Ideas for Controlling Boisterous Classes

Not every children’s class is composed of little angels. Here are some strategies that may help with those classes.

Before The Lesson
1. Get to the classroom before they do, if possible. Merely by your being in the classroom first, the children will be less inclined to scream or run about and so will not be in a frenzy before the class begins.
2. Make sure you know all the students’ names. It really does help. Nobody likes to have their name forgotten or mispronounced, regardless of age. Calling a name quietly will help a child regain concentration.

Lesson Preparation
 Prepare the lesson very tightly, with no activity exceeding 5/10 minutes.
 Cut out all potentially disruptive games. As a rule of thumb, this means games involving running, slamming, throwing and hitting.
 Start with a subdued activity such as dictation of words or sounds into a grid. If you start quickly you will find the students will soon stop messing about for fear of being left behind.
 Use activities like ‘Simon Says’ or ‘Statues’. Award points to the winners.
 Keep games simple.
 Check back over previous lessons and make sure that students have been taught a variety of target language. Excessive repetition leads to boredom and agitation.

During the lesson
Seating Positions

The Teacher
 When a class is exactly as you would like it, it is usually a good idea to sit among the children as it enhances the group feeling. However, do vary where you sit, as it is uncanny how the quickest, most able children seem to sit next to the teacher and those who need most contact sit farthest away.
 However, when a class is particularly large or over-excitable, it is not always best to sit within a group. Students on the fringes will drift away, especially if they cannot see the teacher. So, to make yourself the focus - which is necessary in these classes - and stand at the front. This enables you to move swiftly to intervene, or to establish eye contact. Should there be only one or two students who have difficulty concentrating, sit next to them.

The Students
 Should you feel it desirable to change the students’ seating positions (either to separate disruptive children or to prevent the same children always retreating to the back of a class) it may be best to disguise this in the form of a game. Before the students enter the classroom, put a colour or a picture of an animal on the seats in the classroom. Outside the classroom, give the students a card with either a picture or a word on it. They have to find the corresponding animal or colour and sit in that seat. If you choose which one to give the student, you have control over where they sit (useful if you wish to separate particular children). If instead, you hand out the cards at random, you will not determine exactly who sits where but you will break up the established pattern.

 Make sure the tables/desks are clear. Do not let students automatically take out pencil cases, texts, erasers, or anything else with which they might fiddle. Make sure students sit properly in their chairs.


The Lesson
 Be consistent in what you reproach the children for. If you stop one child from swinging on his/her chair, do the same for every child. It is unfair to the children if what is acceptable varies from one week to the next. In the words of Edmund Burke “Freedom is knowing what you cannot do”.
 Be aware of your body language. Do not smile if a child misbehaves. Wait for silence, sigh, put a hand over your mouth, fold your arms, prolong eye contact, frown etc.
 Voice control. Do not begin the lesson until you have complete silence. Do not speak loudly – it encourages a noisy atmosphere. Speak in a voice, which will force the children to listen carefully. This can be exaggerated by whispering, which, if not overdone, will force the students to give you their full attention. Occasionally, if circumstances require, do raise your voice. But remember this will only have shock value if seldom done.
 Arm yourself with one yellow and one red card, and keep them in your shirt pocket, if you have one. Since football has taken off, the use of the yellow card (a caution) and the red card (a sending off) has become familiar to most children. Using these cards to punish bad behaviour makes disciplining more fun. By simply going to reach for your pocket you can pre-empt or deter bad behaviour. If used in conjunction with teams and points on the board (worth doing throughout the lesson from the beginning, as points can be deducted at any stage) the most competitive students, who are often the most disruptive, will be on the side of the referee, and will encourage their team mates to behave. In soccer, two yellow cards equal a sending off, which in the classroom would equal a point deduction.


If All Else Fails….
Determine who is the catalyst for the noisiness or bad behaviour. Sit the child next to your TA. As a last resort, exclude the child from the class, and do not readmit the child until he/she shows a sense of remorse. Students should not be out of class for more than 5 minutes. Ask the school manager to telephone the child’s parents. Parental intervention can often make a real difference.

Thanks for sharing your ideas. they are great!

We at JD have some elder kids become increasingly out of control. Those teens are now going through a period of rebelling. They curse, talk back, get into fights... They don't get scared easy.

To deal with this type, I think the FT and the TA must work together as a group. The school managers need to get involved when neccesary.

Last week, we made a boy list a number of things that the teachers do not want him to do in class, such as cursing, and make the list a contract for him and the teachers to sign. The st will have a month to improve his behaviors, and he will be removed from the class if does not meet our expectations.

Hope it works. I'll follow up on this.