Teach English in Shahezhan Zhen - Tai'an Shi

Large classes are often a source of trepidation for many teachers. In many schools, the student to teacher ratio is often in favor of the students. This presents difficulty in teaching and allowing for one-on-one time between a teacher and their student. For the purpose of this assignment, I would like to present examples that demonstrate that large classes are not always a bad thing. Several years ago I volunteered with a ministry based in Central America. While there, one of my responsibilities was to teach English. Initially, I taught grades one through six in a primary school. However, for the second part of the year I had the responsibility of teaching the entire school- grades one through eleven. This was an amazing experience, and each child was and continues to be very special to me. Several classes stand out to me. The first class we will look at is the seventh grade. When I first encountered these students I had a co-teacher, thankfully. In this classroom, we were literally packed in, forty students and wall-to-wall desks with narrow walkways between them. Without my co-teacher, these students could easily have gotten out of control. At the beginning of the school year, half of the class did not really understand the necessity of learning English as a second language, while the other half embraced and excelled at it. At this time, neither my co-teacher nor I had any formal teacher training. Michael (my co-teacher) and I had heard stories about large classrooms. We had heard how they could be completely awful and make a teacher dread going to that class. For this reason, we were determined to make this a great experience for ourselves and for the students. One remedy for this situation was to take the students outside to the soccer pitch once a week for our class time. We gained permission from the school administration prior to taking the students outside for our allotted class period. We used this time to test the students’ knowledge and we worked on what we had learned in the previous class. This time outside was used for practical application. Being outdoors also allowed for different activities. The kids loved being loud and having a great time learning. We would play Simon Says and/or ball games adapted to utilize what we had learned in class that day. What could have easily been a disaster turned out to be a great experience. As an added bonus, the children came to love learning a new language. Another class which stands out is the sixth-grade class. This one was not quite as large, as it had only thirty students. In this class I did not have a co-teacher. These students were all so eager and loved to learn. At times the children would be rowdy and a bit unruly. However, I believe this is just the nature of children. In my experience, small or large classrooms will have days where the students want to be loud. When this occurs, it is the responsibility of the teacher to find a way to calm them down. When my students would get a little rowdy, I would stay calm and wait patiently for them to realize that I was waiting for them to settle down before beginning the class. In the past, some of my teacher friends have said that when they raise their voices or yell at the children, it only makes matters worse. In this classroom I was significantly out-numbered, so I wanted to make sure I had their respect. Once a teacher gains this respect, their students are much more likely to listen and respect the rules of the classroom. The students in this class were very sensitive and tender-hearted. Many times I simply told them to quiet down, and they complied without hesitation. What also helped were the rules we started with at the beginning of the school year. In a class that size, rules are undoubtably necessary. In such a large class consistency is also a must, so sticking to the rules becomes increasingly important. These students learned that there was a consequence and rewards system on the first day we met for class. In this class the rules system worked, and we had no real problems. These are just two examples of why I believe that large classrooms are not necessarily a bad thing. If a teacher is prepared and knows how to handle various situations, having large classes can be very rewarding. In large classrooms, it is generally difficult to have individual instruction time with each student. However, breaking the class up into smaller groups facilitates opportunity for student-student as well as student-teacher interactions. Lastly, large groups create more options for games and group activities to aid instruction.