The posting that follows is part of a personal glossary of some of the skills that I use every day and what they mean to me.
Pantomiming
The ability to be flamboyant is a requirement of good classroom management. It can be used to add humour to a lesson and assert expectations. I coined the term because there are times when the teacher needs to be both “larger than life” and to consciously act a part in the classroom.
Patience
One of the difficulties with classroom management is that it is always there. No matter how experienced a teacher is there are always issues relating to classroom management that have to be dealt with. It can be tiresome to repeat the same manoeuvres with a group day after day, week after week and that can test your patience. If you accept classroom management is an integral part of your working life and plan for it then it becomes as everyday as breathing. Have patience and focus on the skills of making it work.
Positive start – positive finish
Make sure that your lesson has a good starter activity and an equally well thought out plenary. Students resent finishing over time if for no other reason that their next teacher will berate them for being late. Starting right, means that students are engaged and quickly settle to their learning. This gives you valuable “release time” to deal with the inevitable issues arising at the start of a class.
Praise – and how / when to do it
For some students, praise can be tricky to deal with. Use a range of strategies and gauge how effect they are with different students. Use stickers, stamps, words (spoken and written), postcards, certificates, phone calls or just a smile. Make praise genuine and specific and focused on the work produced.
Proximity / Positioning
Similar to the advice on “inhabiting the classroom”, think about where you position yourself in class. By moving close to students who are finding it hard to focus you exert a subtle pressure to conform that can be very effective.
