Part 5:Concerns and practices in classroom

management
Discussion of classroom management has traditionally, but not exclusively, encompassed teachers’ practices to
control or direct activity in their classrooms. Learners’ participation in classroom discourse on the other hand
indicates that for a more realistic view of classroom management, we need to account for classroom
management practice as jointly constructed.

There are three central concerns of classroom management:

• To establish, maintain order
• To provide learning opportunity
• To create context of care
Schools of thought
• Order is not a monolithic concept or a consistent set of practices, There is a continuum of views on order –
from strong pressures from society and institutions for ‘discipline’ and adherence to strict codes of
behaviour, enforced by a variety of sanctions against deviant behaviour of varying degrees of toughness at
one end of the spectrum. At the other end is the idea of consensual calm and orderliness among the student
group maintained by self-control. Management practices thus intend to preserve order either by means of
imposition (force, if necessary, in some contexts) or by negotiation. The degree of imposition of ‘rules’ and
codes of conduct, or other-regulation, is thus a significant aspect of order
• Teachers coping with complexity:Teachers have simultaneously to
manage activities in the classroom itself, and also external forces and
influences, expressing social backgrounds and cultural origins, in
addition to curriculum specifications and teaching materials. Any
pedagogic or social move that a teacher makes in the classroom can
thus elicit a wide range of responses from students. Teachers typically
acquire a repertoire for coping with this type of complexity and the
unexpected, as any professional does through experience
• Paradoxical forces: Classrooms are also contradictory – they are
places where teachers and learners seek security and routine, and yet
these conditions are continually threatened by the very activities of
teaching and learning. This is the pedagogic paradox. The teacher
always risks social and emotional equilibrium in the classroom when
new learning is proposed. Learning has the potential to disturb
learners’ emotional and psychological states. It challenges the known,
and threatens certainty. Any activity leading to new learning is
therefore potentially chaotic and risky.
• Social and pedagogic forces in the classroom: Lessons are necessarily
‘social’, on the one hand, simply because they are events in which
people come physically together and therefore become subject to the
immediate influence of each other’s behaviour, but they also need to
be ‘social’ in the sense that they are collective events in the lives of
the participants. Lessons also need to be ‘pedagogic’, on the other
hand, simply because of the institutionalized purpose for which they
take place. They are ‘pedagogic’ by intention...even if they by no
means always realize this purpose effectively.
Opportunity in classroom management
• An opportunity view of classroom management emphasises the creation of learning opportunity
which is not pre-planned. Its realisation in classroom activity has discoursal consequences. Critics
of order view of classroom management point out that over-emphasis on order is a barrier to
learning rather than a necessary precondition.
• Care in classroom management:
• Management practices focused on the well-being of classroom participants highlight the emotional and
interpersonal aspects of classroom life. These comprise the care dimension. In accord with many authorities
on classroom management (e.g. Prabhu 1990), Jones (1996: 509) identifies the creation of positive relations
between all members of the classroom group as a necessary precondition for a wellmanaged classroom.
Jones believes students should feel safe and secure and also empowered in classrooms (Quote 5.6). What is
implied is a caring order.
Teachers and classroom management tasks
Skills and qualities for effective classroom
management
Part 6: Managing engagement: The affective dimension of classroom life
1. Emotions in learning
Since the publication of Goleman’s ( 1995) Emotional Intelligence, there has been a
wider revival of interest in the role of emotional domain in many aspects of institutional
and public life as well as in formal teaching and learning.
The emotional classrooms are as teacher and learners know emotionally charged
contexts. Several factors contribute to the emotional character of classroom. These are
as follows:
• Actually being present in a classroom is either voluntary or compulsory. This will have
a profound impact
• The relative distance of teacher/student relationship The quality of relationships
between people in classroom is different from those in more formal or intimate.
• The relative difficulty of learning task itself
• Teachers have adressed the challenges directly in two main ways, which are weak and
strong version of affect in educational practice:
• 1.Through the creation of optimum emotional conditions for teaching and learning ( a weak
version)
• 2. By adopting the more wide ranging and problematic construct of the growth of human
potential into their beliefs and practices. ( strong version)
• An understanding of classroom management practices is legitimately concerned with the
first but less so with the second goal.
• According to Underhill, the job of the facilitator is not to decide what students should learn,
but to identify and create the crucial elements of pschological climate that helps to free the
learners to grow. These are the ingredients of process. They encompass several areas of
concern in that part of classroom management devoted to creating optimum learning
conditions.
 Classroom atmosphere, tone, climate
Classroom climate could cover some or all of the following according to Williams and Burden
• Quality of relationships.
• Goal orientation( including competitiveness)
• System maintenance and change ( including order, rule clarity)
• Satisfaction, friction, competitiveness, difficulty and cohesiveness.
• Rogers (1996: 165) identifies four main constituents of classroom climate:
• 1. Warmth – strength of emotions and identification between the teacher and learners. Welcoming?
Dismissive? Exclusive? Encouraging to the learner?
• 2. Directness – direct or indirect interactions between teacher and student. ‘openness’ of
communication – honesty/directness. Direct or less direct contact between teachers and learners e.g.
whole class teaching or independent group work?
• 3. Enthusiasm – teacher’s attitude towards subject, students and their learning. Commitment of both
teacher and learner to the learning task.
• 4. Organisation – teacher’s competence in managing – its strength and efficiency. Sense of being ‘on-
task’
Process and atmosphere
• Process concerns anything that contributes to the ambient atmosphere of the classroom.
• The way the content is taught and relevance to the lives of others.
• The immediate subjective reality of learning group and how they see themselves and relate to
others
• Issues in process are concerned with
• Authority and self-determination
• Expectation and motivation
• The individual and the group
• Security and risk.
• Self esteem
• Personal meaning
• How participants think, feel and relate to each other.
What are the main emotional factors and
difficulties for learners
Managing Change

• Learning is potentially destabilising for learners. It is also subject to

blocks These blocks may range from emotional variables to
conceptual difficulties. These blocks are related to three factors
1. Emotional investment in previously- learned knowledge. Learners
may resist new ideas
2. Emotional states in learning; Positive: Euohoria, flow, excitement,
feelings of achievement.Negative: Fear, frustration, loss of control,
boredom, anger.
3. Resisting learning, many students put a great deal of investment
into their existing patterns of knowledge
• Allwright and Bailey (1991) claim that learning a foreign language is more difficult than any other ‘subject’
because of the combination of risks and difficulties the enterprise poses, problems which are amplified by
being in a public setting like the classroom (Quote 6.6). Language learning potentially risks loss of face and
feelings of foolishness or inadequacy, which are all direct threats to one’s sense of self and one’s confidence
in oneself.
• Support and challenge in learning and teaching
• Support means acknowledging the learner’s struggle and helpin them to gain confidence, challenge means
the reasonable level of difficulty of the task
• Managing engagement:
Harmony, conflict or cosiness? Management of engagement is more related to harmony rather than challenge.
When there is harmony, participants’ emotional needs are met.
• Experience with Exploratory Practice, however, suggests that the first priority, and ultimate aim, is be concerned
for the quality of life in the language classroom, not the quality of work there, even if issues do present
themselves initially as problems to be solved, or as new pedagogic practices to be implemented. This is because
if the quality of classroom life is properly addressed, then problems in the quality of work can be expected,
• The effect of play

• We could assume that play and fun are managed out of many classrooms where ‘serious work’ is the focus,
despite numerous claims for laughter and humour as being vital to successful classroom pedagogy and learning.
Play and ‘fun’ are also interwoven into classroom activity and an important indicator of the emotional climate of
the classroom. Sullivan (2000: 119) in a study of Vietnamese University classrooms provides a telling example of
how the notion of ‘work’ permeates pedagogic thinking by inviting us to consider the effect of changing ‘group
work’ to ‘group play’. Cook too argues for the ‘ludic function’ to be given greater credence in classroom learning

•  
Part 7. pedagogy; models of teaching and classroom management

• Pedagogies are different ways of conceptualizing teaching. Pedagogies

view learning and the role of teaching in various ways.
• Teachers have institutional and and individual knowledge. Ideational
aspect includes individual teacher’s ideas about learning a language
and it is closely related to operational component which means how
teachers carry out teaching on a minute by minute basis.
• The managerial component of Prabhu’s model is linked to the
ideological component, and accounts for the institutionally-driven
aspects of classroom management such as meso-level lesson
planning, and translating an official syllabuses into teaching plans
MODELS OF TEACHING
• 1. Transmission teaching
• We are quite familiar to this model and it is teacher-centred. In
language teaching presentation, practice and production represents
this model. The teacher’s main role is to present information.
Students usually seated facing teacher, in this model memorisation
and practice are the key means.
• Even if the students are more passive in this model, learning is
enabled by building blocks of knowledge. This is reinforced by
question and answer strategy which is a good way to check previous
knowledge.
Constructivism main tenets
• There are two broad familles of constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, those emphasiszing
indiiviual exploration and discovery inspired by Piaget and which are socially based , socially constructivist
inspired by Vygotsky.
• The crucial difference between these two models of learning and the types of classroom teaching-and-
learning is that a social constructivist view of learning emphasises the role of the social context of learning in
the learning process. The discoursal message is ‘We engage in talk’, whereas in a discovery model such as
Piaget’s the discourse is ‘You find out for yourself’
• Now we will focus on the following four constructivist pedagogies and
examine the implications for classroom management of each.
• . Exploratory teaching or discovery learning (e.g. Bruner 1966)

• 2. Assisted performance (Tharp and Gallimore 1988)

• 3. Responsive teaching (Bowers and Flinders 1991)

• 4. Dialogic inquiry
An example of exploratory teaching
• Exploratory teaching is known as progressive teaching in some
circles.Piaget’s work focused on children’s learning in terms of how
they accomodate ( the creation of new mental structures) and
assimilate ( fitting in the new stimuli) through direct experience.
• While it has been praised for creating conditions that allow children
to discover things for themselves, rich learning environment where
children can have wide range of stimulating experiences,it has been
criticized due to apparent lack of structure as it does not stricty define
the plan for the lesson in advance and does not define criteria for
successful teaching.
Assisted performance
• Assisted performance has many implications for classroom
management
• 1. In order to build communities of learners, suitable conditions must
be created to enable dialogue
• 2. Classrooms also need to be arranged physically in order to allow for
dialogue
• 3. Time needs to be allocated to allow for conversation to follow its
natural course
• 4. Activities must be directed towards learning goals, resourses
appropriate to task
Responsive teaching
• Bowers and Flinders’ (1990) ‘ecological’ (Quote 7.14) approach to classroom management advocates
‘responsive teaching’. Rejecting ‘order’ conceptions of classroom management (Chapter 5), they argue for an
approach to teaching which draws from and contributes to the cultural complexity of the classroom.

• Responsive teaching is embedded in a deep understanding of classroom processes, an acknowledgement of

the centrality of language and other non-verbal forms of behaviour in learning and an acceptance of the
value of teachers’ judgements in classroom management. Students and teachers are ‘cultural beings’ who
have internalised everyday culturally shared views of how to think and behave. Above all, responsive
teaching is sensitive to the unfolding classroom context and the learning needs of the students which
emerge from learning activity and dialogue. The need to maintain the quality and potential of the classroom
environment in turn facilitates educationally significant communication.
Dialogic inquiry
• Classrooms based on dialogic inquiry would have
• 1. A community which shares commitment to caring, collaboration.
• 2. A curriculum organised in terms of broad terms of inquiry that encourage a
willingness to wonder, to ask questions and collaborate with other in building
knowledge.
• 3. It aims to challenge students to develop interests and abilities, it is open ended
enough, focused on the whole person, provides opportunities, encourages
collaborative group work.
• 4. Value equally process and products
• When we ensure above mentioned points, students will have used a variety of modes
of representation and present their work to each other for critical, constructive
feedback.
• PART 8. PATTERNS OF PARTICIPATION: MANAGING CLASSROOM TALK
• The classroom is managed on a moment-by-moment basis. This occurs at the level of specific episodes or
series of exchanges to whole lessons and beyond, at the course or programme level.This section will look at
several interconnected ways of analysing classroom talk: teacher–learner dialogues, teachers’ questions and
turn-taking, teacher monologue and other types of talk that pedagogic activity can promote, such as
collaborative talk.
IRF: As we can see in the descriotion IRF Exchange pattern restricts students’ opportunities to
develop a sense of control. Even if the learners contribute to the process, the teacher is always the
initiator.
Turn taking practices
• Teacher monologues: Teachers make substantial contributions to classroom talk with ‘lectures’, stories,
explanations, instructions, impromptu summaries and more. In theory such contributions could account for
all the lesson time available – we might imagine lessons with no teacher–student verbal interactions,
although in practice this is very rare, except perhaps in mass lectures in higher education institutions where
the learner audience is so large and so physically distant from the speaker that interaction is unlikely. If we
view ‘lectures’ as ‘pure transmission’, they are rather like extended I-moves.
• REPAIR

• A great deal of classroom time is spent on repair, a major pedagogical activity type, because there are
frequent ‘cognitive and interactional troubles’ in teaching and learning (Erickson 1982). Several questions are
raised by the issue of repair management. Why do things ‘go wrong’ in the first place? Who initiates repair?
Who signals that repair has been successful? Does repair always occur successfully? Is successful repair
‘maintained’ so that ‘mistakes’ do not recur? Who manages repair? What is the relationship between repair
and learning? Is repair only related to learners’ errors in language use, or are there other types of repair
practice in the classroom? IRF sequences are not always realised ‘smoothly’, as we have seen, and very often
in a display or recitation sequence on R-move is incorrect. The IRF device has the discoursal effect of leading
the talk towards a ‘correct answer’ in these cases.
Other approaches
• 1. Scaffolding:
• is realised and managed through asymmetrical talk, in which the ‘adult knower’ or teacher guides the initiate
or novice through a ZPD to the point at which the learner can ‘take over’ (Bruner 1983: 60, in van Lier 1996)
– this crucial juncture in learning is also known as ‘handover’. Van Lier (1996: 152) discusses handover and
whether or not IRF sequences can be conducive to creating conditions for handover. He concludes that they
do not, because they are not sufficiently open-ended, and students do not ‘grow out of IRF into true
dialogue’ (1996: 152). IRF structures are indicators of strong teacher regulation and control over the
discourse; for handover to be realised, there has to be opportunity for the development of learner-
selfregulated talk so that learners spontaneously contribute to the management of learning. In classroom
management terms, there are two levels at work: the local management of talk (micro) and the strategic
planning of instruction (meso). The problem for the teacher attempting to scaffold learning is to link these
two levels in classroom activity. Successful initiation of a learner into new levels of competence is only
achieved when and if handover occurs. We would expect, therefore, to be able to trace such junctures in
classroom talk.
Towards emotional scaffolding
• Towards emotional scaffolding

• A pedagogic sequence of IRFs working from recitation to exploration, if successful, also acts as a form of emotional scaffolding for
students, as it can Concept 8.11 Recent socio-cultural research on second language learning

• 1. Mediation by others: experts and novices (teachers and students); peer mediation; mediation through L1

• 2. Self-mediation: studies of peer mediation encounters in which self-directed speech occurs.

• 3. Artifact mediation: portfolios (for self-assessment); tasks; technology – video and computer-mediated learning Some significant
outcomes
• 1. The contribution of learner agency to learning, rather than language acquisition.
• 2. Influence of classroom culture on learners’ perspectives on tasks.
• 3. The difficulties of investigating private speech, and yet a hunch that it is important in learning (as predicted by the theory).
• 4. The different effects of monologic and dialogic teaching.
• 5. The effects of strong teacher control of classroom talk on learners
• . 6. The role of play in learning. (after Lantolf 2000) Patterns of Participation: Managing Classroom Talk
Feedback
• Constructive feedback can be challenging and can lead to consideration of alternatives. • Constructive
feedback can be positive (praise, encouragement etc.). • Constructive feedback includes giving information
to others on how their behaviour affects others. These suggestions for a more facilitative teaching style also
have relevance for more transmissive classroom management styles. Example: withholding praise could be
used as an emotional ‘weapon’ – a primary factor in student demotivation is a sense that ‘you can never win’
(Dornyei 2001: 147). In a more positive vein, consistent use of the F-move to invite a group to consider
alternatives to a response is an indication of a more accommodating and opportunity-oriented classroom
atmosphere.
Here is an example for two types of F-moves
 Part 9: Teacher’s knowledge and
classroom management
• TEACHERS’ BELIEFS

• Many researchers regard an understanding of teachers’ beliefs as the basis of understanding their behaviour.
Burns (1996) questions the extent to which ‘underlying thinking and beliefs the teacher brings to the
classroom shape the processes and interactions that occur’ (1996: 154) (Quote 9.6). An exploration of
teachers’ beliefs about, for example, how people behave, how misbehaviour should be treated, and most
centrally how learning occurs, has the potential to reveal what underlies classroom management practice.
• Intuition is regarded as the basis of professional awareness, a capacity for focusing on the here and now
(‘presence’ – Underhill 1999). Intuition is important because it appears to be engaged at key classroom
moments or crisis, confusion or perplexity. John (2000), in a discussion of how intuition might contribute to
teachers’ practical knowledge (Concept 9.11), proposes that ‘the more effective teacher is one with a more
highly tuned and highly differentiated intuition for understanding and interpreting classroom life, and with a
wide repertoire of appropriate models of reacting to different situations’
• Processes and stages of beginning to teach

• Learning to manage classrooms is a major challenge for the beginning teacher, and incorporates
emotional/affective, cognitive and social demands. It may also involve a struggle between the notions of
classroom management accumulated through experience and those advanced by a teacher education
programme

• 1.Previous experience of classroom life 2. Student teachers’ self images as both learners and teachers 3.
Views of teaching presented on the pre-service programme 4. Interactions over time with students in school
settings 5. Interactions with established teachers in school settings 6. Degree of autonomy afforded by head
teachers

• It is clear that the process of acquiring classroom management expertise is bound up with the development
and establishment of a professional self-image and the development of new skills which become gradually
second nature or ‘automated’
Stage theories of teacher learning