Can anyone of you please suggest ways to cope with big groups of noisy, unmotivated and disruptive young learners (aged 10-12)? I've been teaching English(ESL) in primary schools for over 10 years now but this year my groups consist of 25-27 children and I find it hard to manage them. Do you know any techniques that will draw their attention? I've got lots of materials (games, visuals etc) but they seem to get bored after a while with anything I do...
I've started feeling demotivated myself...
This morning I took out of my bookcase a book by L.Shapiro on EQ(emotional quotion) hoping to be able to draw ideas from it but I need something very practical as quickly as possible as Monday morning is drawing near...
thanks in advance
Chrissy

Hi Chrissy,
I can sympathise with you. I spent a year working as a classroom assistant before moving onto coaching 16-19yr olds. A couple of things you may or may not already do to stop the students being disruptive is to keep score on the whiteboard of the time spent getting them 'back on task'. For every minute they stop you teaching and disrupting others learning you put a mark on the board. Tell them that everyone is kept back in detention for the amount of time on the board. They can earn time back by changing their behaviour to being more positive.

Another technique that is used widely at the school I work in is the hands down policy. To keep everyone listening and being a good audience, they ALL put their hands up for question time and put their hand down only after answering a question. To keep everyone motivated you can also choose students and ask questions appropriate to their individual skill level. You set the time limit on question time, you don't have to ask them all something lol.

It's a great idea for the more kinesthetic learners to be allowed to move about so by pinning quotes appropriate to the text you are using up on the wall and getting them to find them quickly helps to keep them involved and interested too. Try to introduce new information through all the senses, so a video, hand out and verbal instruction work well and cover most learning styles.

As Bandler and Erickson would say, to get someone into a state you have to go there yourself, so even if you are feeling demotivated yourself, do your utmost to change that state before you teach them.

Points making prizes is always a winner with students of all ages so some on going quiz may be a good idea. Even with the kids I work with ( A level students) stickers are welcome as motivational tools.

A little tip I learned a while ago was to use post it notes to write an inspirational message on and discreetly put it next to the students work while they're being good and on task builds a great relationship for the future... works brilliantly in group work for the team leaders too.

Hope this helps, I know it's not particularly NLP in focus, but they do all work.

You are doing a great job Chrissy! :-)

Penny x

Having coached classes of up to 30 younsters in Sports , I found it useful to be louder than the pupils/students were.......while humour and selective relative questioning and team games.....points etc.....would often work !

Praise , can also be used as a motivational tool , whilst singling out disruptive pupils......to carry on with the teaching......can have an instant , quieting affect.......on rowdy or talkative pupils (going back to my own experiences of being a rowdy pupil !)

Hi Penny and Peter,
it was so nice finding your messages, it's great to feel there are people who "listen".
thank you for your replies, I'll definitely try some (or maybe all) the things you suggest and let you know of the results...
Chrissy

Hi Chrissy

I work with younger children, I find that when they become rowdy, that if I become quieter and go there myself, they follow.

A good thing to maybe try is to have very short periods of time out and maybe do some daft exersises to get them moving and laughing, hence putting them into a better learning state.

As adults we learn better when in a good state, laughing really helps learning as lots of good chemicals are running around the body.

You sound a caring teacher, so you can find the resouces within.

Have a good day on Monday trying out the new ideas you have been given, remembering how much fun you can have, children love having fun.

Take Care, Val [img]icons/icon2.gif[/img]

Hi Penny,

Some good ideas but I would like to comment on keeping evryone back in detention.

As a child I got very upset if I thought something was unfair. In every class there will be some who disrupt and some who are quiet, why should everyone suffer.
I remember when the chemistry teacher walked into the class and people were talking after he had told us to be quiet. He asked the ones twho were talking to make themselves known, and when they didn't he caned the whole class. 2 strokes each for a class of 30. There were only 4 or 5 people talking. This seemed very unfair to me and I resented the behaviour and also the teacher for some time afterwards.

Is there some way to keep score of the disruptive children rather than punishing everyone?

I often train groups of 16-20 year olds - you'd think they'd be quite grown up by this point by that's definitely not my experience.

Here's some things I find helpful.

Course contract - at the begining of every course i get them to flipchart what they expect of me and what I should expect of them. They always put things like punctual, one voice, polite, participation etc.

Then when I catch them doing things right or nearly right I praise them straight away! and be specific, you can also let them know how it made you feel. If appropriate you can touch them/anchor it in some way.

If I find that people are not keeping to their course contract i refer them back to it. Refering people to their goal/expectations is normally enough.

If they continue I'll use the 1 min repremand from the book 1 min manager.

The first half of the reprimand:

2. Reprimand people immediately.

3. Tell people what they did wrong – be specific.

4. Tell people how you feel about what they did wrong – and in no uncertain terms.

5. Stop for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence to let them feel how you feel.

The second half of the reprimand: 6. Shake hands or touch them in a way that lets them know you are honestly on their side. (Editor’s Note: Not so sure about that. Touching is open to misinterpretation. Some people will see it as an invasion of their personal space, or worse. Use your discretion).

7. Remind them how much you value them.

8. Reaffirm that you think well of them but not of their performance in this situation.

9. Realize that when the reprimand is over, it’s over

Obviously I train people that have come to work for my company, however, many of them have come straight from school or college so when you put them in a class they act like there at school.

When ever you can use an activitly to make a point is always a winner.

The worst thing you can do is play the role of the strict teacher because they'll just play the role of the naughty school children.

Just a few things I have found helpful so take what you need disregard the rest!

Cheers

Lenny

Hi Nick,

What often happens when you threaten the whole class with detention is, that the students who would have been disruptive think twice about doing something that will cause the entire class to stay behind. I have also found that the kids tend to police themselves then often telling the rowdy ones to be quiet. I am not talking about a huge amount of detention time either, using the method that I spoke about it's often only about 10 minutes in the end. It can be useful for promoting conscientiousness, respect for others learning, responsibility etc.

As always though, every technique has to be weighed up for the students/ class in front of you.

You will be thankful to know that caning doesn't happen anymore either. :-)

Penny

...aaah...thath brings back happy memories Penny!

Takes me back to '87

I was one of the last 10 people (as specific as 'they' can get) in the country to receive the cane.

Motivation eh?

hmmm...it was around that time that my general disdain for perceived authority arose...

..................

Best wishes for tomorrow Chrissy.

Might be worth looking at Logical Levels too...when environment feeds up, so it could be worth looking at your room setup too.

J.

....hmmm ...maybe that's why I start to feel rowdy when I'm in typical 'conference room' seminars hehe the heckler in me just aching to get out!

did I also mention cattle prods? - very effective (joke btw)

James,

When lots of teachers are in the weekly 'briefing' we often get told to be quiet by the headteacher too, so perhaps it is something we just can't help. Myself, I pretty much get voluntary tourettes and that's my excuse for avoiding said meetings :-)

The environmental thing is a big issue in accelerated learning, classroom colours have a massive effect (affect?) on kids.

This is a complete aside but kind of relevant... for some reason the kids in my room seem to like the big lights off and the 'fairy' lights on... there's as much light but the ambience is different... maybe it reminds them of Christmas and they chill out more.

I've found that when I have 70 kids in my room, they are lovely and quiet when they're all plugged into their iPods, thank you Apple.

Penny

THE LOONY TEACHER METHOD !

Now that I have your attention (a deliberate ploy) , when I went into further education , we heard down the Grapevine.....about a Teacher , who would climb on the desks.....and walk on top of the desks around the room..until he was on the desk of the person who was annoying him, by talking etc, when he shouldn't have done or....if Students weren't listening , or taking the michael out of the teacher or lesson. For that whole year , that "crazy" teacher had our undivided attention, as we were all expecting him to do something completely outrageous ......but he didn't even have to.....his reputation had done the job for him !

Hi chrissy
I was happy to read your message as I am writing a book which will cover this subject ( as well as other things about teaching) and its given me a better excuse to stop writing than making another cup of tea;-)
Some of the suggestions here are great. for me I think approaching classroom management works best if you are very methodical.
First set up good states in yourself and the kids. And be ver yspecific. Not just happy or quiet but. thoughtful, creative, enthusiastic etc and anchor them. then you can get back to these states whenever you need them.You can do this spacially or auditorily with music.
Also have a hot spot! This is the place you get heavy with them from. Keep this seperate from your teaching space which should have all the happpy enjoyable associations. Have a whole lot of mood changers and breakers that you can pull out of your back pocket when you need them. Ways to create quiet curiosity, and ways to help them settle as well as funny ideas to bring them back on task. I run one day courses on this, if you are interested just drop me a personal message.
good luck and remember you are doing one of the best jobs - the children are our future!
best wishes

Chrissy,

After reading your post(and all the others), we can all agree that you need to lead them to better states(emotional)for learning and managing the classroom in general. as it so happens I took an Intro to Brain Gym in Dallas TX this weekend and strongly suspect that it might be just the "prescription" you AND YOUR STUDENTS need. If you aren't familiar with it:www.braingym.org there aren't any Brain Gym trainings available in Greece now, but you could obtain the book(Teacher's Edition)as a starting point I was the only non teacher in a room full of teachers in the training and quite clearly the teaching profession(at least in the USA)is starting to use it as a teaching tool for all grade levels

I have to be honest to never occured to me to anchor states in the class room - reminds a bit of Disney's creative stratergy where you anchor 3 positions in the room dreamer, realist and critic.

I mean i elicit states in the class room all the time but it never occured to me to anchor them (derrr!) I'm blown away with the possibilities!

I've got a group of trainees at the mo, I'm gonna try this!

Good for you Lenny.
It makes life easy. Just think for a minute. The little darlings come in bored and p****ed off and you work your socks off to change their state. You create interest curiosity, ferocious learning,jjoy bliss or whatever you can manifest. so next time its just there to fire off and life becomes easier. there are lots more cool things to help learning - have you ever thought about using pursuasion engineering techiniques to 'sell learning'? they work really well
warm regards
Kate

Well I train people in an office, so particularly when I'm training existing staff I have to sell what I'm training to them.

I've not read or seen the pursuasion engineering book/dvd. It's possibible i unwittingly use some of the techiniques?

I'll have to get hold of the book and have a look.

Some interesting stuff though, very helpful

Cheers

L

Kate

I've just gone onto purenlp.com and seen a link on there endorsing your products. cool!

I've ordered pursuasion engineering(book) I've been wanting to get my hands on it anyway

thanks for the advice

L

Lenny
Yes there are some great techniques in Persuasion Engineering and you can get a course on CD too. Selling learning is the same as selling any other idea and every trick helps.
One other thing I meant to say Chrissy. One of the best bits of advice I was ever given was a teacher who said my classes have lots of beginnings and not many endings! its useful to move them onto the next bit of the activity just before they get bored! The average human can't concentrate for more than 20 minutes on one thing and for most of our kids I think 5 mins per activity is about tops :S

I can recommend Michael Grinders work: www.michaelgrinder.com. His books on ENVoY and Charisma are fantastic.
He will also be at the NLP conference this year on the Friday - www.nlpconference.com.
Hope this helps.