Environment

Ross Thorburn
2022/05/20
Plan for
1. Background
2. Offer choices
3. Create roles for students
4. Build positive relationships
5. Things to avoid
6. Discussion: case study
7. Sharing and Q&A
8. Wrap up
Student behavior
1) Understand why students misbehave
2) Set rules and use rewards
3) Create a positive learning environment
4) Involve students throughout the class
 Offer

Choices
Choices should be
1) Limited. For younger children two or three choices is more
than enough
2) Practical. Don’t offer children choices which you can’t agree
to. If you ask.
3) Quick. Don’t spend too much of your class time on this.
Why give choices?
• Some children get angry when they don’t make choices for
themselves.
• If we give control to our students, the less likely they are to try
to take control from us when we don’t want them to.
• Making a choice is meaningful language use
Try offering students a choice:
• between option A and option B (e.g. “Do • of who they will work with (e.g. “You can
you want to play a game now or sing a work by yourself, or with the person next to
song now?” you.”
• in how students will complete something • of how many of something they do (e.g.
(e.g. “Do you want to draw with a pencil, or “Do at least five of the questions on page
a crayon?”) ten.”)
• about something in the class (such as • of what they miss or leave out (e.g. “Score
choosing their team name). out one of the questions on page ten that
• in the order they complete a task (or series you don’t want to answer.”)
of tasks) in (e.g.
Choice of homework
• give students a choice of homework assignment they want.
• for example, if you class has just learned about farm animals, students could
o Draw a picture of their favorite animal and write a sentence to describe it
o Color in a picture of a farm and write the names of the animals underneath
o Do a ‘color by numbers’, coloring animals according to a ‘key’
• Tell students how long they should work on an assignment (instead of how many
words to write or questions to answer).
Choice of what to learn
• Ask students what they want to learn.
• After presenting language to students from the coursebook,
ask learners if they can think of any words which are missing.
• For example, if students learned some pets in English (like
dog, cat, rabbit, etc.), ask students if they have any pets
which aren’t in the coursebook.
Which questions to answer
When answering questions during bookwork, give students a
choice over what questions they answer. Students could be told
to:
• answer a number of questions (e.g. “Do at least five questions
on page ten.”)
• cross out questions they don’t like (e.g. “Cross out two
questions you don’t want to answer.”).
• do the questions out of order.
Choice over resources
If your students are doing a coloring exercise, let them choose
what to color (a choice of two options is enough). For example
• If students just learned about pets, give them a choice of
coloring and labeling a cat or a dog. I
• If they need to write, ask them what color of pencil or crayon
they want.
• If students have to draw something, ask them if they want to
draw in landscape or portrait.
Example
What choices could
you give students if
you were teaching
this content?
Example
What choices could
you give students if
you were teaching
this content?
Why give students roles?
• Giving out roles makes students more responsive than just
asking them to help.
• Children enjoy getting extra independence and responsibility
• Children can feel disrespected when they’re not given
anything important to do. It’s easy to see how this can lead to
behavior problems.
How to use roles
• Ask them to think what needs done. Many students feel rebellious
when they are told what to do. Eliciting avoids that problem.
• If you use teams in your class, you could make one learner on
each team responsible for each task. For example, one student in
each team would take attendance for their half of the class.
• Try to make monotonous jobs enjoyable. Praise students when
they complete a task successfully.
Task and activity roles
• Activity leader. One student (or several students) can lead
activities which you’ve done before with the class. Activities like “I
spy…” or “What’s missing?” can be run by an activity leader (with
help and supervision from the teacher).
• English Monitor. This student monitors others during tasks and
activities. They remind students who are speaking their first
language to speak English instead.
Resource roles
• Homework Collector. They check that their peers have finished
their homework. They collect the homework and give this to the
teacher each lesson.
• Paper Passer. This student is responsible for passing out paper
during class.
• Stationary manager. They are in charge or pencils and crayons.
They hand these out to their peers during drawing and coloring
activities.
Classroom management roles
• Attention getter. This student is responsible for getting the attention of
their group. The teacher can ask these student leaders to get the other
learners in their group to stop talking and pay attention to the teacher.
• Tidiness Checker. They check the classroom to make sure students
have cleaned up after craft activities. At the end of class, they look for
any mess that needs to be tidied up.
• Score keeper. If you have a points-based reward system, one student
can be responsible for keeping the scores, giving out points and
counting the scores for the class.
Teacher helpers
• Board Cleaner. This student cleans the board at the end of class
for the teacher (or when the teacher asks).
• Attendance Taker. They check to see which students are in class
and which students are absent.
• New Student Helper. Any time new students join the class, this
student helps them. They explain the class rules, sit next to the
new student for their first class and act as their partner in pair
activities.
Language for roles
Teach useful phrases for students to do these tasks in English, like
• English Monitor: “Speak English please”.
• Homework Collector: “Homework please”, “Please pass me your
homework, “Here you are.”
• Paper Passer: “Paper please”.
• Stationary manager: “What color do you want?”
• Attendance Taker: Names of the students in your class.
• Tidiness Checker: “Put it away, please”, “Put it in the trash, please.”
Scaffold responsibility
Don’t do anything in class that a student could do for you. Help students do
more by going through these four steps.
1) Show students how to do the task. Model the procedure for the students.
2) Get students to do part of the task with help from you.
3) Get students to do the task with help from a peer.
4) Get students to do the task.
Example
What roles would be
useful in this activity?
Example
What roles would be
useful in this activity?
Why build relationships
• Good behavior will come out of positive relationships (more than
just rewards)
• Students will be more motivated if they know you and you know
them
• Having positive relationships with your students makes teaching
more enjoyable
Let students express themselves
Ask your students some genuine (“referential”) questions so they
can tell you something about themselves. Even at low levels you
can ask students about their:
• preferences (e.g. “What ____ do you like?”)
• possessions (e.g. “Do you have a ____ ?)
• experiences (e.g. “Have you seen a ____?”
• abilities (e.g. “Can you ____?”)
Let students express themselves: Example
What genuine (“referential”) questions could you ask about…
Explain decisions
• Tell your students why you’re doing what you’re doing. Do this in
simple language (or using the students’ mother tongue).
• For example, if you play a memory game with your students, tell
them this will help them better remember in the future.
• If you ask students to brainstorm works they can use in task, tell
them this will help them do better in the task by preparing.
• Or if you stop a game because students are running around, tell
them they have to walk so they don’t hurt themselves.
Eye level
• If you’re interacting with a small group of students, get to the
same eye level as the learners.
• Being on the same eye level as your students shows respect. If
you stand while your students sit, they have to look up to you
which can feel intimidating for learners.
• Try either sitting down, or crouching down, or sitting together
with students on the floor.
Punishment
• Students are less likely to learn if they are worried or anxious, or if they
have low self-esteem.
• Punishment is a form of attention. The more you punish your students,
the more you say to the class “If you want my attention, behave like him
(or her)”.
• Student retention. Your students won’t want to keep coming back to
class.
• Do you want to be the kind of teacher who spends a lot of their day
shouting at students and making them feel bad?
Humiliation
• Don’t reward students individually. This can make students with the
least points feel they’re bad at English (or ‘bad people’)
• Don’t compare students Avoid saying “That’s good. But not as good as
Michael.”
• Punishing students in front of the rest of the class.
Modelling negative behavior
• Don’t throw things. You don’t want your students to throw things.
• Don’t shout. You don’t want your students to shout.
• Don’t get angry. You expect students to control their emotions. You need
to show you can control yours.
• Don’t have favorites. Treat students equally.
Annie’s class
Annie has a class of student who she dislikes teaching. The students are
four years old. Annie finds it difficult to keep their attention. The students
aren’t very interested in learning. They often refuse to take part in activities.
Annie finds it hardest to get students to sit quietly while she sets up the next
activity. She encourages the students to be patient by telling them if they
behave badly she will give them more homework. This doesn’t work very
well.
What advice would you give Annie?
Bethany's class
Bethany teaches a group of middle school students who are low level for
their age. The students aren’t very interested in learning about grammar.
They also think they are not good at English. The students are often not
interested in reading or hearing about the content in their coursebook.
Bethany tries to be strict with them, but her relationship with the students
doesn’t get any better.
What advice do you have for Bethany?
Cecilia’s class
Cecilia has a badly behaved group of 7-9 year old students. The Cecilia
feels that the students don’t like her very much. She finds the students are
able to answer questions from the coursebook, but parents complain they
are not able to have a conversation in English. Cecilia has tried to
encourage students by giving each student a point when they speak
correctly, but the children don’t want to talk very much.
What advice do you have for Cecilia?
Summary of
1. Background
2. Offer choices
3. Create roles for students
4. Build positive relationships
5. Things to avoid
6. Discussion: case study
7. Sharing and Q&A
8. Wrap up
•

•
Q&
Environment

Ross Thorburn
2022/05/20