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When teaching any subject you are going to come across differences in what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviour. Particularly when teaching English, you also need to consider the cultural understanding of your students before you can determine what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviour. For example, maybe they are rude to you as a woman teacher because they come form a country where women are treated as second class citizens. Maybe they are on their phone the whole class because where they came from, that was OK inside the classroom. In general I think the best way to establish the type of behaviour you want in your classroom is to establish rules/agreements or codes of conduct that all students need to abide by within your classroom. Obviously if you work for an organisation, they will probably have these guidelines already certain and expect you as a teacher to enforce them. If you are teaching without this guidelines, then you need to consider what your basic needs are in a classroom and also engage the students in deciding what is the type of behaviour they think is appropriate or not appropriate inside a classroom. If you involve the students in making the group agreements, they have some sense of duty to maintain them as they were active participants in the decision making process. In general, if a student is acting poorly in a classroom, such as being disruptive, loud, talking over others, being violent towards a student or the teacher, or any other dangerous behaviour, the best course of action is to ask the student to leave the classroom and to meet with them outside of class to discuss why they are behaving like that. You can also ask the student what you as a teacher can do to work with them in getting them to comply to the classroom agreements and therefore rejoin the group. My experience of teaching has been that you don’t reprimand a student in front of a class, but ask to speak with them outside the classroom to see what the problem is. The only time you may reprimand is if they are a physical danger to themselves or someone else in the classroom. I think that if you are employed by an English language school, you always need to follow the rules that the school has decided in relation to punishment or reporting negative behaviour. It is also your responsibility as a teacher to find out what the schools rules and policies are in relation to behaviour management. Taking a more humane approach, normally ‘bad behaviour’ is a reflection of an outside influence on that students ability to study. Try to develop a professional but caring rapport with your students so that if something external is affection them, they feel that they can ask you for help, or tell you what the problem is. If is also a good idea to know who else is in that students life that they can talk with if there are ongoing issues. This person may be a parent, sibling, social worker, employer or friend. You can also suggest that the student goes and talks to someone they trust about whatever the issue is, but be firm about what type of behaviour is suitable inside your classroom and what type of behaviour is not. In conclusion, I don’t think it is appropriate for a teacher to ‘punish’ a student for bad behaviour, however I do feel it is important that a teacher abides by a code of conduct that they also expect the students to abide by. If you are a teacher who is working for a school that has a different code of conduct to your own internal code of conduct, then you need to follow the school’s rules or find another job.
