Hello, everybody!!! I need some advice. I work in a private English school and I �m the teacher coordinator...at school we have a teacher who has some problems with her class. We �re going to give her a kind of � teacher training session � tomorrow. She told me her issues...she has a problem with a class (young children between 8-10 years old)  which is very very reluctant to use English in class...she has done her best to encourage her students to use English in class, but she can �t make it.

Besides, she has some problems with classroom discipline in the classroom. Some students are very very disruptive and she loses control of the class.

Any suggestions for my workmate? How would you encourage students to use the language in a positive way?  

Thank you a bunch in advance!!!! :)

Warm regards,

                                       Jess 

I have had this problem in the past usuually with new classes. One of the methods for improving classroom behavior and using English instead of their L1 is to make some sort of reward system. Class dojo is very helpful. You can award points or remove points as needed. The top two students will recieve a special gift at the end of the term or semester. I usually buy a transformer for the boys and some sort of doll for the girls. After the first time you will find they really care about losing points for no homework, bad class behaviour. One more good thing is there are certificates that you can print in colour and give the students from class dojo. Hope this helps

hi,

I have already had similar students, it is very depressing, I tried to attract their attention by doing group activities.

- before the lesson starts give them a piece of paper, without saying anything, they do not know what you are going to do so they will keep still till you excplain the exercise. after you explain that they have to write a story on the paper, you write some questions on the board -what �s your name?....   after that you explain that they will answer one question, cover it so as not to be seen and pass the piece of paper to the nearest student,  continuing the chain till the end of the questions, when everybody has answered they will read up the story, the majority of the times the results are pretty surprising and they not only enjoy because they have been par of the story but also because they understand the vocabulary as it is their own.

I hope it helps you.

good luck

núria 

I second the reward system, last year I had a simple star chart and each student earned their stars. I had a green board and a red board, i put the childrens names on the green board and moved them to the red if there were any problems, if they were on the green board for the whole of the lesson they earned a star.

 

This year I am doing something similar, but as a team. The whole class earns stars but it depends on everybody co-operating with each other. I am hoping that will encourage good behaviour as the reward is that their peers will be happy or annoyed, not just me.

 

As for using English, the same. Stars for using English in class.