CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

When speaking about the Classroom management, they often consider that an important component of effective teaching is discipline. However, it should be much more… Classroom management creates a set of expectations used in an organized classroom environment. It includes different teaching components, techniques, skills, approaches, roles, rules and sequences, classroom environment. Effective classroom management is a “bridge” between a teacher and students to engage them into the learning process. Involving the learners in different activities, using the innovative instructional strategies, acting as a model, monitoring, following good communication, motivating and keeping friendly atmosphere are just some of the techniques which must be used by teachers. 

Obviously, most schools and educational organizations are aimed at efficient using all the resources (human and material) to reach the educational goals. Wellorganized classroom environment should be ventilated, fully supplied with chairs and desks, have adequate spatial arrangement, sizeable board, pleasant walls, bright lightnings. Moreover, there is a network of interpersonal relationships in a classroom.

At last, meaningful teaching and learning can’t be achieved without control, challenging functions of a teacher and reducing students’ distractions. I want to stress that the perceiving the classroom environment by students can actually predict their attitude towards schooling and academic performance. So, I think it’s important to a teacher to be able to create a healthy (in all possible meanings of this word) and conducive atmosphere for teaching and learning. 

What are the effects of the effective classroom management students learning?

Let’s take a look at classroom management items. 

Teacher roles. During a lesson the teacher needs to manage the activities and the learners in the classroom in different ways. This means he or she needs to behave in different ways at different stages of the lesson. These different kinds of behaviour are called “teacher roles”. What are they?

Before the lesson:

ü    Teachers are planners – to make sure that the lesson is suitable for the learners and learning purposes.

ü    Teachers are diagnosticians – to find out the learners’ problems.

During the lesson:

ü    Teachers are informers and involvers – to present new language, new grammar or new vocabulary and to involve the class into participating.

ü    Teachers are managers and a bank of resources – to set up activities and engage the learners into them. 

ü    Teachers are sometimes a parent or even a friend.

After the lesson: 

ü    The teachers are diagnosticians and planners again – to reflex the lesson and to be sure about planning the next lesson.

Very often teachers take on more than one role at the same time. Teacher roles are some kind of modeling that is based on the principle that ‘values are caught not taught’. Teachers who are prompt to class, courteous, enthusiastic, patience and organized, provide examples for their students through their behaviour which are exemplified by the students later.

Tools and Techniques. A disorganized classroom without routines and expectations makes it difficult for the teacher to do the job. Students don't know what to do, so they might get off task or cause disruptions. When the teacher is constantly redirecting students or handling behavior problems, he or she loses crucial teaching time. Classroom management tools and techniques help to create an organized classroom environment that provides good teaching. The learners know the expectations in different types of learning situations (for example, they would know that when working in small groups, they talk in quiet voices and take turns talking; they might each have a specific job within the group; etc.). Effective classroom management gives the students little time to misbehave.

Grouping students is used in different ways to organize the learners when they are working in the classroom. The grouping is chosen depending on the type of activity, the audience and the aim of the activity. There are two different ways of grouping. The first is when a teacher chooses particular interaction patterns for the students (ways in which students work together and with the teacher in class). In the second way the teacher considers the students’ levels, learning styles, learner needs, personalities and relationships before the grouping. It’s also well worth using the board and other classroom equipment or aids, using gestures to help clarity of instructions and explanations, speaking clearly at an appropriate volume and speed, grading complexity and quantity of language.

Skills. A teacher with strong classroom management skills creates consistency for his students to make them sure what to expect every day when it is time to the routine activities. They know how the classroom runs. The teacher also creates consistency throughout the school by aligning his/her management strategies with the schoolwide standards. It makes students positively disposed to learning, makes them excited, increases participation of students in activities and motivates them to learn. It is crucial that the teacher can spread the attention evenly and appropriately, use intuition to gauge what students are feeling, elicit honest feedback, listen to and hear students, deal with critical moments (starting the lesson, solving the unexpected problems, maintaining appropriate discipline, finishing the lesson). 

Monitoring. Monitoring involves the teacher moving round the classroom while students carry out activities to check their progress. Monitoring the progresses enables teachers to respond to students’ misunderstanding of concepts and ensure that meaningful learning is taking place. In addition, it will enable the teacher to know if adjustment in teaching needs to be made.

In conclusion I must say that the classroom management is the moment-bymoment decisions and actions concerning organization of the classroom and activities.

Effective teaching and learning process is a wide range of activities such as:

ü    effective communication, 

ü    using of reinforcement and reward, 

ü    using of innovative instructional strategies, 

ü    engaging students in activities constantly, 

ü    using of behaviour rules, 

ü    stimulating classroom environment, 

ü    giving clear instructions, 

ü    focusing and monitoring activities, 

ü    forming groups and arranging seating,

ü    establishing authority and autonomy,

ü    dealing with critical moments, 

ü    establishing rapport, ü   etc.

Classroom management effectiveness is one of the important criteria for assessing teaching effectiveness. That’s why teachers should constantly develop and improve their methods, skills, techniques. Because if the teacher is learning successfully, he or she can really teach. Remember that the classroom management is an art and a science and the same time, it’s more than getting your ducks in a row!