Teach English in Guangshengsi Zhen - Linfen Shi

Along with the development of globalization, parents and teachers put more emphasis on the student’s learning of speaking skill, especially in China. To encourage student’s interaction in speaking class, here are some techniques such as pair-work, group-work, interesting speaking activities, etc. In my opinion, the seating arrangement which can change classroom dynamics is the basement of techniques mentioned above after my learning of TEFL course. The effective seating arrangement can make the pair-work, group work go well and encourage student to join speaking activities with higher motivation and better quality under teacher’s effective supervision. “What is the effective seating arrangement in English speaking class” will be a question for teachers. To answer this question, we need to know the common types of different classroom arrangement. As we know, the “Orderly rows” is the traditional form of seating in many schools which is suitable for the big class. It allows teacher to have eye contact with all students and monitor the student’s performance. And this way makes it easy to use the teaching equipment like the board, IWB, OHP, etc. It also has some limitations in speaking activities although it can arrange pairs or groups basing on table, row or column. On the one hand, some students cannot watch the movements of teacher’s mouth and tongue because the distance with teacher is not suitable. Some students will be confused the pronunciation when there is little difference of two words, like fine and five. On the other hand, the atmosphere of relaxed communication will become inactive because the position. For instance, the students who are sitting at the front row cannot gain the feedback from the students who are sitting at the back row when they are speaking. And the students who are sitting at the back row may lose attention because teacher is focusing on the student who is speaking. The students who are lack of feedback and encouragement and students who are not involved in the speaking class will lack confidence to speak and their speaking skill cannot get improvement quickly in consequence. The second common form is “Circles and horseshoes” which is suitable for small class. There are just seats arranging in a half circle without tables. This kind of arrangement offers students similar distance with teacher and it allows all students to hear teacher’s pronunciation and watch teacher’s movement of mouth. Student’s attention will be more focused because teacher can monitor all students in different activities. Meanwhile, student who is doing the presentation can gain attention from all students and also can see teacher’s praise action clearly, which can help students build confidence and increase their motivation. Without the limitation of tables, the atmosphere will be more active when students are doing the speaking activities because they all can stand to act. For example, they can do the action when they are speaking the sentence with words” jump, run, walk…”. This can create a relax atmosphere and promote student to join the speaking activities. It is not suitable for the big class although it has many advantages for English speaking lesson. So, it is not suitable for some countries like China and India where the class is normally big. The third common form is “Separable tables”. The 4-6 students are seated in a small group at individual table. This kind of arrangement is useful for group work. And teacher can arrange speaking activities basing on these small groups. It can help students join the activities in their self-group. But it will increase the discipline problems when students feel that they are part of a small group rather than the class as whole. And the classroom looks disordered because there are no rules of group arrangement. In my point of view, these three ways have their advantages and disadvantages, so we can mix them together to distract their advantages, which is the effective seat arrangement in English speaking class. Firstly, we can divide the big class into different groups according to student’s ability and personality. And choose a group leader who has the strong ability. Of course, we can buy the chair with a small table, which can allow student to use the table to write and it is also convenient to stand up to join the speaking activities. And then, we can treat individual group as individual student and arrange these groups in horseshoes type. This can ensure the advantages bring by the type “circles and horseshoes”. The horseshoe is just like “U”. To bear in mind, the opening of “U” should face the platform, to ensure the teacher can use teaching equipment and all students can see the content displayed on equipment. It also allows teacher to walk into different group and individuals to correct their pronunciations. Overall, the effective seating arrangement just comes from my thinking after TEFL learning and my practice in English class. Hopefully, it will be a good way to arrange seats in English speaking class. And I believe some other effective seating arrangements will come out with teacher’s teaching practice.