English Language Classroom Management

8/11/2019 English Language Classroom Management

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CLASSROM

MANAGEMENT

By Gabriel Marquez


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Chapter I: Classroom Talk

Language learning is essentially and interaction activity between educators

and learners, as well as between learners themselves, all this in order to achieve

students language development. The role of the teacher is just facilitating this

educative development.

Interaction in the classroom may take several forms in which teachers are not

always direct part of the interaction; such as: group work, collaborative work, peer

work and so on. On the other hand; closed ended questions, teacher talk, and

questioning are techniques that needs to be guided by the teacher in order to elicit

the interaction. Furthermore classroom communication can be set in

Transactional Communication, which is the information transmitted when

teachers explain some aspects of the language, (grammar, vocabulary, etc.) the

common views of teaching emphasizes this

approach because students need to internalizethe knowledge that educators are able to provide.

On the other hand, Interactional

Communication, which is the communication

process for real communicative purposes, this real

context talking is the main goal in ESL

classrooms, because interaction gives learners

the opportunity to incorporate target language structures into their own speech.

Classroom Talk is also defined as Teacher Talk versus Learner Talk; both of them

are very important and necessary. Teacher Talk, is important because it helps tostudents language acquisition due to educators are the major source of

comprehensible target language input that a learner is likely to receive, teacher talk

is also divided in Quantityvs. Quality; the issue is that around 70% of the time is

what teachers spend talking or giving lectures, in addition what really matters is the

quality, it means that all the time teachers spend speaking to students must be

meaningful and in fact helps learners to develop their own language skills; however

at the end, the amount of talking time will depend of the syllabus content and

classroom environment they are studying. In contrast Learner Talk, during can

show accurately their current competence through their performance, and one

strategy for improving this is using communicative tasks, where teachers could be

able to interact with students, provide feedback and model learners output.

In conclusion classroom talk management will depend on the right

interaction between teachers and students and the quality of this interaction is what

triggers students free target language development.


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Chapter II: Corrective Feedback

In foreign language development corrective feedback allows learners to

comprehend some aspects of the target language through backchannelling and

negotiating process. The aim of this is just improving students performance.

Inside classrooms, feedback is primarily triggered by Errorsand Mistakes; errors

are those that cant be self-corrected since learners do not know a form to do it,

because it is not a part of their competence; on the other hand mistakes are those

that can be corrected by the own learner because it is part of their language usage.

There are some teaching theories that explain how educators should correct

students. Behaviorist, Cognitive, Interlanguage, Monitor and Communicative

Approach agreed in one thing: the major objective of feedback is to develop

students self-correction in order to achieve some degree of autonomy.

The corrective feedback process explains who, when, and how students must becorrected. First, Who Corrects? Mostly the teacher because its their job;

nevertheless educators may also use peer correction in

which students correct their performance among

themselves, but teachers must encourage self-correction

which is more meaningful for students due to helps to

improve both competence and performance, and at the

same time allows them to achieve autonomy in the target

language abilities. Second, When? According to experts this will depend on the

aim of the activity, some communicative tasks should not be interrupted until is

finished even though students make a lot of mistakes, because it could harmlearners confidence toward speaking activities, then the feedback introduced

without affecting students willingness to perform target language. Other tasks

mostly based on competence might depend of both teachers and students, taking

in account learners predisposition to be affected or not by the corrective process in

an emotional level. Finally, Who? The way in which teachers correct learners is

very important, since some rude feedback strategies can harm students feelings

and affect their eagerness for acquiring and performing in the L2, on the contrary

good ways of correcting encourage students to become more participative during

classes, teachers have to take the roles of coaches in order to model learners

attitude, competence, and performance rather than referees that decide who is

right and who is wrong.

In short feedback is a complex part of the teaching process, because has to

be handled carefully, otherwise teachers can damage students confidence

towards the second language development. As was mentioned before the ideal

and healthy feedback is made by the students themselves.


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Chapter III: Group Work

Group work is one of the pillars of English

language teaching, due to the interaction among

students. Furthermore group work allows learners to use

the target language in a comfortable environment, also itincreases students responsibility and independence; in

addition group work contributes with a feeling of co-

operation since learners feel that L2 acquisition can be

share among the members of the team instead of one single person.

According to experts the ideal number for group work is three students, due to in

this way all the members not matter their target language level and skills is able to

perform during the activities and learn new abilities through language use. Of

course there are also some critics to group work technique such as: discipline,

code switching, and that stronger students would take control of the activity andweaker ones would not develop new target language skills.

Some important guidelines in order to make small group work in the classroom are:

Presentation, it refers to the instructions and parameters given at the beginning in

order to avoid confusion, this stage of the group work is very important since

teacher explain and clarify the activity, and for evading misleading, educators can

use their mother tongue, in that way students know exactly what to do and there is

no wasting of time. Process, in this stage the role of the teacher is just monitoring

and he/she only contributes when it is required, providing support and helping

students who face troubles and also keeps students focused speaking in the targetlanguage all the time, and teachers also can give all the members the same

opportunity for participating in the task. Ending, all activities and tasks need a

closure, so for that reason teachers should establish a time limit; nevertheless if

students are deep involved in the activity teachers can extend the due time,

because this will be beneficial since learners (stronger and weaker) could spend

enough time using L2. Finally, Feedback, this stage is used for provide students

performance with accurate solutions to those mistakes and errors.

Individualization is one important aspect in group work; this approach implies less

direct teacher control or supervision and allows learners to develop autonomy andresponsibility in their own learning process. The following factors can determine

whether or not a learner is able to be individualized in the educative process:

speed, level of the learner, the content of study and the language skills.

Indeed group work seems to be an outstanding strategy in English language

development when is used correctly, inside ESL classrooms.


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Chapter IV: Mixed Ability

The term Mixed Ability is relatively new in English language teaching, even

though mixed ability is nothing new; in fact classroom groups have been always

heterogeneous, and all students have different valuable strengths. Nevertheless

there are some critics for mixed ability approach due to language abilities anddevelopment must be the same for everyone. Nowadays MA has destroyed the

old-fashioned belief of good versus bad students.

Teachers also misunderstand the fact that students have different strengths and

skills for developing the target language and instead of noticing that hidden

potential, educators often get confused and treat some of their students as weaker

learners. No matter how outstanding or awful a language student group could be,

eventually all of them will develop the same L2 skills.

For educators having stronger and weaker learners

working together is pretty helpful since the former getmore proficient by producing comprehensible input

and the latter gain the experience in negotiating

meaning. There are some advantages in teaching

mixed ability groups, such as:

Classroom interaction: Mixed ability groups provide a cornucopia of new

ideas, points of views, interests, and real life experiences, which students

are able to experience and make them as part of their new target language

input.

Educational and Moral Values: Mixed ability groups provide a healthy

environment where learners can share beliefs and values, as well as

develop tolerance and understanding toward others personalities.

Self-management: This MA groups help teachers to monitor the students

individual performance, since learners themselves support each other,

studying and working together. This peer collaboration creates a healthy

atmosphere for both stronger and weaker learners.

Interesting Classes: Target language sessions become much more

challenging and meaningful for students and also allow learners to use their

creativity, innovation and general professional L2 development.

In conclusion Mixed Ability classrooms really challenge educators to perform

and outstanding job that goes beyond of simple old-fashioned classes, different

skills require different methodologies and resources. Teachers must update their

approaches of teaching and take advantage of the different strengths of their

students.


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Chapter V: Discipline

Discipline is an important area of classroom management; this concept is

closely bound up with factors such as: learners age, the socio-cultural context, the

authority figure of the teacher, and the emotional relationship between educators

and students. The discipline approach is achieved when learners accept the set of

rules and correct behavior in a smooth way that leads to an efficient teaching and

learning target language process.

Having class control doesnt mean that students have to do exactly what teacher

wants; discipline classroom affairs are a universal agreement established by

educators in order to maintain a harmony environment during classes. There are

two approaches that explain how discipline work; Strategic Redefinition, in which

teachers ideals, beliefs and methodologies are applied in

the classrooms until succeed, showing educators courage

toward classroom affairs. On the contrary Strategic

Compliance, which is the educators giving up attitude

toward classroom management affairs that eventually lead

the teacher to become part of the old-fashioned system.

Innovation and Flexibility are also helpful because

encourage L2 development and autonomy, the old-

fashioned belief that teachers must approve every aspect of the classes is

criticized, due to some educators love have the power and intimidate students,

even the stronger ones, and as a result they become unable to perform the target

language in a freely way. This takes place mostly during grammar classes where

teachers used to have control of students output utterances.

Discipline is a peculiar thing, some teachers that face this affairs, use the

reinforcement technique, in which praises, rewards, or merit marks are new ways

of achieving discipline by motivating students behavior that turns them into

autonomous healthy students. However traditionally views of old-fashioned

teaching assumed that: punishments, detention, extra homework, and even

spanking, encourage good behavior and breaks the bad behavior on students.

Nowadays reinforcement can achieve more than punishment without affecting theteacher authority figure.

In short for teachers cope with discipline is not easy, because students

usually look for a tiny opportunity for taking advantage during classes.

Nevertheless educators should aware about new management methodologies that

can overcome these classrooms affairs. Educators must be seen as leaders not

dictators.


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Chapter VI: The Use of L1 in the Classroom

The use of L1 inside English language classrooms has always been strongly

criticized, mostly because the abuse of mother tongue for communicating

everything inside ESL classes; the excessive use of L1 deprives students for

acquiring L2 competence. The main goal for a target language class is in factachieve communicative skilled speakers, if the mother tongue is always present

the interlanguage ability get lost.

For centuries GTM has been the dominant approach in foreign language teaching,

because links the target language with the mother tongue, after that, Direct Method

appeared and change the way of teaching, since it places students

into a target language environment where L1 is forbidden. New

theories soon arrived in order to explain mother and target language

use inside classrooms; one of them is: Coordinate Bilingualism,

where people exposed to two different languages, are able toacquire them simultaneously and also develop two independent

language systems that make them proficient in both. In contrast the

Compound Bilingualism, is what L2 learners usually do, they

acquire their mother tongue and then the target language using the first as a base

or reference. Interlanguage is an approach that explains why L1 is necessary for

L2 as the latter is constructed on the bases of a previous language system that not

necessarily affects the target language acquisition. On the other hand, students

sometimes end up switching between the two languages, because it is easier for

them, and a result some linguistic variations is formed. (Spanglish).

Inside classroom L1 can be used as a strategy for providing support and security,

this offer learners the opportunity to gather new vocabulary as well as confidence

for saying what they want avoiding frustration, misunderstanding and peers

mockery. Besides mother tongue is useful for explaining grammar points or

complex instructions that confuses students, also L1 use saves time. L1 inside

group work is a nightmare for teachers, because learners tend to use their mother

tongue if the level of the activity is too complex for them. Nevertheless teachers

can allow mother tongue in order to provide confidence to students for developing

activities. But the results must reflect some degree of performance in the target

language.

In conclusion the ELT has suffered many changes in their teaching

approaches through the history and L1 vs. L2 will be always present there.

Because pros and cons about its use inside classrooms generates discussion

about how effective is in the final target language acquisition.

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English Language Classroom Management