Teach English in Zhengying Zhen - Heze Shi

Seating arrangement is very important to the classroom, as it can significantly influence learning. Proper seating can be benefit for interaction, atmosphere and behavior. So how can we make a proper seating arrangement? To answer that, first we may want to start from knowing some basic information about the classroom, students, teaching style, and objectives. Before we start to move chairs and tables around, let’s take a look at the classroom we’re going to teach in. There are few things you may want to know in detail: available space, type of chairs and table, and teaching equipment. Then we need some information about students, such as nationality, personality, age and amount, so we could make seating arrangement as well as lesson plan according to all the information above. Whether a teacher could achieve her/his objectives in lesson depends largely on the interaction between teacher and student or student and student. Consequently, teacher’s understanding of students’ personality and nationality could be vital when it comes to seating arrangement. In some area, students could come from two different culture, countries or regions which considered to be enemy or with bad relationship. Arrange those students sit nearby or in a group together could lead to quarrel, or even a fight. For this reason, teacher could know students’ nationality from their registered information before making seating arrangement. Students’ personality on the other hand, may need teacher to observe during lesson. For example, a shy student could be overwhelmed by too much attention or be ignored while a talkative student could get too much attention than needed or make noise to disturb other students. After we got the information we need and have made a lesson plan, we could choose the form of seating. There are a few forms that are considered to be popular, and I’d like to introduce three forms in detail: traditional, horseshoe or semicircle, and clusters or group pods. The traditional form of seating or orderly row is the most common classroom arrangement. It creates a teacher-centered class, which would be easier for teacher to supervise, demonstrate, take tests and make presentations. Though it’s a seating arrangement that suitable for all size of class, and often used in large classes, students are more likely to lose focus and to be less engaged, especially the students in back rows. Also, by creating a teacher-centered class, it discourages student-centered discussion and group work. While traditional is often used in larger classes, a horseshoe or semicircle is often used in small or medium classes. It creates a teacher-and-student-centered class, so it would be easier for teacher to interact with entire class. It encourages discussion and participation, and the “U" shape will provide a place for demonstrations and presentations. However, too much attention and discussion may overwhelm the shy students as well as make other students difficult to control. Also, it’s not suitable for work in small groups. Unlike traditional and horseshoe, clusters or group pods create a totally student-centered class. It encourages interaction of all students, thus suit for all size of classes and spaces. Group pods offer a safer and comfortable environment for students to share their ideas, to cooperate with other students and work as a team. But by creating a student-centered class, student will have more student-to-student interaction and solve problems as a team, which could increase noise level, and leads to off-task behavior. Also, teamwork could make single students feel less accountable as an individual. Additionally, we could combine them together, for example, if there are lots of students and enough space, teacher could make a double horseshoe, so there will be two rows, inner and outer, students in outer row may not get enough attention as students in inner row. However, it creates a larger discussion than a horseshoe or traditional form, students could easily communicate with those who sit near them. There is no rule against creativity, so teacher could also create some new forms of seating according to her/his experience and objectives. In conclusion, there’s no such thing like perfect seating arrangement. Every classroom, student, teacher and even lesson are unique, therefore, which seating arrangement to use could be based on many factors, and those factors sometime could be uncontrollable for teacher. So what teacher could do is choose carefully, be flexible and creative, or it could be one of the three forms above or a combination. Choose a seating arrangement could be neglected easily, but a wisely chosen seating arrangement could help teacher and class to reach its objectives.