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One piece of information in this chapter that I found particularly useful is how to reduce time spent writing on the board. Bringing in large visual ques and covering board with white pieces of paper are excellent ideas! It may not work in a situation where you are sharing classrooms with other teachers and can only get in 10 minutes before the class, but it could save some amount of time at the very least. I often find myself spending too much time with my back turned towards everyone so I really appreciated that small tip. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no control over seating arrangements. Japanese schools are very strict with a seating order that keeps students in ranked order. They have one classroom all day long and teachers are the one who cycle in and out. I have utilized changing the shape in the past, creating a circle shape for an active game, but with 42 students it did take a lot of time. I think I'm also not utilizing eye contact enough. I definitely do look directly at them but I had not thought of using eye contact and a smile as a reward for answering and participation (maybe I'll save all my smiles for those times). I'm also an ALT, assistant language teacher, which doesn't allow for much freedom in managing the classroom. In addition, Japanese students tend to be extremely shy. So the advice that I should rather remain silent than force students to answer does not really play out well. Also in a large classroom of all boys such as my situation now, it is extremely difficult to have them concentrate for pair-work. I might suggest grading their output as to motivate them more, but grading is never my choice.
