Dear English teachers and parents! Dear Friends!
I would like to talk about a very common problem - pupils' misbehaviour!
Please find below the most common reasons for bad discipline.
1. Reason 1. Students are figuring their teacher out.
Explanation: teenage students are very sensitive and inquisitive. They want to figure the teacher's personality out, and they can even do it on purpose, trying a role of a cool
coroner on! As a matter of fact teenagers often find out the truth about any personality while teachers can disguise narrow-mindedness, hot-temper and inflated ego.
What to do in this situation?
If you are a hot-tempered teacher, just clench your teeth and bolt out of the classroom being catcalled by the cheerful and vindictive students! Speaking about my modest personality I can say that I usually give students some little time to calm down and understand that I am not likely to lose my head and by no means am I going to stop respecting them! During this little time I would stay calm and resourceful, my eyes bright and loving - thus I show a good pattern of behavior. My method is as simple as ABC but it really works!
2. Reason 2. Students are sure that this teacher is a freak too! Explanation. One of the common reasons for misbehavior is the confidence that this very teacher will also be as bad as most of other teachers encountered by these particular students have been! Here works the mechanism that of attaching the imaginative or expected (usually bad) qualities to the teacher. So students can consciously or not instigate a revolution in the classroom.
What to do in this situation? Be yourself. You are not a freak, not a bad teacher, so why trying to avouch anything, right? Stay calm and confident, be polite, and look in the eyes. The personality of a teacher has a much stronger affect then you have ever suggested.
3. Reason 3. Students do not understand the current task (or the whole topic, or all the topics since September).
Explanation. Some teachers can be too self-confident to ever let themselves have the unpleasant suspicions that their students don't understand the highly professional explanations! As Al Pacino's character said in «The devil's advocate": Vanity is definitely my favorite sin!
What to do in this situation? Be sure to remember, that a bad teacher thinks of his own success but a good one - about his pupils' progress! So be strong to admit that it has been you who has been giving bad and complicated explanations for the last 4 months, be open-minded and express your sincerest gratitude for your students having been so patient, don't ever scold them for eventually having lost their patience, try to imagine the situation from the insides of your students and … Explain again!
TO BE CONTINUED.