Are you an English Education student? or are you a teacher? If you are included in both criteria, this following material will be really helpful. As a common thing, teachers dominantly hold teaching activity in classroom. Therefore, managing the classroom situation will be essential for the sake of succeeding a teaching learning process. To know more about it, here I summarize important points of managing classroom taken from Harmer (2007,p.34-45).
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
For
managing classroom in an effective way, teachers should be able to handle a
range of variable. It consists of organizing classroom space, students’
working, and classroom time. We also need to notice how we appear to student,
how we use their voice, the way teachers talk to the students, who talks most
in the lesson, and the role of mother tongue in lessons.
To manage the classroom, we teachers should consider our
physical presence and behavior in the classroom. The way we move, stand,
respond to what happen in class, the degree of awareness to the classroom
situation, and marking the difference between successful and less satisfactory
lesson are the matters of appropriacy. We teachers also should consider how
close we are to the students. The matter is about proximity.
Movement
Every teacher has their
own way to take a look to their movement. Nevertheless, moving around the
classroom to some extent is regarded as the most successful way to do. It can
retain students’ interest and make closer to smaller group. However, it depends
on the teachers’ personality to choose which physical way they want to do.
Awareness
Awareness is assessing
what students have said and responding appropriately because making contact
with students is the key of helping students to learn in the classroom. Self-awareness
is also important because by having this, teachers can measure their behavior
and know how students see them. Therefore, awareness can be concluded in
personality aspect to manage classroom.
Using the voice
Teachers’ voice should
be audible by students who sit in the front until in the back of class. Being
audible here means they tend to have a good projection rather than a high
volume. Teachers should vary the volume of voice that depends on the activity.
The volume of voice will be different when we are giving instruction,
introducing a new activity, and having an informal conversation.
Conservation
It means that teachers
should control their voice by emphasizing the important thing to conserve their
voice.
Talking to students
The manner of teachers’
talk/interact with students is one important thing. An ability that is commonly
used by teachers is rough-tune the language. The ability is the way to make
teachers be more understood. Teachers adapt their language by using physical
movement, gesture, expression, and mime.
Giving instructions
In giving instruction,
it is better for teachers to keep giving a simple and logical thing. It is also
necessary to check whether the students have understood or not. It is carried
out by asking students or one of them to show the other students in the class
how the exercise works.
Student talk and
teacher talk
In this matter, the
activity should be student-centered. It means that student talk time should
dominate the activity than teacher talk time. Teachers also should consider
teachers talk quality.
Using the L1
The using of L1 should
be done dominantly in class. L1 may be used when there are complicated
instructions that should be conveyed to students. It is forgiven to use L1 in
order to make sure the students’ comprehension about the instructions.
Creating Lesson Stages
The beginning of lesson
stage should be necessarily clear. It may give students’ interest. Here the
teachers really need students’ attention from the beginning to the last stage
of lesson.
Different seating
arrangements
It indicates the
approach that the teachers used. It means that different seating arrangement
gives different approach in conducting teaching-learning activity. For making
it clear, here is the details of each arrangement.
Orderly rows
It can be used when
doing organized activity such as explain grammar points, watching DVD, using
board, etc. in this seating arrangement, the teachers can keep her eye contact
and reach students’ attention in classroom. It is to make sure that their
students involve in classroom activity.
Circles and horseshoes
It is especially used in
smaller classes. This arrangement makes the students feel equal. It can lower
the barrier between teachers and students. The students can see the expression,
gesture, and body movement each other.
Separate tables
It can make the
teachers easier to see the students’ work in group. Teachers can explain in a
smaller group. It is also effectively used in collaborative writing, working
around screen or listening. However it may be a problem when not all students
are happy to work in group.
Different students
grouping
Whole class
This will increase the
sense of belonging between teachers and students. The students will make the
students motivated and treat them as the same part of the group. Nevertheless,
this way is less effective if we want to get individual participation.
Group work and pair
work
It makes students work
individually and independently. The students will feel free to do the work. It
makes teachers are able to give more focus on a group who needs a more
attention. On contrary, this seating arrangement also gives some disadvantages.
It will be a problem when the students do not want to be in the same group.
They would not be happy. Then, the problem also happens in the unequal
participation among students. The using of the same first language could be
another problem as well.
Solo work
The students can do as
they want. They know when the best time to think. They also can consider their
need and progress.
Class to class
It can motivate
students in different level. For students in lower level, they will be
motivated by the higher level class. Then for the students of higher level,
they will feel positive because they are able to help another student to learn.
Reference:
Harmer, Jeremy. 2007b. How to
Teach English. China:
Pearson Education Limited.
