Job Discussion Forums

[Augustus]

Hello

I'm spending this lovely bank holiday working on a task from a summer school and while I doubt I will even get as far as the next stage its helping me consider some interesting points.

My task is to answer "How would you ensure good behaviour in your class?"


Prior to the lesson I would attempt to anticipate what issues may arise and act to reduce or eliminate them, for instance by implementing a seating plan or requesting mobile phones are switched off. To combat issues surrounding students arriving to the class at different times or spending a lot of time preparing to begin, I would provide an opening activity such as a word matching task for the students to begin immediately. An overall session objective will always be displayed with more short term aims clearly demonstrated, giving a context to the lesson and keeping students focused. Language learning is interactive and activities appealing to the different sense should incorporated to address every students strength.
Furthermore, offering the students to opportunity to be involved in their own learning by developing classroom guidelines, to be consistently enforced and requesting and carefully considering feedback on how they found previous sessions is likely to have a positive outcome. Further reiteration that bad behaviour distracts from their own and others effective learning is likely to refocus their attention more positively. Negative behaviour is best ignored as long as its not disruptive to others in the classroom.

Any comments appreciated.

Augustus

[eihpos]

That's good! I would go more into what you are actually going to do than the theory behind it though. Maybe mention things like doing competitive activities to focus students (divide class into teams for quizzes, board races etc.), drawing up a class 'contract' by getting sts to write their own classroom rules, having a points or reward system, seating arrangement (horseshoe rather than lines etc.) Classroom management is not my strong point but I've worked at a lot of summer schools and these things work for me. Also, assuming the students are going to be mainly European teens, you will need to at least pretend to be confident in yourself and in your teaching. Lay down the law from day 1 and don't be too gentle or nice to them at the beginning or they will walk all over you! Believe me, I know!

Also watch your grammar and spelling/check for typos.

I'm sure you will get to the next stage/get the job. Summer schools in the UK need heaps of teachers so it's not that competitive (not saying that you aren't a competitive as a candidate, you know what I mean..)


Good luck!

[Size9Sandals]

Yes, getting a job on a pre-sessional can be a breeze, especially if you have previous experience. I was once offered a contract without an interview, purely based on the strength of my references, but that was several years ago. On another occasion the interview was a rather cursory 10-minute phone call.

However, things can change over the years, mostly based on the number of students, I would say. If it is your first pre-sessional interview and you have little or no experience of teaching EAP (or even Ielts), then you would do well to take it seriously.

Good luck, and just be sure to avoid working for Into!

[barabbas]

A short but practical answer, though probably not enough for a 'task', is to make your lessons interesting. I have always noticed that discipline problems seem to occur in inverse proportion to the engagement students have in the lessons.

[sprightly]

i initially shied away from the 'class contract' activity because i thought it was rather light, just a way to use up 30 minutes.

but in the last few years, i've found that those classes who complete it work better than those who don't. it seems to remind students that learning is a two way street.