Classroom Management

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”
― Haim G. Ginott

PISMP TESL 4 semester 5 was given an assignment for the subject Classroom Management. First of all I would like to thank to my lecturer, Mr. Iskandar b. Daud who helped me a lot during the process of completing this coursework. He gave me plenty of notes and ideas to complete this long task. He continuously gives guidance to us with all the necessary information.
By doing this assignment, I gain a lot of knowledge which I think is very useful for me as a future teacher. The task has opened my eyes on the reality on how I can balance between theories and its practicality. This assignment requires me to observe an ESL lesson in a local primary school and report on how the teacher teaching manages her classroom. I was observing my guidance teacher Pn. Tuan Azni as she was teaching 6 Teratai as my main subject for the report.
First part of the assignment is to observe the application of managing theories and the management of facilities, resources time and etc. I notice that the class that I was observing is a high proficiency level class. The way Pn. Azni managed her class can be quite assertive at time but she was more into positive approach as each pupils is already stressed out due to examination fever and as a teacher she do not want to add to the stress level even more. Whenever any of the pupils did some mistake she will quickly take action by pointing it out and corrected it at that very moment. I find it sometimes helpful but it also brings down the pupils’ mood and confidence in learning even though she did not reprimanded in a harsh way but the idea of being admonished during learning session can be a bit of a downside in a lesson. This happens especially when it comes to reading, her intentions is to correct the pronunciation of the pupils however the constant corrections from the teacher might causes the pupils to feel dejected. The way I see it, she can use Ginott theory to be applied in this type of situation where she use the I-message instead of you-message. Thus instead of saying ‘you should pronounce the word like this…’ she should say it like this ‘I will pronounce that word as this...’ I noticed little things that happened in class can make or break one’s lesson. As for the teaching resources, the teacher tends to use teaching material that is within her comfort zone. She leans towards the use of exercise and straightforward teaching. Every lesson will start straightaway with the intended lesson without integrating it with other skill or other specifications. This happened all the time in Malaysian school as teachers want to keep up with objective that has been set for them without knowing the pupil’s abilities or limitations. The use of time is very good as she is very punctual with her time. I have been in this school for almost a month and I have never seen Pn. Azni went into her class or ended her class late. She is always on time and very strict when it comes to the aspect of time.
The second part is the preparation of lesson, its delivery stages and the management of behavior in class. As for the preparation aspect of the lesson, Pn. Azni seems to have prepared her lesson earlier as everything went smoothly in her class. However in term of enthusiasm in preparing her lesson is a bit lacking as she already aware of her class level on proficiency thus she simply prepare a lesson without much activities and focus more on doing their exercise especially in grammar. She will start her lesson with the introduction to the topic and she will teach tips on understanding the topic better. She provided all the information for her pupils in order for them to be able to complete the exercise that will be given later. I am not totally disagree with her way of handling her lesson as I understand as she wants her pupils to focus in the lesson in order to prepare for the coming examination. However, this kind of lesson might burden the pupils even more as they do not enjoy the lesson. In my opinion pupils in year 6 will always encounter a major shock regarding the lesson that they have to face once they enter primary six as they suddenly were exposed to the lesson that is very rigid and strict. I personally think drilling is required in a lesson but not all the time. I applauded Pn. Azni’s way of managing the behavior of the pupils in her class. She is able to keep her calm in handling problematic pupils. Probably due to over-stressed I notice some pupils were rebelling and do not want to proceed with the lesson. They tend to ask for excuse to go out from class often and they start to focus on other things other than the lesson. What I notice the teacher would do is that she just let the particular pupils go and when he came back she just went straight to the pupils and takes a look at his exercise. Then she realized that the boy has writer’s block issue as could not write anything for his essay. By doing so the teacher started to personally discuss the possible idea for his essay. After the discussion session ended, I notice the pupil once again engrossed in his task and finally able to compete it. Her cool and calm way of handling matters in her class left me at awe. The solutions to the matters might probably due to the experiences that she had before and the relationship that she has with her pupils.
The third and final aspect is the aspect of the application of communication skill and the management feedback. Pn. Azni’s communication skill in term of fluency and body language is really good. She displays her interest towards the pupils well and her passion in teaching is shone through her affection towards her disciples. However, occasionally she tends to focus her attention to one or two pupils and coincidently ignore the rest of the class for a moment. I noticed dissatisfaction among the pupils who tried to grab her attention. Nevertheless, she will diverge back her attention to the rest of the class once she had finish with the pupils. The way she explained her lesson is very interesting. She could come up with various techniques that can help the pupils in their examination. She provided them with many easy ways and method to get ideas for essay and how to remember the grammar rules. By doing so, will lessen their mistakes in the exercises thus given them higher chance in getting good marks in the examination. I am very impress with her abilities to come up with various good method of learning for the pupils. Nonetheless, all of the method she came up with is simply to help the pupils to get higher marks in examination but not able to make the lesson more interesting. The pupils still have to face the same generic exercise where every question more or less the same. In my opinion, through this method of teaching pupils’ would not be able to experience the fun of learning as well they could not express their own creativeness in the learning process.
Finally William Arthur Ward., once stated that ‘The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” Through this task I came to sudden realization on how big my responsibility to our future generation as these children I will teach has become our nation’s precious asset which their future in education rest on the teacher’s shoulder. Teachers are the one responsible to guide and shape students to become a god and useful person in the future. From these entire tasks I learn that becoming a teacher is not an easy task, one cannot become a teacher if he or she lacks of knowledge on how to control and manage the classroom. A successful teaching session is not depended on how much lessons the teacher provided but how the teacher provided the lesson. The process of getting into the class and teach has to go through many important stages before such as coming up with a systematic Scheme of work and a good lesson planning. Every process must be done with many considerations in order for the pupils to be able to absorb all the information thus achieving the objectives. I do feel glad of receiving this assignment as it in a way taught me how to survive in the real world where everything is uncertain and I have to learn expecting the unexpected.

NAME: FAIZUN NISAQ BT SULMAN
GROUP: PISMP TESL 4 SEMESTER 5