Class Management

& Discipline
Participantes:
Barreto, Penélope
Capote, Hodra
Salazar, Mayrelis
 Definitions
 Class Management: the art of carefully preparing, presenting,
disciplining and controlling activities.

 Discipline: is about teaching people appropriate behaviour and

helping then become stronger or more in control of his or her
emotions and being independent and responsible.

Discipline problems are listed as the major concern for most new
teachers. What can teachers expect and how can they effectively
handle discipline problems? Classroom management combined with
an effective discipline plan is the key.

Trainee teachers sometimes ask what do you do if...? questions, and

are then disappointed when teachers or tutors reply “It depends on
the circumstances”. Teaching would be a much easier occupation if
all events within certain categories were identical. But, they are not.
Rules
 Movement:
 Walk quickly
 No running
 Ask first if you want to go to the toilet.
 Don’t just warder around the room unless you’re getting
somewhere.
 Talking:
 Don’t talk when I’m talking to you.
 Don’t talk where someone is answering a question.
 No shouting out.
 Work – Related:
 Working quiet even if the teacher is out of the room.
 No mobile phones, or if permitted they must be switched
off during the lesson.
 Presentation:
 Knowing how to set out work and when to hand it
in.
 Taking care with (...)
 Safety:
 No swinging on chair, pushing and shoving.
 No playing on slippery bents in wet weather.
 Materials:
 Keeps the library books
 No writing in desks or book covers.
 Social Behaviour:
 Show consideration for others.
 Be willing to share things and cooperate.
 Don’t take the property of classmates without
permission.
 Show good manners.
 Clothing / Appearance:
 Clothing to be neat and clean.
 Wear uniform properly
 All clothing to be labelled.
 Hairstyles, jewellery, studs and rings only as
approved.
 Approaches to
Classroom Management
The next seven approaches are presented to establish
and maintaining good discipline. All establish clear
rules and expectations, all include recommendations
for preventive measures, and all are positive and
practical. They differ in the degree of control exercised
by the teacher and the emphasis on task.
Assertive Approach
The Assertive Approach to classroom management
expects teacher to specify rules of behaviour and
consequences for disobeying them and to
communicate these rules and consequences clearly.
Students ho disobey rules receive “one warning and
then are subjected to a series of increasingly more
serious sanctions”. The idea is for the teacher to
respond to a student’s misbehaviour quickly and
appropriately.
The Canters make the following suggestions for teachers applying
assertive discipline:
 Clearly identify the expectations.
 Take positions. (Say, “I like that” or “I don’t like that”.)
 Use firm tone of voice.
 Use eye contact, gestures, and touches to supplement verbal
messages.
 Say no without guilt feelings.
 Give and receive compliments genuinely
 Set limits on students and enforce them.
 Indicate consequences of behaviour and why specific action is
necessary.
 Follow through regularly.
 Persist; enforce minimum rules; don’t give up.
 Establish positive expectations for student behaviour; eliminate
negative expectations about students.
 Gain confidence and skills in working with chronic behaviour
problems in the classroom
Business Management Approach
The business academic approach, developed by Evertson and Emmer,
emphasizes the organization and management of students as they
engage in academic work. Task orientation – that is, focusing on the
business and orderly accomplishment of academic work – leads to a
clear set of procedures for students and teachers to follow. Evertson
and Emmer divide organizing and managing student work into three
mayor categories:

Clear communication of assignment and work requirements. The

teacher must establish and explain clearly to students work
assignments, features of the work, standards to be met, and
procedures.
 Instruction for assignments
 Standards for form, neatness, and due dates
 Procedures for absent students
Monitoring students work. Monitoring student work helps the teacher to detect
students who are having difficulty and to encourage students to keep working.
 Monitoring group work
 Monitoring individual work
 Monitoring completion of work
 Maintaining records of students work
Feedback to Students. Frequent, immediate, and specific feedback is important for
enhancing academic monitoring and managerial procedures. Work in progress,
homework, completed assignments, tests, and other work should be checked
promptly.
 Attention to problems
 Attention to Good Work
The general approach and methods used by Evertson and Emmer are appropriate for
both elementary and secondary teachers. The business academic involves a high
degree of “time on task” and “academic engaged time” for students. The idea is that
when students are working on their tasks, there is little opportunity for discipline
problems to arise. The teacher organizes students’ work, keeps them on task,
monitors their work, gives feedback, and holds them accountable by providing
rewards and penalties.
Behaviour Modification Approach
Behavioural modification is rooted in the classic work of James Watson and the
more recent work of B.F. Skinner. Behaviourists assume that behaviour is
shaped by environment and pay little attention to causes of problems.
Teachers using this behaviour modification approach spend little time on the
personal history of students or on searching for the reasons for a particular
problem. They strive to increase the occurrence of appropriate behaviour
through a system of reward and reduce the likelihood of inappropriate
behaviour through punishments.
The basic principles of the behavioural modification approach are as follow:
 Behaviour is shaped by its consequences, not by its causes of problems in the
history of the individual or by group conditions.
 Behaviour is strengthened by immediate reinforcements. Positive reinforces
are praise or rewards. Negative reinforcements take away or stop something
that the student doesn’t like.
 Behaviour is strengthened by systematic reinforcement (positive or negative).
Behaviour is weakened if not followed by reinforcement.
 Students respond better to positive reinforcement than they
do to punishment (aversive stimuli). Punishment can be used
to reduce inappropriate behaviour, but sparingly.
 When a student is not rewarded for appropriate or adaptive
behaviour, inappropriate or maladaptive behaviour may
become increasingly dominant and will utilized to obtain
reinforcement.
 Constant reinforcement – the reinforcement of a behaviour
every time it occurs – produces the best results, especially, in
the new learning or conditioning situations.
 Once the behaviour has been learned, it is the best maintained
through intermittent reinforcement – the reinforcement of a
behaviour only occasionally.
 There are several types of reinforcers, each of which may be
positive or aversive. Examples of positive reinforcers are: (a)
social reinforcers, such as verbal comments (“Right”, “Correct”,
“That’s good”), facial expressions, and gestures, (b) graphic
reinforcers, such as written words of encouragement, gold
stars, and checks, (c) tangible reinforcements, such as cookies
and badges for young students and certificates and notes to
parents for older students, and (d) activity reinforcers, such as
being a monitor near the teacher for young students and
working with a friend or on a special project for older
students.
 Rules are established and enforced. Students who follow rules
are praised and rewarded in various ways. Students who break
rules are either ignored, reminded about appropriate
behaviour, or punished immediately.
Group Managerial Approach
The group managerial approach to discipline is based on Jacob Kounin’s
research. He emphasizes the importance of responding immediately
to group student behaviour that might be inappropriate or
undesirable in order to prevent problems rather than having to deal
with problems after they emerge. He describes what he calls the
“ripple effect”. If a student misbehaves, but the teacher stops the
misbehaviour immediately, it remains an isolated incident and does
not develop into a problem. If the misbehaviour is not noticed, is
ignored, or is allowed to continue for too long, it often spreads
throughout the group and becomes more serious and chronic.
Kounin believes that students engagement in lesson and activities is the
key to successful classroom management. Students are expected to
work and behave. Te successful teacher monitors student work in a
systematic fashion, clearly defines acceptable and unacceptable
behaviour, and exhibits with-it-nees and overlapping abilities. The
successful teacher has a another, so that student attention is turned
easily from one activity to another. Similarly, lessons are well paced.
Group Guidance Approach
It is based on manipulating or “changing” the surface behavior of
students as individuals and groups. Boredom is one of the major
causes of disciplinary problems, and it leads to withdrawal,
frustration and irritability, or aggressive rejection of the entire group
on the part of students.
The main representative of this approach is Fritz Redl.
Redl holds that disciplinary problems have three causes:

Individual case history: the problem is related to the psychological

disturbance of one child.
Group conditions: the problem reflects unfavorable conditions in the
group.
Mixture of individual and group causes: The problem centers around an
individual, but is triggered by something in the group.
To maintain good discipline, the teacher must understand the group –
its needs and interest – and be able to manipulate the surface
behavior of the group. Group elements to be considered include the
following:
Dissatisfaction with classroom work.
Poor interpersonal relations.
Disturbances in group climate
Poor group organization
Sudden changes and group emotions.
Perhaps one of the most difficult managerial tasks for the teacher is
dealing with a hostile or aggressive group. When group members act
together to defy and resist the teacher’s efforts, the teacher may
react by trying to match force with force. In some cases the teacher’s
behavior is the source of the problem – being inconsistent in
enforcing rules, yelling or making idle threats, displaying frequent
outbursts of emotion, giving assignments that lack challenge, variety,
or interest.
Acceptance Approach
It is based on the assumption that when students are given such acceptance by the teacher
and peers, behavior and achievement improve. This approach is rooted in humanistic
psychology and maintains that every person has a prime need for acceptance. It is also
based on the democratic model of teaching in which the teacher provides leadership by
establishing rules and consequences, but at the same time allows students to participate
in decisions and to make choices.
The main representative of this approach is Rudolph Dreikurs. He maintains that acceptance
by peers and teachers is the prerequisite foe appropriate behavior and achievement in
school. People try all kinds of behavior to get status and recognition. If they are not
successful in receiving recognition through socially acceptable methods, they will turn to
mistaken goals that result in antisocial behavior.
Dreikurs identifies 4 mistaken goals:
Attention getting: they want other students or the teacher to pay attention to them.
Power seeking: their defiance is expresses in arguing, contradicting, teasing, temper
tantrums, and low – level hostile behavior.
Revenge seeking: their mistaken goal is to hurt others to make up for being hurt or feeling
rejected and loved.
Withdrawal: if students feel helpless and rejected, the goal of their behavior may become
withdrawal from the social situation, rather that confrontation.
Dreikurs suggests several strategies for working with students
who exhibit mistaken goals to encourage then and to enforce
consequences.

To encourage students
Be positive; avoid negative statements.
Encourage students to improve, not be perfect.
Encourage effort; results are secondary if students try.
Teach students to learn from mistakes.
Exhibit faith in student’s abilities.
Be optimistic, enthusiastic, supporting.
Success Approach
It is based on the teacher’s helping students make proper
choices by experiencing success. This approach is rooted in
humanistic psychology and the democratic model of teaching.
The most representative of this approach is William Glasser.
He insists that although teachers should not excuse bad
behavior on the part of the student, they need to change
whatever negatives classroom conditions exist and improve
conditions so they lead to student success. Teachers use this
approach in elementary and junior high schools more than in
high schools.
Glasser’s view about discipline is simple but powerful. Behavior
is a matter of choice. Good behavior results from good
choices; bad behavior results from bad choices. A teacher’s
job is to help students make good choices.
Glasser makes the following suggestions to teachers:

Stress students’ responsibility for their own behavior continually

 Establish rules
 Accept no excuses
 Utilize value judgments
 Suggest suitable alternatives
 Enforce reasonable consequences
 Be persistent
 Continually review.

Glasser makes the point that teachers must be supportive and meet
with students who are beginning to exhibit difficulties, and they must
get students involved in making rules making commitments to the
rules, and enforcing them.
 Punishment
Punishment is sometimes necessary to enforce rules and regulations.
Punishment should fit the situation and take into consideration the
developmental stage of the student. It should also be in line with
school policy.

Guidelines for Using Punishment

 Learn what type of punishment school authorities allow.

 Don’t assign extra homework as punishment
 Don’t punish when you are at a loss for
what else to do or in an emotional state.
 Be sure the punishment fits the misbehavior.
 Give the student the benefit of doubt.
 Guidelines for Class
Management
 Know Yourself
 Your Language Ability .
 Your Talents. Things that you are good at.
 You Specialist Knowledge (literature, history, geography).
 General Knowledge of an English Speaking Country.
 Your Teaching Skills.
 Your Attitude to Discipline.

 Know Your School

 The Philosophy of the School.
 Others teachers’ attitudes.
 Know you Students
 Names
 Backgrounds
 Interests
 Previous Experiences of Learning English
 Attitudes to English

 An Encouraging Class Atmosphere

 Giving a sense of purpose suggestion.
 Ensuring that English is spoken.
 Balancing fluency and accuracy.
 Using appropriate language.
 Giving encouragement.
 Involving all the students.
 The classroom itself
 Physical conditions of the classroom.

 Be Prepared
 A scheme of work.
 Lesson plans.
 Timing.

 Lesson routing
 General classroom lesson started
 Getting the lesson started, hands up.
 What to bring to class, where notes are made
 Changes or activity

 Pair work and group work.

 Using audio visual aids.
 The black / white board.
 The overhead projector
 The audio cassette / tape recorder
 The slide projector / the video recorder.
 Last Thought :

“Being an effective Class Manager

is not a talent which some people just have

and others do not – it is a set of skills

and an attitude learned throught

patience and practice”

THANK YOU