Classroom Management

1) What is RAPPORT and how do you build/maintain it?

• The teacher’s physical position – Distance from the students, central positioning, sitting or standing,
movement (teacher pacing up and down is distracting for most students)
• Eye contact – Maintain even eye contact (looking at one or two students only comes across as
favouritism)
• Use of students’ names – Remember names, nominate students and, when you do, say their name at
the end of the question rather than the beginning
• The teacher’s personal involvement – Show interest in what students say as well as how they say it -
active listening. Show interest with facial expressions and body language. Respond to what they say in a
natural way
• Use of praise and encouragement – Use graded praise (i.e. not saying “excellent” when the contribution
was “good”). Give enough praise for good work done (i.e. saying “exactly” or “yes, very good” rather
than “ok”)
• Body language and facial expressions – open, smiling, friendly, show interest, enthusiasm, humour
• Classroom atmosphere – relaxed, trusting, supportive
• Level of student involvement – a good rule of thumb for many lessons is 30% teacher talking time. Allow
students enough thinking time to prepare ideas alone or in pairs
• Spread of attention – Avoid favouritism. Actively involve shy and weaker students rather than “flying
with the fastest”
• Cliques – Prevent students from always working with the same people
• Allowing students to express their personality – What might you want/not want to contribute to a class
discussion? How would you feel if your teacher never asked you about your life/opinions? How would
you feel if your teacher never told you about their life/opinions?

2) How do PHYSICAL FACTORS influence a class?

• Positions of students and teacher – Horseshoe or rows? With tables or without? Teacher standing,
sitting, kneeling, crouching(variety is good). How near is the teacher to the students? Can all the
students see the teacher and each other? Are there empty chairs between students that need to be
filled by rearranging the seating?
• Voice projection – Make sure volume is sufficient to hear comfortably and don’t speak too fast. Make
sure students can hear each other
• Temperature, space, air, light, noise
• Equipment – using the board, tapes, CDs, OHPs, visuals, videos, DVDs, etc, variety can help maintain
interest
3) What should you bear in mind when MONITORING individual/ pair and groupwork? Consider:

• Teacher’s position – Try not to loom over ss. Crouch down to their level, walking round in front or
behind them
• Intervention – Try not to hijack the conversation but be there if students need help. Make sure students
are on task and communicating (kick-start the conversation if necessary and then leave students to get
on with it)
• Making notes for feedback – Note down good/ bad points for language feedback later

4) What should you think about when writing on the BOARD?

• Upper case/ Lower case – When writing on the board, write in lower case and only capitalise when
you normally would in English. So, if you’re writing a list of words on the board (e.g. car, lorry, bus, taxi),
don’t capitalise the first letter (e.g. Car, Lorry, Bus, Taxi) because this isn’t how you would usually see the
words written
• Colours – When writing new words, sentences or questions on the board, use the dark colours, i.e.
black or blue. Use red and green to highlight, e.g. parts of speech, phonemic symbols, syllables,
intonation, etc
• Size – Don’t write in huge/tiny letters on the board. Try to write using a reasonable size and test the
“readability” by writing something and standing at the back of the classroom to see if your writing is
easy to read.
• Board plan – Plan your boardwork before teaching the lesson. Make a board plan. Write (in the
relevant colours) what you’re going to put on the board and where.