Surviving the First Days of Primary

More often than not, an hour spent out with friends or lying on the beach flies by, while an hour teaching EFL to young learners can seem like an eternity. Working with young learners can be lots of fun, but it can also be very tiring, especially for first-year teachers. NINA LAUDER looks at how to survive the first days of school, and discusses the importance of classroom management and variety in the classroom.

Establish rules
Rules are a fundamental part of classroom management. It is impossible to establish good rapport with your class unless there are some norms. I have often made the mistake of thinking students know what I expect them to do in class without considering their previous classroom experience. This can lead to misunderstandings and comments such as, ‘Last year our teacher let us draw on the board’. Or worse yet, it can result in your reprimanding students unfairly, which inevitably causes tension in the classroom.

Ideally, rules should be developed during the first days of class and should be decided upon by the students with the teacher’s guidance. Make sure students understand why these rules need to exist, and talk about possible consequences if rules are broken. Students can also think of some rules for the teacher! Do your best to always use a positive sentence instead of a negative one; for example, ‘Listen to the teacher and other students’ rather than ‘Don’t interrupt’.

Some classroom rules might be:

• Respect others (be supportive when others make mistakes, respect other people’s belongings)
• Be a good friend (for younger learners)
• Tidy up (make sure the class is tidy when the lesson is over)
• Raise your hand (encourage students not to speak out of turn)
• Take care of materials
• Try to use English in class

Remember that rules should be adjusted according to needs and can be adapted over the course of the school year.

Set up routines
Routines are important as they let students know what to expect and what to do. Beginning lessons with a routine draws the class together and makes students realise that the English lesson has begun. The daily routine can include a ‘hello’ song at the beginning of class and a ‘goodbye’ song at the end of class. For example:

Good Morning
(to the tune of ‘Are You Sleeping?’)
Good morning, good morning
How are you? How are you?
Very well, thank you
Very well, thank you
How are you? How are you?

Goodbye
(to the tune of chorus of ‘Bye Bye Love’)
Goodbye class!
Goodbye everyone!
See you very soon!
It’s time to say goodbye,
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

Another excellent way to use routines in class is through job charts. A job chart is a list of the

tasks that need to be done on a daily basis, but in which not everyone needs to participate. Students are assigned a task for a limited amount of time (two class periods, two weeks) and are accountable for completing their jobs. To think of possible tasks for your job chart, imagine that you have a broken leg and can’t get up from your desk. What things could you put the children in charge of? If you couldn’t stand up, who would hand out materials? Who would clean the blackboard? Who would tidy up the classroom?

Here are some suggestions for job charts:

• Attendance monitor (student in charge of telling the teacher who is absent from class)
• Materials monitor (student in charge of handing out materials such as scissors, photocopies, coloured pencils)
• Cleanup monitor (student in charge of assuring that there are no papers left around at the end of class)
• Door and window monitor (student in charge of opening/closing the windows and doors)
• Blackboard monitor (student in charge of rubbing out the blackboard)
• Calendar monitor (student in charge of writing the date on the board or marking the day on a classroom calendar)
• Weather monitor (student in charge of writing the weather on the board or colouring in the correct space on a weather chart)
• Special helper (student available to help other monitors or to fill in if someone is absent)

Make sure students understand what each job entails and that jobs are rotated fairly. Also be sure to praise students when they do the job well.

Students can participate in the development of the job chart by brainstorming what jobs can be done. Feel free to invent jobs that adapt to your needs. Once, with a class of primary year 2, we had a music monitor (someone to press the Play and Stop buttons on the cassette player), a line leader, a games leader and a plant monitor (to water the classroom plants).

Using job charts helps to avoid the typical ‘you always pick so-and-so’ situation, and giving students responsibilities makes them feel that they are an integral part of the class. This, in turn, helps build confidence and enhance good classroom behaviour. Job charts and other similar routines are an excellent means of developing learner autonomy and a way to teach basic structures and vocabulary (days, months, numbers, weather) in a real context.

Classroom management
When it comes to classroom management, it’s extremely important to show a positive attitude towards your students and to be consistent.

A common complaint amongst teachers is that it is tough to capture students’ attention when they are in the middle of an activity. Try using signals to indicate that students should be quiet and pay attention to the teacher. Demonstrate and practise what students should do when the ‘pay attention’ signal is given. Some teachers use sound cues (a bell, a xylophone, a whistle, three claps) to capture their students’ attention. This works best if the sound cue is accompanied by an action (students fold their hands, put one hand on their heads, raise their hands). Another idea is to use verbal cues which provide English in a real context, such as, ‘One, two, three...look at me!’

When problems arise in class, look for simple solutions. For example, if two students chatter throughout the class, separate them. Brainstorm solutions with the class, asking them what can be done if two people in class don’t stop talking or if someone does not play by the rules.

Reward good behaviour. For example, give points or praise to those who try to speak English instead of noting down every time students speak their first language when they shouldn’t.

Variety
Children have short attention spans, hence classes must move along at a good pace. One way to achieve this is by alternating activities (active/quiet, group work/individual work, teacher led/student led). Another way to add some variety is to think of some special surprise treats for when the class is behaving exceptionally well (for example, show a video, play a special game, allow for three minutes of free time).

Remember that it is important stop the activity while students are still enjoying it; that way, they will want to play it again at another time. It is also important to have a list of ‘emergency activities’ prepared for those moments when students are becoming distracted or to fill in the last few minutes of class. Here are a few suggestions:

5- to 8-year-olds

• Songs (‘Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, ‘Hokey Cokey’, ‘B-I-N-G-O’)
• Bingo
• Kid Connections (Each child finds a partner. Call out body parts, and each child connects with his/her partner. For example, ‘Toe to toe! Elbow to elbow!’)
• Simon Says
• Fingerplays (e.g., Open them, close them:
  Open them, close them
  Give your hands a clap
  Open them, close them
  Open them, close them
  Fold them in your lap)

9- to 12-year-olds

• Human clocks (Place the numbers 1–12 around the classroom as if it were a huge clock. Say different times. The students show what time it is using their arms as the hands of the clock.)
• Scattegories (Think of different categories such as things in the class, colours, animals, countries. Put students in groups. Say a letter. Students need to think of a word beginning with that letter for each category. For example, P = pencil, pink, pig, Portugal.)
• Anagrams (write a few of the words from the unit on the board but with the letters in mixed-up order)
• Word puzzles (write words up with the vowels missing, form word chains or word ladders, invent codes)
• 20 questions or other similar guessing games

To ensure you are providing enough variety, ask for your students’ opinions on what they like doing in class, get your students to vote on what games or activities they would like to do or have them rate your lesson on a scale of 1–10. Showing an interest in students’ needs and tastes helps them feel that they are active members of the class and helps you know what activities will go over well.

In summary, establishing rules, using routines and making sure your classes are dynamic and varied will inevitably make your classroom experience in primary easier and more enjoyable. Good luck!

Nina Lauder has been teaching EFL for over 12 years in Canada, Greece and Spain to learners of all ages and levels. She has been giving teacher training sessions to primary and secondary schoolteachers all over Spain for the last four years. She currently works part-time for Richmond Publishing on materials development for primary and as a teacher trainer.

RESOURCES

Cant, A & W. Superfine (1998). Developing Resources for Primary, London: Richmond.
Roth, G. (1998). Teaching Very Young Children, London: Richmond