Monday, August 5, 2013

Katie Austin-Article #2 Classroom Management "Classroom Management with EFL Students"


As a new teacher, finding your rhythm in your classroom will take patience and time.  But imagine if one of your teaching jobs was located in South Korea.  How would you adapt to not having a classroom size of 30 EFL (Non-Native English Speaking) students, but to the new cultures around you?  That is exactly what this article explores.  Natalie Britton, an elementary school teacher, wrote this article about her personal experience teaching EFL students in South Korea and shares 4 helpful techniques that helped her “control a large classroom of EFL students.” (Britton, 2013)  Britton’s 4 techniques she shares in her article are quiet signals, teams and team points, timer and develop relationships.

            Britton does well breaking down each category by comparing what some teachers use for their teaching methods and what she does in terms of using and applying these 4 shared techniques.  The first technique is quiet signals.  Britton discusses how it is “essential for effective teachers to have a quiet signal in class.”  (Britton, 2013)  As a teacher myself, I can relate to Britton’s statement.  In my preschool classroom when I first started teaching, I was like the teachers who Britton mentions in her article; who used the “raise your hand” signal to get the classroom’s attention to quiet down.  From personal experience it worked sometimes but I would still have students who would continue to talk until their heart was content.  As Britton continues to discuss about quiet signals, she describes another quiet signal used by teachers who would say to the class to get their attention “one, two, eyes on me!” and the classroom would reply with “one, two, eyes on you!” (Britton, 2013)  I used this quiet signal method as I became more comfortable teaching in my classroom and for me personally it worked very well with my students.  Britton reports that “for ESL students, your signals should incorporate a combination of student listening (auditory), student looking (visual) and student movement (kinesthetic).  She goes on to describe two ways she would demonstrate these signals.  One way she uses the quiet signal is by doing a “clapping pattern where she will clap a pattern and her students knew they had to be quiet after they clap back.” (Britton, 2013)  This signal uses Britton’s recommended combination of listening, looking and movement.  Her second quiet signal she uses with her class is counting down from five.  She holds her hand up and shows the numbers on her fingers as she counts down, “Five, four, three, two, one, and quiet.”  This signal is another example of both listening and looking and Britton reports “this signal is appropriate for most ESl learners as well since counting to five is a basic English skill.”  (Britton, 2013)  In addition to using “one, two, eyes on me and one, two eyes on you”  as a quiet signal method, currently with my school age classroom I use what’s called “Quiet Coyote.”  This method uses Britton’s suggested combination of looking, listening and movement.  If I need to get my students attention and need them to be quiet I will say out loud “Quiet Coyote” and with one hand, I make a coyote by having my middle, ring and thumb fingers come together with the index pinky finger pointed up in the air.  This signal represents it’s time to be quiet and listen up because important instructions are coming their way.  After I say “Quiet Coyote” I count down from 3…2…1 and when I get to 1 my students understand that the expectation is to be completely silent when complete my countdown. This method is quite affective in my school age classroom of 22 students. 

            The second technique, team and team points, Britton discuss how she organizes her over 30 students to decrease chaos in the classroom and increase team work.  Britton discusses that she “divides her students up into teams so they can collaborate, work together and earn team points.”  (Britton, 2013)  She continues to say that “all throughout class, points were given for good behavior and correct answers.”  (Britton, 2013)  She feels that by “giving points throughout class, students are kept accountable both for their behavior and for their academic performance.”  (Britton, 2013)  This technique would be more beneficial for larger classrooms and with upper grades such as 3rd grade and up.  To adapt this to smaller and younger aged classrooms (Pre-K-2nd grade) you could, for example, have the students work with a partner and do a scavenger hunt around the classroom and the pair who finds the most items could earn the something positive for the classroom like 10 extra minutes during recess time.

            The third technique Britton recommends is a kitchen timer.  She uses this technique for when her “students continue to talk after her quiet signal is given.  Once the timer is started if those students continue to talk at the end of the class those students must stay in the classroom with their heads down on their desks for the amount of time shown on the timer.”  (Britton, 2013) Britton adds that “her students hate staying late because they have a short break in between classes and therefore they usually stop talking within 5 seconds of her starting the timer.” (Britton, 2013)  In my preschool classroom, I found a kitchen timer to be most useful when rotating play centers.  Before my students would be dismissed for their play centers, we would sit together on the carpet and I would let my students choose the center they wanted to play at, dismissing them two students at a time. Once everyone chose a center, the timer would be set for 10 minutes.  During those 10 minutes the kids were not allowed to leave their center and choose another until the 10 minutes was up.  After 10 minutes, the kids were instructed they would have 2 additional minutes on the timer to clean up their centers appropriately.  Once the time was up I would go around to each center and make sure it was cleaned up appropriately.  Once all centers were checked, students would rotate centers and another 10 minutes would be placed on the timer.  It taught my student to be accountable and responsible for their center as well as utilizing their auditory (listening for the timer), visual (seeing me, their teacher, come around to each center to ensure the centers is picked up appropriately) and student movement (kinesthetic) (rotating their centers appropriately). 

            The fourth and final technique is to develop relationships.  Britton does a sensational job discussing why it’s important to develop relationships with your students.  “Despite how many classroom management techniques you have established in class, nothing can compare to the relationships that you develop with your students.  Establishing a friendly, encouraging (yet rigorous) milieu in your class can do wonders for your ability to manage a classroom. If you take time to talk to your students outside of class time, you will gain their trust.  When students trust you, they respect you as a teacher and much more likely to pay attention in class.” (Britton, 2013)  For Britton, she reflects on what developing relationships with her students was like.  “During the first few months, I was apprehensive and nervous and made little effort to connect with my students.  After I relaxed and felt more comfortable teaching.  I began developing a rapport with students by talking to them before class, after class, at my desk, and in the halls.  About four months into teaching, I noticed a huge shift in student attention during my class.”  (Britton, 2013)  After reading this section of the article, I reflected to when I first started teaching and what it was like to build relationships with my students. 

When I first started teaching in my preschool classroom, I had a few students that appeared to trust me right away, but I had a few students, one in particular who it took months to build a relationship with.  This student frequently would act out during class, struggled to pay attention during any lesson being taught and overall struggled listening and trusting any adult figure.  After months of trying everything I could think of to build this trust relationship with this student one day after she threw a huge tantrum after not wanting to get up after nap time, I sat down with her one-on-one after she calmed down and asked her if there was something I could do to make her more comfortable to be around me.  Her answer was honest, heartbreaking and simple all at the same time.  She replied, “Don’t promise me anything if you can’t keep it.”  I admit I was a little taken back by her response.  Before I could respond she added, “I just don’t want you to be like my dad.  He promised he’d never leave me and he did.”  This was hard to hear but I realized in that moment that just by her opening up to me the way she did, we were on a good path to building a trusting relationship.  I found it easy for myself to honor her request because I had always never promised anything to anyone if I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it.  By showing her this, she continued to open up a little more everyday and by the end of the year we had a very strong and positive student-teacher relationship. 

            “Natalie Britton is an elementary school teacher and has taught ELL (English Language Learners) and EFL (Non-native English Speaking) students in North America, Central America, Africa and Asia.”  (Britton, 2013)  This article is insightful for any teacher in need of helpful techniques to being able to organize and manage their classroom but also if, like Britton, you have a classroom with one, some or all EFL students. 

 

Britton, N. (2013). Classroom Management with EFL Students http://www.teachingvillage.org/2013/06/18/classroom-management-with-esl-students-by-natalie-britton/, Pgs. 1-4

 

Tuesday, July 16, 2013


“Teachers are being judged by how strict they are. Meanwhile, thousands of children are not going to school, teachers are under increasing pressure to command their students to behave, and parents are blamed for not being good role models.” (Taylor, 2012 pg. 1) Tim Taylor, a primary school teacher working in east of England (Taylor, 2012 pg. 3) speaks on his experience working in a school with a particular child whom he referred to as Kyle, a child with extreme behaviors that became at times too difficult to manage and would need to be removed from the classroom.  Taylor refused to give up on Kyle and with the help of Dr. Geoff James, a specialist support teacher working for a local authority school support service (Taylor, 2012, pg. 3); James came to Taylor’s school to offer support and guidance to Kyle and him. Helping and showing Taylor how to use an inquiry based approach, Taylor and Kyle were able to transform their relationship and change Kyle’s once extreme behavior into nonexistence. 

      In your teaching career, you are going to be challenged in dealing with behavior management in the classroom. Whether it is a few particular students or one student specifically as discussed in this article, teachers need to be able to find different approaches to reach those “difficult” students on another level.  Though it won’t be easy at times, it is important to not give up on those challenging children. Taylor discusses that “after four or five years he learned a wide range of behavior management strategies based on rewarding good and punishing bad behavior. The strategies he used were stickers, golden time, time out, three strikes and red and yellow cards.” (Taylor, 2012, pg.1).  With this information provided, it illustrates the importance that all instructors should have some form of a behavior system whether the behavior is positive or negative.  However as educators, it is important to ask ourselves what happens when you’re faced with a student, as Taylor was with Kyle, where with the behavior system in place, what happens when it doesn’t respond to the child in the way that it should?  From personal teaching experience using similar behavior management strategies, as Taylor did, I found them ineffective in dealing with especially challenging children. This included time out, stickers and green, yellow and red behavior circles that were affective with most students but not with a child like Kyle. Dealing with a student like “Kyle” in an actual classroom experience requires flexibility from the standard behavior strategies and requires patients and creativity.

      As Taylor did, it is important to draw from outside resources when you are struggling as an instructor with behavioral children.  Whether it be books or specialists, being open to different methods to help manage those children who are behavioral can benefit not only in the structure of your classroom but it will benefit the child who is having the behavioral issues and make them successful.  For Taylor, he reached out to Geoff James, a local authority specialist support teacher who was looking into behavior support for his PhD. (Taylor, 2012, pg. 3) Taylor writes that he had met James years before and invited him to the school to work with Kyle and him. (Taylor, 2012, pg. 2) James advised Taylor to start talking to Kyle about something he was already doing successfully (Taylor, 2012, pg. 2) which was football.  It was a starting platform for Taylor and Kyle but as educators we must keep in mind that finding the starting platform is one step but to be able to make a trusting relationship with your student or students in order to create an open communication wave can be a challenge but extremely rewarding when successful.  For Taylor beginning with a starting platform with Kyle, it appeared that their conversations about Kyle’s success in football were going positively and Taylor felt widening their platform to include school would be the necessary next step.  Taylor refers to one of his conversations with Kyle: “What’s your best hope for school Kyle?” “To be friends with the others in class so I can play football with them.” (Taylor, 2012, pg. 2)  As Taylor and Kyle’s conversations continued, Taylor discussed with Kyle about Kyle’s anger. In the article, Taylor and Kyle talk about what Kyle would do if he felt himself getting angry and if there is some place he could go to calm down.  After further discussion, Kyle expressed that he would leave the classroom and go under a table when he became angry and when he was calm he would return the classroom and be ready to continue working.  (Taylor, 2012, pg. 3)

      In the article, Taylor writes what happened after Kyle and he decided on where he would go if he became angry: “Kyle was as good as his word.  Over the next few weeks whenever he started to get angry he would leave the classroom and sit under the table.  I let everyone know this was agreed and they left him alone.  In often less than five minutes, he would come back into class to work.  We continued to meet fairly regularly and when things went wrong which they did occasionally-I’d ask him what he might do to make them better. Working in this way with Kyle transformed our relationship. We learned to work together and to trust each other. Kyle began to relax in class and became more focused on his learning.  The other children relaxed too and Kyle’s violent outbursts disappeared.” (Taylor, 2012 pg 3)

      As educators, it is crucial that we not give up on those children who are challenging. We must do everything in our power to meet those students at an even platform and begin a trusting relationship.  We must find different approaches whether it be an inquiry based approach as Taylor used or using other outside references and resources (i.e. time out, stickers, colored circles, etc.) to meet these children’s needs.  It is up to us as educators to do everything in our power to help these children and let them know they are not alone and that helping them become successful is the ultimate goal to be achieved. 

 

 

Taylor, T. (2012).  A Fresh Look at Behavior Management in Schools.