Classroom management

Having read the four episodes attentively, I see that four discipline problems emerged

for some various reasons. For instance in the episode 1, students are arguing about the

book; the student’s unexpected comment “it’s boring” frustrated the good start of the

lesson. Regarding the episode 2, some students chose to be off-task by whispering,

murmuring which affected the momentum of the class. Concerning the situation 3, one of

the students lost interest in the teacher’s lesson and deliberately started to tap a ruler on his

desk which eventually led to the frustration of the lesson. The worst of all is in the episode 4

where one of the students used some words that do not fit in the class.

Apparently, these problems might not seem serious, but if not treated appropriately on

the spot, they are more likely to grow and negatively affect the future lessons. To my mind,

there are plenty of procedures teachers should have done to prevent such problems from

occurring. As to the episode one, probably the teacher should have started with a ten-

minute-class discussion in which students discuss the book suggested and the reasons

behind the choice; with this step, he/she will not give chance to such queries to emerge after

the class begins. This pre-course step helps the teacher know if any negative comments on

the book is done seriously or just an attempt to tease the teacher. If it happens like this,

mainly after the pre-course discussion of the course, the teacher should be firm. If I were in

the teacher’s shoes, I would argue on that in the sense that I will ask the students to justify

his perspective.

As far as the second situation is concerned, the teacher should not have carried on

with the explanation of the story and he should have stopped instead. This is because his

deliberate ignorance of the problem apparently gave chance to other students to join the

chattering and be off-task accordingly. I think the best way for the teacher to stop that from

happening is to be silent as soon as he hears the murmur and try to be as close as possible to

the source of the trouble. If I were the teacher, I would ask any students to repeat my last

words at any time during the lesson and this might bring everybody on-task. Those who

could not repeat my last words as they are would be punished.

It is very normal to have students who are not interested in your lesson at all for some

reasons. The best example is in the episode 3 where John lost interest in the teacher’s

words, which led him to tab repeatedly and managed to disrupt the whole class in the end.

Like the situation 3, the teacher shouldn’t have proceeded with the lesson after he hears the

noise. In this situation, the instructor should have adopted other teaching techniques: he

should not be motionless in that he should keep moving in the class to be in control; he

might have moved John to the front so that he can’t misbehave in front of him/her.

Ultimately, the last and the most challenging situation is manifested in the episode 4 as

it is about an ethical issue. The use of irrelevant language classroom which stimulated uproar

remains a big challenge to the teacher. For the teacher to prevent it from taking place, he

shouldn’t have asked trivial questions, or he should have set the rules from the very

beginning of the class and I think if this had happened, the boy two wouldn’t have had the

courage to utter such an irrelevant word in the class. I think in this case, the teacher should

punish the students in order not to misbehave again.