Attention!

These 5 common issues

you might be having
with classroom
management could be
fixed in
just 5 minutes

5..4..3..2..1

ESL COSMOS © Oliver Cooke

2019 All Rights Reserved.
 Issue 5
It's like whack-a-mole,
I focus on getting one student
to settle down and another
one jumps up. HELP!
If you aren't a brand new teacher you will most likely have used teams in class many
times, perhaps for a CRM (Classroom Management) system too.

Knowing when to use individual CRM and team CRM is important and can make a
huge difference to the amount of control you have (you can also use both at times).

It's worth noting that every class is different, and different strategies will work for
different groups, so it's important to reflect on the effectiveness of your classroom
management and adapt it accordingly.

Rewarding students individually can be an effective management system, especially

for smaller classes, but for larger classes it's often time consuming and if you have a
few very energetic students that keep jumping up, it can be exhausting.

This is where the use of teams is a game changer!

Young learners of all ages are heavily influenced by their peers and one of your
greatest tools can be to exploit this in the classroom. Turning your CRM into a lesson-
long game with competing groups and teams is the perfect way to make the rules
fun and use your students to help make your life easier.

Organise learners into teams at the beginning of the lesson when you go over the
rules, you can manipulate these teams however you like.

Give the students something to unite them, a team name, a logo, a picture that they
can see on the board, such as a pokéball with their team colour that moves towards
a pokémon at the end of the lesson based on their behaviour and participation. You
can then give a reward for those teams who reach their goal.

When students are put in small teams and have a clear understanding of how they
can make their team win or lose they will start to manage each other and five
learners all yelling at their teammate to 'sit nicely' is very likely to pressure them to
do just that.

You can use any fun method you like, but for larger classes, rewarding small teams is
the way to go!

Distribute authority
using teams
ESL COSMOS © Oliver Cooke
2019 All Rights Reserved.
 Issue 4
This one student just will not
behave no matter how much I
tell them off, they honestly
don't care!
Sometimes you have those students who just don't care about the rules. It happens,
but don't lose faith, it doesn't need to keep ruining your lesson!

You can always find things they do care about, and sometimes all that needs to
change is your approach.

One of the best ways to make students who don't care, care is to use positive
reinforcement rather than punishing them. This is easier said than done, granted,
but if you keep at it and keep your patience, you will see results.

Keeping the mood in the class positive will also help to lift everyone and in turn
make it more fun for you, too. Most importantly though it shows the students that
you are in total control (even if you don't feel it). When you shout, yell, get angry,
the students (especially the naughty ones) will sense you have lost control and this
is when classroom management can quickly take a turn for the worse.

Imagine a class you often teach. That naughty student who doesn't care about
being told off is looking at you with defiance. Try to ignore it. Start enthusiastically
rewarding everyone else following your CRM. Physically giving high fives to other
students for sitting nicely, participating etc can be a great way for little ones, or
visual rewards, points, stars, stickers for older learners.

Soon enough they will want the same rewards that their peers are getting, and
when they do, be just as enthusiastic with them (this may be a new response from a
teacher for them if they are always being punished) and it will build trust, showing
them that you are not just another strict teacher who always tells them off. You
care and will give them attention for good, not just bad behaviour.

On a final note, consider how you phrase rules and instructions in class. It's very
easy to tweak your language slightly to help build a positive affective atmosphere
in class. For example, instead of saying 'No Vietnamese' say, 'Speak English'. Try to
avoid using negative language.

Remember, keep the mood positive, focus on the good behaviour and soon enough
it will be a well established norm in class.

Keep it positive

ESL COSMOS © Oliver Cooke

2019 All Rights Reserved.
 Issue 3
The clever students always
seem to get the most stars at
the end of class, even though
I try to reward them evenly.
It can be easy to reward students for giving correct answers, and this is fine as long
as the reward they are getting is not related to your CRM, e.g. giving a high five or
verbal praise rather than points towards your CRM system.

When you reward students, remember, they are being rewarded for following the
rules of the classroom, participating answers, being engaged, energetic,
enthusiastic, but not correct.

If you reward students for being correct, this will naturally create a divide in class
that favours the strong students and could cause the weaker students to lose faith in
their ability and become fearful of making a mistake, thus not offering an answer.

It can also cause weaker students to become disruptive in class because they feel
they have no chance at receiving the most rewards at the end of class, so they
develop an 'I don't care' mindset.

When you are addressing your classroom management system (usually after each
activity for low levels and younger students, but also during activities), reward
learners for the positive classroom behaviour they have contributed. This way the
reward system is an open playing field and they know that regardless of their
ability, they should try hard because they might get rewarded.

Make it clear to students exactly how they can obtain a reward in class. Often
students don't fully know that there are multiple ways to obtain a reward so may
wrongly think following a rule such a 'sit nicely' or giving a correct answer are the
only ways to get rewarded when actually you might want them to be doing
something else.

Give spontaneous rewards for those students who take the initiative, offer answers,
make the first move to clean up. Don't always reward everyone. If you reward the
ones who take the initiative more often, then others will learn to do this in your
class.

Remember, when it comes to CRM, reward the learner for contributing an answer
regardless of whether or not it is correct and be consistent.

Reward Good Behaviour

ESL COSMOS © Oliver Cooke
2019 All Rights Reserved.
 Issue 2
They keep breaking the same
rules, over and over again,
no matter how much I repeat
them.
It can be really frustrating when you have to keep repeating the same rules over
and over again in class. Sometimes it can feel like students just aren't listening, and
often it's because they aren't!

Most of us have a steady routine of going over the rules somewhere near the
beginning of class and we usually reinforce those rules throughout the class.

More often than not, this reinforcement is through vocal commands, 'sit nicely',
'speak English'. This can work, and often does if they understand, but for a lot of
students, especially low levels, this will just be lost as white noise.

Having visual rules may seem like a simple thing, and may even seem a bit
unnecessary if it means you have to take time to print them or draw them, but I
guarantee when students are able to see what's expected of them throughout the
lesson it is much clearer for them and much easier for you.

Next time a student is following (or breaking) a rule, point to a visual of that rule
before giving a reward or removing a reward. This helps the learner to make a
clear link between their behaviour and the rule that they followed or broke.

Pictures are memorable (that's why we use them to teach vocabulary) so use this
to your advantage in class!

Rules help to form great classroom routines and make your life as a teacher 10
times easier. Visual rules make that happen much faster and much more
efficiently.

Visual Rules

ESL COSMOS © Oliver Cooke

2019 All Rights Reserved.
 Issue 1
I tried to give them fun,
engaging activities all lesson,
but they just kept losing
focus!
It can be very frustrating and stressful when a calm, well behaved class suddenly
transforms into a chaotic mob. Those who were peaceful and settled mere
seconds ago now seem to have an inexhaustible supply of energy and are
literally bouncing off the walls.

This happens with children a lot in class, and there is a very simple solution to
help mitigate this issue.

When students start getting bored, restless, fidgety, think to yourself, 'How long
have they been doing this activity? How long have they been active or sitting in
one place?'

Children lose focus quickly and this should be a key factor to consider when
planning and teaching a lesson, one that when addressed can transform a lesson.

There needs to be a mix of both calm and energetic activities to help maintain
focus.

As a suggestion, you should spend around 10 minutes on any one activity for
juniors (6-11 year olds), a little longer for teens if the content is engaging and even
less time for really young learners. You should also alternate the activities
between settlers and stirrers.

Stirrer activities are those that inject energy into the classroom or allows students
to burn off steam (board races, TPR songs, relay races, teacher
says, charades etc). Settler activities are the opposite, they allow students to
reset, calm down and focus, usually by sitting down (worksheets, writing
practice, pair discussions, projects).

This isn’t a hard and fast rule and you should be flexible in adapting based on the
energy levels of the class, but this will definitely be a useful guide and can make
managing the class a lot easier.

Settler, stirrer, Settler..

ESL COSMOS © Oliver Cooke

2019 All Rights Reserved.
 Bonus Issue
To say thanks for reading this far I've given you a bonus tip and I
personally think this is one of the most important things of all in
having successful classroom management.

I usually address my
classroom management
system when they're
misbehaving.
We've all been in a situation where one or two students (or more like ten) will just
not sit in their chairs for more than 10 seconds.

As soon as your back is turned, they're up. You quickly tell them off, they sit down,
you turn your back, they're up again and so is someone else! Ahh!

This scene might well remind you of a particular moment or even many moments of
teaching. It's normal, it happens to all teachers. Some teachers however, just aren't
phased by this, they know how to deal with it and that can be you.

One essential thing to do is put in the groundwork to establish a strong classroom

management routine at the beginning of the course. This will make your future
teaching so much easier.

They key to doing this is by using that same, clear routine every lesson. The clearer
the routine, the faster the students will get it and the easier your life will be. A set
routine can totally transform your class as long as it's clear and consistent!

Your first few lessons should set the tone for the course as it's much easier to
introduce new systems at the start of a course, rather than halfway through.

Try to address your CRM after every single activity, especially in the first few lessons.
Have students reset before moving on to the next activity and reestablish the
expectations. It may seem like a lot of effort at first, but trust me it will really pay off
later.

Try out your new routine next class. Go back to the reward system after every
activity (rewarding those who gave great contributions and tried hard) and soon
you won't even think about it, and neither will your students.

Establish routine

ESL COSMOS © Oliver Cooke

2019 All Rights Reserved.
 Let's recap
5 Distribute authority using teams
- let students help

4 Keep it positive
- Stay in control

3 Reward good behaviour

- Not ability

2 Visual rules
-constant reminder

1 settler, stirrer, settler

- hold their focus

0 Establish routine
- build good habits

Thanks so much for reading

through my tips for classroom
management!
I really hope some of these can theeslcosmos@gmail.com
help to make your life easier in
the classroom.
Feel free to reach out to me if you
have any questions about what
you've read or want to get in
facebook.com/ESLCosmos
touch.

Oliver

ESL COSMOS © Oliver Cooke

2019 All Rights Reserved.