hello everybody...
i am a new memeber in this forum and i am a new teacher too . i want your advice or your thoughts about how to manage and displine kids. i teach grade 5 (boys) and they make noise all the time and sometimes i feel i lose control and dont know how to manage them . i tired and never give up trying new ways to manage them and try to make them focus on the lesson . i want some ideas to help me in finishing my lesson on time and reduce the amount of noise . plz help if you have any ideas and i will be grateful .....
i need your help
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When it comes to discipline, the key concepts are explicit rules and consistent consequences.
Write some basic classroom rules (1-5 total) down on a poster and put the poster on the wall. Go over it with the kids. Tell them what the punishments are for noncompliance, and what the rewards are for being good. Then enforce the rules, immediately, strictly, every single time. It may take a few class sessions before they get the hint that you're not going to back down. Don't give up. If they can't attend to your lessons, then the lessons are not being learned. It's worth spending some time to help them settle down.
Oh, and nonverbal communication is really important--especially in ESL classes, where verbal messages may be misunderstood. When you're not happy, narrow your eyes, scowl, stand stiffly with shoulders back, lower your vocal pitch, and use only short/simple sentences ("No!" and "Stop!" are about as long an utterance as you need). When you're satisfied with their performance, widen your eyes, smile brightly, bend over to be of assistance, bounce around, and generally be entertaining and upbeat.
On the subject of punishments and rewards:
Make them meaningful.
Don't use stickers if they boys have no interest in stickers. Creative rewards and punishments work better. Maybe they love running. Make a running (language) game a reward. Or maybe they love torturing each other with umbrella fights. Make a language game that includes foam "swords" to joust with, and have that be a reward. Or maybe they love making noise. A reward could be a really annoying, noisy toy that they get to play with for five minutes while the unrewarded kids have to look on jealously. Punishments can involve taking away privileges, or contacting their parents, or having time-outs in the corner (I've made kids put their nose against the wall for five minutes as a punishment, especially during a fun game. The other kids all get to stare at the punished kid, but the punished kid has to endure not interacting with anything besides the wall).
Good luck!
-EH
Write some basic classroom rules (1-5 total) down on a poster and put the poster on the wall. Go over it with the kids. Tell them what the punishments are for noncompliance, and what the rewards are for being good. Then enforce the rules, immediately, strictly, every single time. It may take a few class sessions before they get the hint that you're not going to back down. Don't give up. If they can't attend to your lessons, then the lessons are not being learned. It's worth spending some time to help them settle down.
Oh, and nonverbal communication is really important--especially in ESL classes, where verbal messages may be misunderstood. When you're not happy, narrow your eyes, scowl, stand stiffly with shoulders back, lower your vocal pitch, and use only short/simple sentences ("No!" and "Stop!" are about as long an utterance as you need). When you're satisfied with their performance, widen your eyes, smile brightly, bend over to be of assistance, bounce around, and generally be entertaining and upbeat.
On the subject of punishments and rewards:
Make them meaningful.
Don't use stickers if they boys have no interest in stickers. Creative rewards and punishments work better. Maybe they love running. Make a running (language) game a reward. Or maybe they love torturing each other with umbrella fights. Make a language game that includes foam "swords" to joust with, and have that be a reward. Or maybe they love making noise. A reward could be a really annoying, noisy toy that they get to play with for five minutes while the unrewarded kids have to look on jealously. Punishments can involve taking away privileges, or contacting their parents, or having time-outs in the corner (I've made kids put their nose against the wall for five minutes as a punishment, especially during a fun game. The other kids all get to stare at the punished kid, but the punished kid has to endure not interacting with anything besides the wall).
Good luck!
-EH
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Sally Olsen
- Posts: 1322
- Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
- Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next
Are there only boys in the classroom? Then you need to do lots of interesting things that boys generally enjoy - making squishy messes in the art room, cartoons they are interested in, pictures of movie characters they like, movement during activities and lots of work on computers if you can get the computer room. Get them to bring in music that they like, books that they like and then find similar ones if they are not in English. Catch them being good.Get to know which ones are starting the fuss and stop them quickly as EH says, before the fuss starts. Speak to these students individually and get someone to translate your wishes for the classroom to them if you don't speak their language. You can divide them into teams - a row of children can be a team, for example, and you can reward the team with points for good behaviour with ticks on the board under their team name every few minutes or a small bag in which you drop something you can give the team who wins at the end of the class. It is going to take something major to turn things around at this time of year and then gradually you can slow down on the rewards. I do think that boys like stickers but find out which ones they enjoy. In Greenland, they liked Dragonballs or dragon stickers to put on their cellphones. Reward them with an English party every two weeks or so on a Friday and play lots of English games with prizes.