TOPIC 22.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT IN FOREIGN

LANGUAGE TEACHING. STUDENT GROUPINGS, SPACE
AND TIME MANAGEMENT, METHODOLOGY SELECTION,
THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER AND THE LEARNER.

1. STUDENT GROUPINGS

1.1 PAIR AND GROUP WORK

1.2 WHOLE CLASS

1.3 INDIVIDUAL STUDY

2. SPACE AND TIME MANAGEMENT

3. THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER AND THE LEARNER

3.1. THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER

3.2. THE ROLE OF THE LEARNER

4. METHODOLOGY SELECTION

5. CONCLUSION

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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 Communication is the basis of understanding among human beings. The
Foreign Language Curriculum has kept this in mind and has established that the
main goal of this area is for students to acquire communicative competence.
Teachers can help students to achieve this objective by organising carefully the
different aspects of classroom management in order to foster communication.

Based on this view, we will start by concentrating on the student groupings that can
be used, analysing the advantages and the situations in which they must be used.
Then we will focus on space and time management. We will also pay attention to
the roles of both the teacher and the learner, to finish with the selection of the
most appropriate methodology to use in the foreign language class.

We deal with an essential topic since classroom management is one of the most
important tools that teachers have to facilitate their pupils’ learning. Organising its
different components properly will increase the efficiency of the teacher and the
learning activities.

1. STUDENT GROUPINGS

PAIR AND GROUP WORK

Since the 1970’s, the belief that language is a means of communication has
inspired a new approach in English teaching: the Communicative Approach. Due to
its influence, nowadays language is taught and learnt in a very practical way in the
classroom. Our pupils will be provided with tasks that reproduce the characteristics
of communication in real life. However, the classroom is not the best place to learn
a language because of its space and time limitations.

Pair and group work are important techniques to improve the students’ use of
English and they are very useful in large classes, where students have few
opportunities to participate. These techniques involve the whole class working
separately, in pairs or small groups at the same time. They have countless
advantages:

They increase the amount of speaking time of the students. Group work provides a
richer climate for interaction than pair work, since there is a greater scope for
discussion.

Some students feel more comfortable when they use the foreign language in front
of few people. In pairs and groups, children work and interact without the control of
the teacher. It promotes their independence and self-confidence.

Pair and group work improve personal relationships because children have the
opportunity to help each other, fostering cooperation and making the classroom a
more relaxed and friendly place. Students can learn from one another too,
especially if the members or the pair or group have different levels.

These techniques have advantages for the teacher too because they save time and
other tasks can be done. In this way, students won’t get bored because of the
variety of activities and their own participation in the lesson.

However, they also have disadvantages. According to Douglas Brown, pair and
group work can be a bit frightening for students and teachers who haven’t had a lot
of experience with these techniques. However, if they are introduced little by little,
both teachers and students will see their benefits. The most important aspect to
remember is the activities must be set up carefully. The learners must have very

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clear instructions on how to accomplish the activity. After the activity starts, the
teacher’s role is to monitor the students, offering assistance when necessary.

Another drawback is that students may use their mother tongue. Normally, this
happens because the activity is too difficult, too easy or just boring. Therefore, the
tasks selected must be relevant and interesting for the students. If students don’t
understand the instructions of the activity, they are likely to use the mother tongue
too; hence the importance of clear explanations.

Pair and group composition will depend on the activity used. If it requires an ability
level, it is better to group weak students with weak students and able students with
able students, so that children work at their own pace. This enables the teacher to
give weak students the special help they need, and to provide stronger students
with more challenging tasks to perform. In cooperative activities, mixed ability
groups are recommended, since students can help each other. It’s often useful to
have a group leader who is responsible for coordinate the activities, explaining
details to the group… This role must be given to different pupils.

Pair and group work are used to practice the four linguistic skills and to develop
students’ communication and cooperation skills. Before the activity starts, a short
demonstration with one or two students is advisable, so that children know exactly
what they have to do and the language they need to use. While students are
working the teacher must observe their performances. In controlled activities, they
can be corrected since the aim is accuracy. However, if students are working in
freer activities the teacher mustn’t correct mistakes. S/he will write them down and
refer to them later or in subsequent lessons. Feedback is the final stage of pair and
group work.

WHOLE CLASS

The whole class is the traditional teaching situation in which all the students are
working with the teacher in the same activity. Jeremy Harmer refers to it as
Lockstep, because ‘all the students are locked into the same rhythm and pace’.
Nowadays, interaction between the students is promoted in order to give the
students plenty of practice. However, lockstep is useful in the imitation stage, once
the new language items have been presented. The advantages of using lockstep
are:
1. Everyone hears the same model from the teacher.
2. It provides speaking practice many students at the same time. For this
reason it is very useful to improve accuracy in large classes
3. The teacher can monitor the students’ performance easily.
4. It encourages shy students to speak.
5. It reinforces a sense of belonging among the group members, something
that we as teachers need to foster (Williams and Burden, 1997).

Whole-class is also useful in other situations, such as giving instructions to

students, giving explanations and feedback, etc.

INDIVIDUAL STUDY

In some activities, students work at their own pace. Individual study is normally
used in reading and writing tasks, which usually require concentration and silence.
The advantages of individual study are:
1. Students relax from outside pressure and can rely on themselves.
2. Children need to change activities constantly due to their short
concentration span. Individual study is a break from oral work.

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 3. It allows to internalise what was learnt orally.
4. It respects the learning pace of each child.

2. SPACE AND TIME MANAGEMENT

Our current educational system is based on an open and flexible conception of the
curriculum. Teachers elaborate a Teaching Planning in which they adapt the
prescriptive curriculum to their particular group of pupils. In this Teaching Planning,
they specify a series of objectives, contents and assessment criteria that must be
undergone by all our pupils. In order to ensure that, teachers must consider
carefully two aspects of classroom management: space and timing.

SPACE MANAGEMENT

The classroom is the only physical environment available for the English class.
Careful planning is important to create an organised and secure atmosphere.

The ideal classroom should be large enough for all the students’ desks, allow
sufficient extra space for role-play and drama activities and have different areas in
which children can carry out different types of tasks.

The first aspect to consider is the way in which students are going to sit. There are
several possibilities:
1. Students can sit in rows, facing the teacher and looking at the blackboard.
Rows are useful in controlled activities and formal tests. However, there is
no eye contact among the students. Consequently, communication,
cooperation and social integration are not promoted.
2. In the horse-show shape, students face the teacher and, at the same
time, they can see each other. They feel more relaxed because this
arrangement lacks the formality of rows. In addition to that, there is space
for role-plays and activities, communication is improves and pair work can
be arranged easily. Its main drawback is that it is difficult to arrange for
large classes.
3. When students sit in pairs facing the teacher, communication and
cooperation are fostered. The teacher has eye contact with the pupils and
they can look at the blackboard easily.
4. Students can also sit in groups of four, two students facing the other two.
It favours interaction and cooperation. However, it can be annoying for the
students who have to turn round every time they have to look at the
blackboard.

Regardless of the layout of the classroom, children must change position from time
to time. Research has shown that there are ‘action zones’, where children who sit
close to the teacher concentrate more and work harder.
Teachers must be creative and include different areas within the class. This will help
children to identify these areas with particular tasks and activities, and the variety
will increase their motivation.

It is very important to include some areas to display children’s work, suing notice-
boards, screens or a table. A listening or computer corner can also be incorporated,
so that children can listen to stories and songs or work on a computer activity.

Primary Education fosters the enhancement of reading. The Foreign Language area
can contribute to it by creating a book corner in the classroom. It enables children
to borrow both authentic and adapted books of their own choice. They may be
asked to write comments about the books that they have read or to do posters

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about them to decorate the book corner. This will motivate other pupils to read
those books.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Teacher must anticipate the length of the didactic units and the activities, but this
will be just an orientation since the pace of each student must be respected. The
time devoted to each unit will depend on several factors, such as the age of the
students, the time available for Foreign Language, the type of contents and the
learners’ previous knowledge. When planning the activities of a lesson, teachers
must take into account the age of the students, the degree of difficulty and the end
product. They must also bear in mind that each activity has three parts: the
explanation, the performance and the correction.

Planning realistic timings for the completion of the activities avoids having to rush,
which may lead to inattention or ineffective learning. However, sometimes a
particular stage of the lesson takes much longer or less than anticipated because
each group of students has different needs. When the lesson is going to take longer
than planned, Mary Underwood suggests missing out some examples that the
teacher was going to give, asking questions to the whole class instead of individual
students, checking the answers of the activities the following lesson or setting
written work as homework.

Sometimes the lesson is shorter than planned. In this case it is useful to have a set
of activities ready to be used, so that the teacher can select one that revises
previous contents or fits with current teaching focus. Some examples are songs,
short stories, language games... Teachers can also extend activities by increasing
the amount of time spent in pair and group activities.

3. THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER AND THE LEARNER

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER

Teachers use many metaphors to describe what they do. Sometimes they say that
they are like actors because they are always on the stage. Others feel like
gardeners because they plant the seeds and then watch them grow. The range of
images use to talk about themselves indicate the range of views they have about
their profession.

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In recent years the teacher’s role has changed greatly and it is very far from the
authoritarian figure of traditional teaching. This is due to the influence of
humanistic and communicative theories, which give emphasis to learner-centred
teaching. As a consequence, the teacher takes a less dominant role in the
classroom. Learners are encouraged to speak to a partner, to walk freely in the
class, to use their imagination or to solve problems. The teacher’s role may change
from one activity to another or from one stage of an activity to another.

At the presentation stage the teacher acts as a controller, checking that all the
students have understood the form and meaning of the new language item.

At the practice and production stages, the teacher is initially organiser. This
involves engaging the students, giving them information about how they are going
to do an activity, putting them into pairs or groups and finally stopping the activity
when the students have finished or when other factors show the teacher and the
students that is time to stop.

Once the activity has started, the teacher acts as an encourager, telling students
how well they are doing. Sometimes children ask how to say something or what a
word means. The teacher is then one of the most important resources they have,
giving information on vocabulary and structures. Teachers can also act as
participants. This will contribute to create a pleasant atmosphere in the class.

Finally, teachers must monitor what students do in order to give useful group and
individual feedback. During practice activities they are allowed to correct mistakes
since the focus is on accuracy. They also observe in order to judge the success of
the different materials and activities so that they can, if necessary, make changes
in the future.

THE ROLE OF THE LEARNER

One of the main changes in Foreign Language Teaching refers to the learner’s role.
In traditional methods the learner assumed a passive role. With the emergence of
the Communicative Approach in the 1970s, learners were no longer considered as
passive recipients of knowledge; they were viewed as active participants.

Nowadays pupils are communicators. They negotiate meaning (in trying to make
themselves understood and in understanding others). Since the teacher’s role is
less dominant, students are more responsible for their own learning and have a
higher degree of involvement in their own learning process.

4. METHODOLOGY SELECTION

Methodology includes the techniques, procedures and strategies used to carry out
activities. Knowing the main methods and approaches to language teaching will
enable teachers to choose the most appropriate methodology for their particular
group of pupils among the available options, with the aim of developing their
communicative competence.

It is extremely difficult to come to conclusions about which approaches and

methods are most suitable for every teaching situation. A method which is
appropriate with one class on one occasion will not necessarily suit the same class
at another time.

Some teachers prefer to select one of the methods to the exclusion of others. Other
teachers choose among the methodological options that exist, creating a unique

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combination of procedures, techniques and activities. Both options are right, as
long as teachers consider the following aspects:

1. Students are the centre of the teaching process. This means that they are
responsible for their own learning and have an active role in the classroom.
It will increase their motivation since children learn more and enjoy learning
when they are actively involved, rather than passive listeners.
2. Language is a means of communication. Therefore, learning a language
implies having communicative competence in that language. This term was
coined by Hymes in the 1960s and refers to the ability to use and interpret
language appropriately in a variety of situations. The social dimension of
language is taken into consideration, since ‘language is interaction; it is
interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society’ (Firth, 1984).
The classroom is not the best place to develop communication;
consequently, teachers must create an atmosphere which is as similar as
possible to a real communicative situation by organising activities with
varied interactions.
3. Learning must be meaningful so that pupils can learn by relating new
language to their previous knowledge. Following Krashen, it must progress
from the simplest to the most complex, so that children learn in a natural
way. Simple language elements that focus on students’ interests
(prototypes) must be taught before others that are complex and more
distant from the students’ real life (peripheral elements).
4. In the early stages, oral skills have priority since speech is the most natural
way of interaction. Reading and writing are abstract activities, and children
are not mature enough to deal with abstract concepts. Therefore, they must
be reached at the end of Primary Education. In order to achieve a proper
learning, it is convenient to take into account some principles, so that
children learn in a natural way: not speaking before listening, not reading
before speaking and not writing before reading.
5. The input is the language to which the student is exposed. At the beginning
it must be oral, because a language is learnt by listening. The written input
will be introduced more gradually with texts, graphs, readings... Stephen
Krashen described the best kind of language that students could be exposed
to as ‘comprehensible input’. That is language which students understand
the meaning of, but which is slightly above their own production level.
6. Children’s minds are not mature enough to deal with abstract concepts.
Consequently, visual aids must be used to help them concentrate on the
reality that they are dealing with.
7. Students not only learn from the teacher, but also from their classmates.
Pair and group work foster collaborative work and socialization in the
classroom.
8. Finally, errors must be seen as something natural and logical, since they are
positive evidence of the learning process.

In addition to these general principles, teachers must take into account their
learners’ needs, interests, motivation, attitudes, psychological and developmental
characteristics, learning styles and previous knowledge.

Teaching practice must be constantly assessed to see if it is working and why or

why not. That is why action research is so important. If we constantly monitor our
classes and adjust what we do accordingly, it is likely that the methods and
techniques that we use are the best for the classes we teach.

5. CONCLUSIONS

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In this topic we have concentrated on several aspects of classroom management
that the teacher needs to plan careful in order to develop a teaching of quality: the
different student groupings, organisation of space and time, the roles of the teacher
and the learner and the selection of the methodology to be used in the foreign
language class.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

BREWSTER, J. et al. (2003): The Primary English Teacher’s Guide. Penguin English.
HARMER, J. (2003): The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman.
LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. (2003): Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.
Oxford University Press.
VARELA, R. et al. (2003): All About Teaching English. Centro de Estudios Ramón
Areces.