19,pp.173-186 ed. K.T.Henson&B.F.Eller(1999;422), Educational    

     Phychology For  Effective  Teaching,Wadsworth Publishing Company,USA

Jones,V&Jones,L.,(1995),Comprehensive Classroom Managment, ed. K.T.Henson&      B.F.Eller(1999;420), Educational Phychology For  Effective  Teaching,      

     Wadsworth Publishing Company,USA

Kounin,J.,(1970),Discipline and Group Managment in Classrooms , ed. 

     K.T.Henson& B.F.Eller(1999;411), Educational Phychology For  Effective  

     Teaching, Wadsworth Publishing Company,USA

Nathan,M.,(1996), The Headteacher’s Survival Guide,Kargen Page, London

 Skinner,B.F.,(1953), Science and Human Behavior, ed. K.T.Henson& B.F.Eller

     (1999 ;418), Educational Phychology For  Effective  Teaching, Wadsworth

     Publishing  Company,USA   

 Smith,R.,(1988),Child Education, ed. Roger Smith(1995;90) , Successful School 

     Teaching, Cassell, Great Britanian

 Smith ,R.,(1995),Successful School Managment, Cassell, London

 Sulzer-Azaroff,B.&Mayer ,R.G.,(1991),Behavior Analysis For Lasting Change, ed.

     K.T.Henson& B.F.Eller(1999 ;426), Educational Phychology For  Effective 

     Teaching, Wadsworth Publishing  Company,USA   

 Tharp,R.G.&Gallimare,R., (1988), Rousing Minds to Life, Cambridge University 

     Press, USA

 Written by Tuba İnce

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