Teach English in Dayang Zhen - Jincheng Shi

At the time I achieved my teaching degree in Virginia (USA), I was not only still young in age, but was also very young at heart. I had much in common with the grade level of students I was teaching, interests in music, television, movies, and social activities. This unfortunately created an environment where as a teacher I was thought of too much as a friend or even a peer rather than adhering to the important distinction between teacher and student. As this unfortunate situation developed and took hold, I became less and less able to manage a classroom of sometimes more than 30 students. This ultimately led to a lack of confidence and success and I turned to another career path at that point in my life. Now more than twenty years later, as my career path is turning again toward teaching in the ESL area, I feel that it is important to address these issues of classroom management and discipline that were my obstacle before and look at them in the light of my life experience and in terms of substitute teaching. I became employed as a substitute teacher in my local county to get familiar with the classroom environment and pace again and to help inform my decision to return to the practice of teaching as a career. As a substitute, I have noted several techniques that have aided in smoothly running a classroom and lessening the need for disciplinary measures. It is important at this juncture to differentiate between teaching and substituting. Substituting places the teacher in a highly vulnerable spot as modern students identify this class period as a less important day for that particular subject. Students immediately begin testing boundaries when a substitute enters the classroom and there is no established precedent for behavior with the new individual. The teacher is thrust into the midst of an ongoing lesson which they may have only had a few minutes to prepare for or even to read over. This brings us to my first observed technique—declaration of respect. Very simply, this is an extremely brief declaration of intent and expectation by the teacher at the beginning of the class. It operates on the assumption that students of any age and skill level are rational human beings and will respond to being respected. It will also remind students that while their regular teacher is not present, he or she will receive notes on the class’ progress. It will often sound something like this: “Good morning class, I’m Mr. Zehmer. I hope you will all treat each other and me with respect today, as I intend to treat you with respect. We have a lot of material to cover in 90 minutes, so I hope everyone will behave with respect today so I can leave good notes on our progress for Mrs. Jones. If we can all work together by these simple rules, I’d like to offer you the last 5 minutes of class today to talk quietly and appropriately amongst yourselves or to do whatever you’d like from your seats within the rules of the school.” Illustrated here is another technique I found useful, reward. By rewarding the students with 5 minutes of free time at the end of class, as a substitute I may gain 85 minutes of relatively uninterrupted class time, a victory in any classroom. It also reinforces my respect for the students when I honor them with the reward of five minutes of free time. Another simple yet powerful technique I learned is for the teacher to stay in motion. Moving about the classroom while the lesson unfolds puts you in close proximity to the students, and shows that you are watching all of them. It displays engagement and prevents unwanted talking and note-passing, to name just a few examples. Finally, one of the most valuable tools I have aquired is the importance of teaching a changing and varied lesson. Essentially, 40 minutes of reading a book aloud will very quickly descend into chaos in most modern U.S. classrooms; whereas a lesson that introduces during an engage phase 10 minute discussion, followed by a ten minute worksheet (study phase), then proceeded by a paired discussion of worksheet answer for 10 minutes (study) and then a 10 minute standing game (activate phase) that the whole class can enjoy not only keeps the students too motivated and interested to act out or distract the class but also adapts the material to a variety of learning styles, so more students are reached. In summary, when I am ready to take on a class of my own, I fully intend to use declaration of respect, reward, teacher-in-motion, and a quickly changing, varied lesson plan to better manage my classroom in the hopes of avoiding the need for excessive discipline.