The teaching tips in this issue were provided by British Council trainer, Jane Boylan. They are all very practical tips for improving your classroom management. We hope you find them useful.

      -> If you want your students to be quieter in class, lower your voice when giving instructions rather than raising it. The students will have to make less noise in order to hear you. A noisy teacher, who shouts instructions, usually has a noisy classroom.

      -> If the teacher always leads the class and only talks to the students individually, in a 45 minute class with 45 students, the maximum each student can speak in English is a minute Ð but this is very unlikely because of teacher-talking time! Two five-minute pairwork activities in the same lesson increase the amount of student talking time dramatically. Remember to plan for pairwork!

      -> Follow noisy activities such as games and pair/group work exercises with a writing or copying activity. This will calm and settle your students. Writing activities such as copying vocabulary from the board or short written exercises from course books can be used for this purpose.

      -> If you want your students to discuss a topic in class, dictate a question to them first, which they have to write in their notebooks. This focuses their attention more directly than if you write the discussion topic on the board or simply order them to discuss something.

e.g.
"How can we reduce air pollution in our cities? Think of 3 ideas."
"How can we improve our health? Think of 4 ways."

      -> Before you start a new activity always wait to make sure the class is quiet and paying attention, even if it takes a few minutes. Simple instructions such as pens down; look at me/look at the board and listen will focus students' attention. If the class can see that you will not proceed until they are paying attention they will usually become quiet after a few minutes. Many teachers try to go ahead with new activities before all the class is paying attention. This means a lot of students are not properly focused on their next task which leads to problems with class control and participation.
                                                           Back to top