Teaching Kids ,Tip 4 “The Five Golden Rules of Good Classroom Management ! (second part )

When you get the chance ask the children how they are, what sports they like, who their favorite band is at the moment and so on. The children will feel special because you have taken some of your time to speak to them. If the children feel that you know them, you know what they like, what they can’t wait to do when they get home and so on, they will truly feel that you care about them. Another way to communicate that you care is to look at your pupils, make eye contact and smile at them.

Never spend a full class up at the board or at the front, behind your barrier of a desk. Instead, perhaps during an ESL writing task, take some time to sit in next to different students and ask them how they are, ask them if they have anything in particular they would like to ask you that they have not understood, or just tell them that they are doing well and put a couple of ticks on

Children respond far better to praise than criticism, which only makes them shrivel up inside and feel worthless. Never ever, ever use destructive criticism. Far too many human beings have a lack of self-love, as it is, without propagating it further in the classroom. There is so much good that you can do as an ESL teacher by increasing your pupils’ self-esteem through praise and encouragement.

If you listen to a rather shocking number of parents, they spend their whole time telling their children to stop doing this or stop doing that, and the whole dialogue is negative. Be conscious and make sure you do not fall into that trap. Focus on the positive in order to draw more attention to it and apply the universal law of “you attract what you focus on”.

Make sure you give plenty of praise and encouragement to ESL students who are well behaved. For example, give out tasks to students who are being good, thank them for being well behaved or for doing something quietly. If children are vying to get your attention say; “I’m picking Ariel because he  has been so good today”.

If a student is being naughty avoid using his or her name. Children love the sound of their own names – it means they are getting attention. If Arbri is talking say, “I’m listening to Ariel now”.

Rewarding students is all part of the process. Use ideas that confer responsibility or distinction on the pupil such as: verbal or written praise, a positive note to take home to parents, a star on the work, displaying a particular student’s work on the wall, being given a seat of honors, being named the student of the day or week, being given a special responsibility such as running an errand for the teacher, doing the role-call, helping the teacher with a class activity, collecting or giving out materials, leading a group activity or tutoring another student.

Tap into all the different ESL learning styles so that you reach all students in your class. Just standing there talking at the board is not going to interest many children anyway, but aside from that, you’ll miss the children who mainly learn from tactile and kinesthetic experience. By using a wide variety of ESL classroom games you will by default dabble in auditory, visual, kinesthetic and tactile skills and thus engage all your pupils at least some of the time.

The other advantage to ESL classroom games is that they engage and motivate the children. It’s obvious; if a child is enjoying the learning process then he or she is FAR more likely to pay attention! It important though to choose appropriate games for your class size and classroom configuration.

These six golden rules will ensure that your ESL pupils trust you because they know what your rules are and that you will apply them. Your pupils will like you because you show them you care by taking time to talk to them and by getting close to them physically. They will like you because you make them feel good about themselves and learning English through your encouragement and enthusiasm. Finally they will respect you for your stimulating teaching through the use of ESL games, ESL stories, songs or ESL plays that tap into all learning styles.