I think we all have an image in our minds of certain teachers and how they run a class – it could be a memory from schooldays or a lecturer from university. It might be a teacher trainer or a presenter you have seen, but, whoever it is, you will have noticed the way they manage the class. With English language teaching there is always the dividing line between getting our learners to practise and getting them to learn. Unless we are teaching meaning, explaining a rule or raising awareness of an aspect of pronunciation, we are often to be found setting up an activity, letting it run, monitoring it and feeding back. Whichever of the two roles we are fulfilling, managing the learning is vital. Ensuring you are actively listening, encouraging, helping and responding to questions is part and parcel of a typical lesson.
Class size will always influence how you can teach, we have readers who teach groups of eighty and others who teach only one-to-one. Teaching face-to-face or online will also have an impact, so any suggestions about classroom management always comes with the caveat that your local circumstances will have a large say in how you go about things. The type of learner, young, teenage or adult, is another factor at work and Ehsan Gorji looks at the latest generation in his article on the needs of Generation Alpha. He offers a lot of insights into how different they are from previous generations and reflects on the fact that we are the first people to work with them since they were all born in the last fourteen years.
Whatever the age of the learner, they will want to feel at home in their classroom. Well lit, comfortable, uncluttered are some of the conditions we all want in a learning environment; Steve Tulk tells us how to go about achieving this, even in a busy school. The importance of the space surrounding us as we learn and teach is critical and should not be overlooked. Relaxed students will be more motivated and engaged and this will often manifest itself in oral communication. Although much of our teaching these days is of a communicative nature and therefore requires teachers to set up activities, encourage discussion and provide feedback, there are many occasions when a quieter teacher is needed. George Murdoch looks at this aspect of classroom management and offers some valuable guidance.
However well you set up your classroom and plan your activities, things out of your control can still come into play. Students arriving late, one person not wanting to engage in pairwork, a clash of opinions in the middle of a speaking activity or learners falling out can all impact on the learning environment. When these things happen, order needs to be restored and restorative practice might be of use. Jamie Emerson explains this practice in his article and describes how helpful it can be.
During my last teaching stint in New Zealand, a regular aspect of our timetable was a weekly co-teaching slot. This immediately calls for a clear approach to planning and classroom management, two different teaching styles and backgrounds offer variety and complementarity to the learners but can also offer pitfalls. Tisa Rétfalvi-Schär has been teaching partnership classes for a few years in Switzerland and shares her experiences with us. If co-teaching means that the class size doubles, then you might well want to consider ways of ensuring each student feels they are getting enough individual time. James Heal looks at this important aspect of teaching and recommends some useful strategies for making sure learners feel they are getting enough attention.
As we mentioned above, approaches to teaching have changed over time and learner-centredness has become an important part of our approach. If students are expected to have more say in content and take on more responsibility for their own learning, then the natural consequence of this is that they also have a role to play in managing the classroom as Adrian Tennant discusses.
One important difference between online and face-to-face teaching could be the visual aspects of teaching. Mark Lawrence provides thoughts on how EAP courses have to be managed.
What began as a general theme for contributors to write about has turned into quite an intriguing one where everybody has observed their own teaching contexts and created readable and engaging articles. I am sure you will get a lot from reading them.
Robert McLarty is based in the UK where he writes, teaches and is the editor of MET.