Teach English in Liufan XiAng - Anqing Shi

Classroom ManagementClassroom management is a term that describes the process of ensuring that everything in the classroom runs smoothly despite some disruptive behavior by students. Not only that, but classroom management can also refer to the means by which a teacher prevents these disruptive behaviors from happening in the first place in the classroom [1]. Managing students? conduct are skills that teachers acquire and develop over time and that honing these skills require some years of teaching experience. Research and personal experiences indicate that most new teachers have difficulty in effectively managing their classrooms. Classroom management is essential to effective teaching and to be able to do this the teacher needs to understand in more than one way the psychological and developmental levels of his students. Classroom management is closely linked to issues of motivation, discipline and respect. However, many scholars and teachers have different views and opinions as to how to go about it. For example, Evertson and Weinstein[2] describe classroom management as a process that involves the actions taken in the classroom to create an environment that is conducive for academic and social?emotional learning. And to achieve this goal, the teacher must develop caring, supportive relationships with and among students; organize and implement instruction in ways that will optimize the students? access to learning; use group management methods to encourage students? engagement in academic tasks; promote the development of students? social skills and self?regulation; and use appropriate interventions to assist students with behavior problems. Dr. Tracey Garrett like Evertson and Weinstein also described classroom management as a process that consists of very important tasks that the teacher must adhere to in order to create an encouraging atmosphere for learning. He enumerated these tasks as consisting of organizing the physical environment; establishing rules and routines; developing caring relationships; implementing engaging instruction and preventing and responding to discipline problems [1]. Kauchak and Eggen in 2008 [3] explained classroom management focusing on time management. They said that the main aim of classroom management is not only to maintain order but to optimize student learning and that classroom management can be broken down into four overlapping phases namely; allocated time, instructional time, engage time and academic learning time. Allocated time is the time for announcements, attendance etc procedures that goes on before a class starts, instructional time as the time where actual teaching and learning take place, engage time as the time where students take part in learning activities like answering of questions, presentations etc, and last but not the least, academic learning time is where students participate actively and become successful in learning activities (i.e. it can be compared to the activate stage of EFL). Classroom management is very important because it promotes effective learning and not only that but also the fact that ?once a teacher loses control of his classroom, it becomes increasingly more difficult for them to regain that control? to quote Moskowitz and Hayman [4]. There are a lot of things that a teacher can do to help prevent or stop some of the problems that may arise in the classroom. Good and experienced teachers will pace and structure their lessons and activities to suite their students and their level of difficulty, they will also arrange their classroom in such a way that they can be very visual and as such monitor everything happening in the classroom. Some teachers also teach students a set of routines and procedures to follow in the classroom at the beginning of the course. Experience teachers also plan well before a class, this helps them gain the confidence of the class thus helping to reduce some of the problems that may arise because of bad planning. These and many others are some of the ways that good and experienced teachers use to manage their class. REFERENCES 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classroom_management 2. Evertson and Weinstein (2006). Handbook of Classroom Management: Research Practice and Contemporary Issues. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-4753-7 3. Kauchak, D., and Eggen, P. (2008). Introduction to teaching: Becoming a professional (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. 4. Moskowitz, G., and Hayman, J. L., Jr. (1976). Success strategies of inner-city teachers: A year-long study. Journal of Educational Research, 69, 283-289