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Classroom management

Luiz Otávio Barros 2006


luizotaviobarros@gmail.com

Part A
What might happen if you…

1. Ask students to do a gap-filling exercise full of unknown vocabulary?

2. Ask students to raise their hands when voting or making some kind of
choice? (e.g. “Ok, who wants to listen again?”)

3. Spend too long writing on the board with your back to the students?

4. Hand out the materials before giving the instructions?

5. Spend, say, 5 seconds at the most monitoring each pair as they work?

6. Keep saying “Don’t speak Portuguese!”

7. Don’t accept homework which is overdue but fall behind with the
correction yourself?

8. Drill students in chain? (i.e., student 1 asks student 2, who in turn asks
student 3 and then 4 etc, linearly)

9. Correct the students mid-sentence?

10. Provide rather than elicit the correction during controlled practice?

11. Monitor a free speaking activity and write the mistakes on the board for
delayed correction?

Part B
What might have happened?

1. Julia Roberts spent 30 minutes presenting yet and already. During the free
practice stage (in which students had to talk about what they’d already / still
hadn’t done that day), all of them got it all wrong.

2. Natalie Cole spent 10 minutes presenting yet and already. Her students did
20 minutes of controlled practice. During the free practice stage, most of
them got most of it wrong.

3. Mathew Perry spent 10 minutes presenting yet and already. His students
did 20 minutes of controlled practice. During the free practice stage, some of
them got some of it wrong.

©Luiz Otávio Barros. All rights reserved.


4. Condoleezza Rice’s advanced students were recycling vocabulary through a
story-telling game. One of the words was widespread. The students knew
what the word meant but produced the most weird sentences.

5. Barbra Walters tried her best to start a discussion on capital punishment


but the students simply wouldn’t open their mouths.

6. Janet Jackson’s students wrote a letter of application for homework. Most


of them used sentences such as “I look forward to hearing from you”, “I am
writing to apply for the…” correctly, but few students were able to match
their qualifications to the actual job requirements or, say, included their
contact addresses.

7. Dionne Warwick told her students to skim a text. Not only did it take them
15 minutes, they also underlined all the unknown words.

Part C
How might you prevent your...

1. Upper intermediate and advanced students from saying “I didn’t learn


anything in class today”?

2. Students from answering your questions with monosyllabic answers?

3. Students from forgetting the lexis they asked you about (“Teacher, how do
you say…?”), which is not in the coursebook?

4. Practicing coursebook dialogs without looking at each other?

Part D
What might happen if you…

1. Ask students to do a gap-filling exercise full of unknown vocabulary?

2. Ask students to raise their hands when voting or making some kind of
choice? (e.g. “Ok, who wants to listen again?”)

3. Spend too long writing on the board with your back to the students?

4. Hand out the materials before giving the instructions?

5. Spend, say, 5 seconds at the most monitoring each pair as they work?

6. Keep saying “Don’t speak Portuguese!”

7. Don’t accept homework which is overdue but fall behind with the
correction yourself?

8. Drill students in chain? (i.e., student 1 asks student 2, who in turn asks
student 3 and then 4 etc, linearly)

©Luiz Otávio Barros. All rights reserved.


Part D
What should they do?

1. Some of Barbra Streisand’s students freeze whenever she gets close for
monitoring.

2. J K Rowling’s upper intermediate students are discussing something freely.


Three of the students have asked “how do you say…?” eleven times already.

3. One of Kenny G’s elementary students tried to use the second conditional
and, obviously, got it all wrong. Kenny G understood what he said, however.

4. One of Kenny Roger’s intermediate students tried to use the third


conditional to talk about her career choices and got part of it wrong. The
student in question still hadn’t learn it formally, but was very smart.

5. Michael Moore’s elementary student tried to use the superlative form, got
it wrong and asked him “Is that right? How I say it?”.

6. Debra Messing’s intermediate students keep asking her “Teacher, what


means (word)?”

7. Alicia Key’s students are working in groups. Two groups have already
finished and are looking bored.

©Luiz Otávio Barros. All rights reserved.

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