Top Ten Tips for Large Classes:
1) Build a relationship with your
students.
a.
Find
ways to learn the names of your students.
i. Have students make name
cards, drawings, words, descriptions, meanings, or stories about their
names. For example:
1.
Picture
Names: Have students draw a picture to
represent their names. “Lucia” means
light, so the student could draw a picture of the sun with each letter of her
name representing a sun ray.
b.
Get
to know students and have them know each other, to build a sense of community
in the classroom.
i. Create conversations and
social time to learn about likes and dislikes, hobbies, background, etc. For example:
1.
Find Someone Who: This is an activity which requires students
to ask questions to other students to find out information about each
other. Questions can be adapted to
different levels or grammar structures, and can be individualized to your
students.
2) Develop
routines for your classroom.
a.
Train
your students to follow procedures or routines in your class, to make regular
activities easier to conduct, such as a warm-up exercise, handing out or
collecting papers, taking attendance, or writing down homework
assignments. For example:
i. At the start of every
class, have a question on the board for students to answer. As students arrive, they sit down, take out
pen and paper, and begin to write a response to the question. By the time they finish, all students have
arrived, settled down, started thinking, and should be ready to begin the
lesson.
3) Give
students responsibility in the classroom, and responsibility for their
learning.
a.
Make
students responsible for routine tasks in class, lesson activities, and for
meeting your expectations. Students are
capable of taking attendance, handing out or collecting papers and materials,
dividing themselves into groups or pairs.
They can also take on roles in group activities, and meet expectations
to help them learn. For example:
i. In a group activity, the
teacher gives each student a role, such as:
writer, speaker, timekeeper, taskmaster, artist, or runner (to collect
or hand in work). The teacher can focus
on assisting or monitoring, while the students take charge of the activity
themselves.
4) Develop
a set of rules for your classroom, and have students participate in the
process.
a.
Students
can help define classroom rules that promote respect and a good learning
environment. If they help make the
rules, they are more likely to follow them.
b.
Make
sure there are fair consequences for breaking the rules, and that all
students agree on them. If students
participate in the process, they will help with classroom management also.
5) Movement is important
in a classroom, for both the teacher and the students.
a.
Find
ways to move around if there is space to do so.
For the teacher, this allows for better monitoring, attention to
students in different parts of the room, and a different point of view for the
students.
b.
Find
ways to allow your students to move, with or without space. Create activities that ask the students to
stand up, raise their arms, turn around, or get up and walk. This will help keep them interested and
active, and will help with different learning styles.
6) Try
to add variety to your lessons.
a.
While
routines are good for learning, so is variety.
You could change the way you present your lesson, add color to your
presentation, put up a picture in class, move seats, or do a different
activity. For example:
i. Start class by playing
music.
ii. Present your PowerPoint in all
different colors.
iii. Stand at the back of the
room while you present the lesson.
iv. Have students throw a ball
(or light object) every time they answer a question.
v. Stop in the middle of class
and have students stand up, turn around in a circle, and sit down again.
7) Use
signals to get students’ attention or to change tasks in class.
a.
Train
students to respond to your signals, to stop working, be quiet, or pay
attention to you. You could clap your
hands, flicker the lights, wave arms in the air, or hold up an object. For example:
i. The teacher stands at the
front of class and claps in a pattern.
The students mimic the pattern. If not all students have responded, the
teacher claps again, and the students respond by mimicking the pattern again. This requires little effort on the part of
the teacher, but an active, physical response from the students. It’s a game to the students, but effective
for classroom management.
8) Use
rubrics for marking papers and setting standards for student work.
a.
Develop
standard rubrics for student work, such as essays, projects, presentations,
tests, or other assignments.
b.
Train
students to use rubrics, so they understand the expectations for each
assignment, and so they can begin to use rubrics for peer editing.
c. (For
more information about rubrics, see the websites posted on the Ning.)
9) Use
a teacher’s notebook for monitoring and keeping notes for grading.
a.
Use
a notebook or sheet of paper each day or week to take notes about individual
students (or groups), regarding class participation, homework, or other
tasks. This information will be helpful
in giving students a more complete grade, rather than one based solely on
written assignments that the teacher marks.
b.
Set
the notebook up with a seating chart or diagram of the room (to see where
students are seated), or by attendance or names.
c.
This
can also help learn students’ names early in the year, and get to know your
students as the year goes on.
10) Address
classroom management or behavior issues with PEP: Proximity, Eye Contact, Personal Touch.
a.
Proximity: Moving closer to students allows the teacher
to continue the lesson without interruption, while giving the student a little
extra attention.
b.
Eye
Contact: Making eye contact with students shows that
the teacher is focusing on them and paying individual attention. The students recognize that they are not just
faces in a crowd.
c.
Personal
Touch: By adding a “personal touch”, whether it’s
calling out a student’s name in the lesson or tapping a student on the
shoulder, the teacher can call the student’s attention back to the lesson
without further interruption. Students
like to hear their names, and like to feel noticed by the teacher.
