Dealing with unruly behaviour part 2 - younger students

Disruptive behaviour – primary and middle school students

It’s rare that a younger learner is setting out to be rude to you. More often than not unruly behaviour is about high spirits having gone too far.

The ups and downs of the day

Remember that young learners are very sensitive to their body clocks. If they are tired or hungry they may find it hard to concentrate or be sleepy. If they have just come in to class after an energetic lunch hour or after a sports class they may still be hyped up. Identify the class’ patterns of ups and downs and plan to include ‘rousers’ or ‘settlers’ as relevant.

Rousers

These are activities that will help to wake the students up and get them energized and engaged. These can include activities such as board races, songs or physical response activities (like Simon Says). Something competitive always gives an activity an edge.

Settlers

Sometimes it may be necessary to settle a class down. Activities that do this require them to focus their attention on one thing quietly. This could be a puzzle, a reading task, a writing task a video or other visual that the students look at and discuss (such as describing photographs).

Clarity

Sometimes students may appear to be misbehaving but maybe they just don’t know what you want them to do. It is very important with younger learners to give clear instructions, to demonstrate, to give examples and models of what they should do. When activities have several stages do these stage by stage, giving instructions as you go.

Early finishers

Young learners who finish tasks early can disrupt others. Make sure you give time limits for tasks and try to keep everyone together. Have tasks ready for early finishers that they can work on alone (e.g. a vocabulary crossword).

Routines

Young learners thrive on familiar routines. A new foreign teacher doesn’t usually know these routines and so it can really confuse the students when you don’t do things in the ‘usual’ way. Find out from your colleagues what routines the school usually implements. For example, students stand up when the teacher enters the room. What signal should the teacher give to tell the students to sit down again? Work out a simple routine for each of your lessons and simple classroom management signals and stick to them. For example, start each lesson with a simple 4-line dialogue that you model and drill with students. Or always begin with a 5-minute vocabulary activity.  Give the same hand signals or simple verbal cues to ask students to stand up, sit down, work in pairs, answer a question etc.

You could also have a routine for the end of the lesson, e.g. ending on a song that you have taught them.

Keep calm

If students are being noisy while doing a task, raising your own voice to ask them to be quiet or to ask them to stop will only add to the noise level. Instead use quiet and calm commands, for example when you want students to stop and listen to you, raise your hand. When a student sees your raised hand, he/she must raise their own hand. Eventually the whole class will notice and stop talking and look at you. It really works! Other non-verbal ways to get the students to stop, look and listen are:

• ·      clapping your hands
• ·      turning on music
• ·      knocking on the table / board
• ·      holding a sign above your head that says ‘STOP’ or ‘QUIET NOW’.

Peer pressure

Appeal to the students’ sense of competition and allocate them to teams. Each team may win points for any members doing an activity well, winning a team game, answering a question correctly, trying to speak English etc. However, the team will also lose points if a team member behaves badly. Keep the competition running for a week and then give prizes to the winning team each week.

Reinforcing good behaviour

Reinforce good behavior by using a merits or star chart with the children’s names on it. Make sure the students know what they could be awarded a merit for.

My son’s class has a system called ‘Gotcha’ cards and it seems to work well (at least he’s pretty excited about it!). The teacher will give a ‘Gotcha’ card to any student who is ‘caught’ doing something well! This could relate to their studies but could also be awarded for helping to do something in class, demonstrating politeness or kindness to another student etc. The student writes his/her name on the gotcha card and it is then put in the ‘gotcha box’. At the end of each week (or other specified period) the teacher pulls out 3 gotcha cards and the students whose names are on the backs are given prizes.

Discipline

Of course, it may be necessary for you to discipline a child who is misbehaving. Make sure you have been told what the school’s approach is.  Is it acceptable for you to ask a child to leave the room? When should you tell them to go and see the principal? What behavior is regarded as serious?

For less serious matters tell the students what will happen in your classes. For example,

• ·      if a student is late they must sit at the front.
• ·      if a student speaks when you are speaking they must do an extra task.
• ·      if a student disrupts other students during the lesson they must clean the board at the end.
• ·      if the student does not do his/her homework they will be given double to do next time

Enjoy yourself

Children are very sensitive to the mood and energy level of the teacher. If you come across as enjoying yourself and really wanting to be there with them, the children will warm to you and they won't want to upset you. Even when you are feeling angry, tired or stressed try to stay calm and put a big smile on your face. It makes all the difference!