Rules and Routines and 统率力 for the importance of effective classroom management

The routine of partnering up
the students know what they will expect and what
the teachers expect of them

Regardless of making rules and routines for the students as a form of class management. The basis of establishing a classroom culture is that the students need to take you seriously enough as a teacher- that is where teacher presence comes in. Not only you need a clear and loud voice projection, you have to be stern. The majority of our mentors fit that criteria- with Mr. Gaffney being the tallest and most intimidating in appearance is also a plus; Ms. Jaimee however has managed to establish a teacher presence despite her height. She is the smallest among the 5 Native language teachers; her voice projection however, is very loud. Having a loud voice, does not equate to having teacher presence; according to our mentors, confidence and knowing what you are going to teach contribute to teacher presence- if you don't know what you are teaching, you are not the one in charge of the classroom.

Our mentors generally have rules being set at the start of the semester such as no Japanese should be used in Eikaiwa or English conversation class. According to Mr. Long, establishing first impressions can be important as this image will become the students' opinions about you and how they will expect the type of class you will be conducting and it will take a long to change that impression. We may have come at a time the students in Nichidai have already established the type of impression each teacher has, but since we will be teaching Mandarin on the second week during after our arrival, we were reminded that first impressions are the most important.

Like Mr. Long, Mr. Thomas stated that once you have set a rule, consistency is key. Especially when it comes to rules, you should label out the rewards and consequences of fulfilling as well as the breaking the expectations to the students so that they will know what you as a teacher is expecting them to do as the bar has been set for them.

In Mr. Long`s class, he would always conduct a warm-up session before starting with his class. He calls it Machine Gun as the questions and answers have to be really fast just like the actual machine gun. He would do this every week in all of his Junior High classes. When I was tasked to conduct this warm-up session, despite the change of authoritative figure, the students do not require much explanation or any demonstration as they already know what was expected by the teacher- me. The Machine Gun session went very smoothly. The procedure is as follows:

1. Read through the model questions aloud and students repeat
2. Repeat the model questions in a slow bit-by-bit pace for the students to pick up the pronunciation and syllables
3. Repeat the model questions in a quicker pace so that the students know how and what do normal speed English sounds like in conversations
4. Read the model answers aloud with the students 
5. Repeat steps 2 and 3
6. Pick a couple of students to answer your model questions
7. Allocate time for students to write out their own answers for the model questions on their ipads.
8. Have students partner up and practice speaking by asking the questions and reply with their own answers. (the partners who will be answering will have their ipads closed)
9. Partners switch roles 
10. Have the whole class stand up and their ipads closed 
11. Ask the model questions and students will have to raise their hands to answer within a time limit.

Copy of Machine Gun

In Ms. Jaimee`s class however, she has set up a routine when taking attendance, students will have to make sure if they have brought their required materials such as ipads and name cards before saying: "Yes I have," if they have them and "No I don`t" if they do not have any of the materials when their names are called. I think that her method of taking her students` attendance is effective considering the type of energy she brings to her class. The majority of her students are very well-behaved and would have their tasks completed as smoothly as possible. There were only a couple of students who would reply they didn`t have either of the materials. From what I think is due to the fact that they know that they have to fulfill a particular expectation that she has set for them another reason that is plausible is that she will ask them why did they not have their items and they have to answer her in English which they sometimes have difficulties finding the right words to reply her. From that, it is safe to say that this method of rules and routines are quite useful when teaching English as Second Language classes. This also exposes the students to more questioning and answering as they need reasoning to answer her questioning through the usage of a foreign language that they barely use outside of this class.

In terms of problems however, I barely encounter much problems as the students, despite can be rowdy at times, they are generally very obedient, just that it was due to language barriers. and by mean language barriers I mean the difficulty to comprehend normal speed English. As our mentors speak in a considerably slower pace despite that the school has set up a standard that they have to speak English in a normal pace; the effort is still in progress of improving however. Aside from minor behavioral problems, some students have a tendency to give up when facing difficulties such as the homework our mentors have set for them, remember the shoganai mentality I mentioned? It has evolved to the "わかんない" or "I don`t know" phase among the students in Nichidai. We could see this very evidently from their homework. For this, Mr. Gaffney would display his students` work from the projector, showing the class at the end of the period. He would immediately call out the names of those who didn`t do their homework, have them lined up horizontally in front of their classmates, and they will have to follow the exact steps of Mr. Gaffney`s dance and songs. The dancing and singing would result in roars of laughter whilst the punished students would lower their heads in shame (well of course, some would laugh at how funny the dance and songs were). Once this was done, he would warn them that they will do the same to anyone who do not do their homework. This method. despite putting a toll on their dignity, was considerably effective, there were 4 stages or I should say reactions I could recall from the students from my observation:

1. Immediate regret once they heard their names were called
2. Blank state of mind when being called to line up at the front
3. Reluctance and embarrassed (or laughing) at and while doing the dance and singing
4. Blurting out: "やだ," or "No" (those watching and those doing the punishment) once the warning was sent out. 

Mr. Gaffney was able to make use of his students as an example for those who didn`t do their homework and it was a funny and less offensive way of making sure that the students do not re-offend again.


统率力 or Leadership like teacher presence, it embellishes confidence and competence of a teacher when they teach and giving out commands not only in the Japanese context but also in general teaching and working in groups. working on our leadership skills will have a good effect on confidence as it improves our interpersonal skills as a whole. According to a blog by Concordia University Portland,  taking on a teaching role we must possess skills such as:

Self-awareness

As teachers, we need a solid understanding of ourselves. From this we can excel our confidence as we know what we are capable of. Having confidence allows us to make decisive choices as we will be leading the students to achieve their goals.

Good communication skills

Having good interpersonal skills allow us to reach a variety of people in many different ways. As mentioned in my previous topics, establishing and maintaining a good relationship with teachers and students is essential for our teaching and learning experience as it optimizes it.

Resourcefulness

Being open to new ideas and to be able to adapt to solve problems contributes to the flow in teaching. Using resources to the best of our ability to improve the way students absorb and retain information.

Power of teaching and Learning

Teaching comes with passion and the desire to help those who will become the future of our society. We as teachers must also believe not only in ourselves but in others such as students and other teachers as we are channeling this energy from our inner thoughts to them from our way of teaching.

Personal Thoughts

Just like from my previous topics, our mentors apply Behaviorism (Operant Conditioning) and make use of Social Learning to not only teach but to establish rules and routines to maintain order and to ensure a much smoother flow for the teaching and learning experience. I applied the same method to my Hokkien class during cultural week. Before playing the charades game, I gave them a rule telling them when they make a sound or shout out the answer points will be deducted and it was immediately effective as soon as the game started, it was a stark contrast to how I conducted the game on my prior week as I did not mention or enforce the rule to the students. Social Learning could also be evident when I change the flow of the charades game when I spoke full Hokkien to them through a couple of rounds, the students got the gist and I did not have to repeat my instructions or even calling out their numbers when they turns were up.

The basis of using Social Learning incorporated with Operant Conditioning especially on a larger class such as the ones in Mr. Gaffney`s allows the students to immediately understand the consequence of not doing their homework. Mr. Long has mentioned before that teaching students in a foreign language requires modelling as well, it is not only for the benefit of the students but the teachers too. It can normally be seen in our mentors` classes, such as having students to demonstrate so that the students will pay attention- Mr. Thomas, in addition to this point added that calling out students to demo can also be used as a way to manage noisy students by having them to come up. This way, the students immediately recognize the pattern if the teacher continues to do so and Operant Conditioning (Positive Reinforcement) applies on the noisy student while Social Learning applies on the students who are watching.

Not only that, our mentors follow the basic rule WPPP which stands for warm up, presentation, practice and production. Each stage is meant to be a routine set not only for the students but for the teachers as well, it is especially effective for language classes. Each stage has been designed for the allocation of time.

Based on the above, I feel that teaching students whose mindset has been prioritizing to pass the entrance exams can be slightly challenging when they do not understand the gist of learning a particular topic. The fact that managing a classroom with rules being set at the start of the semester as well as the execution of consistency should be incorporated with the Operant Conditioning and Social Learning as it is very effective in managing classroom misbehavior that will disrupt the learning experience of other students. In addition to consistency, teacher presence is something that a teacher needs when managing classrooms. This is to allow students to understand that there is an order and system that they will be doing everyday as this is how society functions as a whole.

However, I understand that using these methods may not always work as for students who have different type of mindset may not apply. Sometimes students are just hungry or tired and to this I also feel that Maslow`s hierarchy of needs could be an essential to students` welfare. All in all, teachers may not always get the same batch of students, therefore I believe that using an array of methods to experiment on the classroom setting will be beneficial.