Dealing Large classes

Working with large classes is indeed a challenge that a teacher might face at any time. A teacher might feel overwhelmed by a very large class if he doesn’t know techniques to manage with this problem. Teachers have to have their senses alert due to the demand that teaching a large group of students involves and the unexpected behavior that students might present.

In some Salvadorian schools, teachers face the difficulty of large classes but they usually teach subjects different to English. I would say that large classes do exist in our educational system, but I would not say that their learning is a success because the teachers may be not properly prepared to work out this issue. I think that if teachers have the necessary knowledge and experience, and the physical conditions of the learning process, as the classroom space are comfortable, they can accomplish this challenge appropriately in our country.

Pedagogical planning:

Teachers must be smart enough to think of the outcome of the student’s behavior and the unusual events that might occur to plan their classes. The comfortable and supporting environment of the class is crucial for having a desired class and expected behavior. A diagnosing test would be appropriate to now students’ background from the very beginning, and then establish a set of activities and strategies that work well with each students or the group as a whole.

All teachers’ effort should be focused on making the students feel free and important in the class, so the teacher should not level students but view them equally.

Classroom learning systems:

The arrangement of the classroom must be the best due to the delicacy of the process; it must be large and free of noise. Students should be able to listen to what the teacher is saying. The classroom learning system must help the teacher to accomplish the goals, so is important that the teacher set the expectations and routines along with the students and agree with them that they are going to make an effort to carry them out.

Student behavior:

Students’ behavior has been a headache for the teachers in the learning process, but it may be controlled if we resort to a variety of techniques that are indispensable for dealing with students’ behavior. To begin, teachers have to treat the students fairly and respect them as important persons. Teachers must keep proactive all the time and they will see results of this behavior. The behavior expectations must be set and shown to the students for them to know and practice them. In some cases a reward might be useful to shape certain behavior. Knowing the factors that cause the bad behavior is important to cut the problem from its root.

As we have already taken didactics in Spanish, I remember that we had classes in which we studied about the problems that teachers face when teaching. We studied the different learning problems that students might have while learning and problems as large classes. During some English classes, some teachers have already mentioned those problems such as large classes, disruptive students and physical environment are indispensable problems.

We do know that when we teach children or adults, we always have problems, so we can apply the same techniques. We have to take into consideration the difference between teaching children and adults according to what we studied about age levels, and then adapt the techniques according to the age classes.