Classroom Management

[garro]

I was just discussing this with some colleagues today and was wondering what others thought. I am aware of some of the theories, but I'm more interested on what happens on the ground in Thailand. How do you control your class? I know some people are willing to let students away with a lot (like doing homework for other classes) if they don't disrupt the class, but this seems wrong to me. Am I expecting too much? In my experience Thai classrooms can be very noisy places and I tend to accept a bit of noise so long as people can learn, but should I be more strict about this. My goal is to provide the best learning environment I can so I'm interested in what others think.

[Ijustwannateach]

1. Discipline depends on school support. If they don't want it, you won't get it. If students in other classes can generally get away with anything, as a foreign teacher you won't be able to be stricter in your class (unless you're very lucky and have a lot of advanced students and understanding parents).

2. Discipline depends on the engagement of students. If you aren't teaching something they can handle *and* in which they are interested, you've lost. If you have to teach material for which they are not capable, see #1.

3. If you have engagement of the students' attention, then you've probably won 90% of the battle, except for the mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, hormonally disordered, or totally spoiled individuals. However, if the rest of the students want to learn, they will be on your side in helping to handle such individuals. Also see #1.

"S"

[DragonQuest]

Agreed.

[mizzi39]

I have to agree that most classroom management depends on the support that you get from your school. I teach M1-M3. I am fortunate that nearly all of my students are well behaved, but i think this is because their parents pay 35,000 baht a term for their child to attend the English program and we have a very supportive director who does not tolerate students misbehaving. One call home to mom and dad usually solves this problem.

Now I do walk into a disruptive classroom from time to time (what do expect from 12-14 year olds). What works for me is instead of raising my voice I do the opposite and keep silent. Usually in less than a minute of the teacher being silent, students fall silent. It is this unspoken approach that says it all. Once I have their full attention I begin class. There are many approaches to gaining and maintaining control of your class, this is just one that happens to work for me. Good Luck!

[Ijustwannateach]

Getting into details- if the lessons are usually engaging, most students will accept your authority to keep discipline, even if it applies to them personally. Ideally, a teacher would have good rapport with the class (the class feels accepted by the teacher) and the disciplinary measure is appropriate, related to the problem, and targeted at the problem rather than the student's personality. It helps even more if you give them a way to laugh about it to save face. For example, I collect personal electronics if the students use them during my class (the very first time in the class they get a brief warning to put it away). Usually I joke that they're going into my used phone shop, or that I want to finish the game myself before returning it to the student- then I keep them (very carefully) about 1 week and return them. Have never had any repeat problems within a class, and so I think this measure by definition works quite well.

"S"

P.S. Sometimes with the phones the students will argue that their parents need them to have the phone; I'll accept this as long as they bring me a note from their parents to say so! Usually I get to keep the phone the whole week!

[Starrysky]

I was just discussing this with some colleagues today and was wondering what others thought. I am aware of some of the theories, but I'm more interested on what happens on the ground in Thailand. How do you control your class? I know some people are willing to let students away with a lot (like doing homework for other classes) if they don't disrupt the class, but this seems wrong to me. Am I expecting too much? In my experience Thai classrooms can be very noisy places and I tend to accept a bit of noise so long as people can learn, but should I be more strict about this. My goal is to provide the best learning environment I can so I'm interested in what others think.

When I worked in a Thai government school several years ago I discovered that several methods of 'control' worked reasonably well, although persistence was the name of the game as the Ss get away with so much in classes with Thai teachers, and a lot of other foreign teachers (sleeping/copying homework etc etc). At the end of my first day's teaching I bought a whistle and this had dramatic results. I would go behind a Ss who was not paying attention and blow the whistle sharply. It certainly got the message across! Comic books/work from other lessons were all taken away and TORN UP. It usually only took one demonstration of this technique for it not to happen again in that particular class. Certainly the focussing of attention on the Ss who was not 'with us' did the trick as I quickly realized that Thai Ss don't like having attention put personally on them. The nose-picking was a particular pet hate of mine and when I spotted a Ss indulging in nasal excavation I would immediately stop whatever was going on and imitate what they were doing, then clarify that it was considered extremely rude by Westerners. Doing a lot of activities that required the Ss to listen (always a difficult thing for Thais to do!) to each other, eg Chinese Whispers, showed the flaky ones that they needed to stay on the ball and participate. However, I am glad to say that I no longer need to earn a living by teaching in Thailand as my overall impression is that I put a lot of energy out and received insufficient in return.

[DragonQuest]

I actually act like myself 100% of the time and they dig it.