Classroom management

Abstract

This chapter argues that classroom management is not simply a value-free set of organisational techniques: it is in many ways rather an ill-defined area, yet the way we conceive it has important implications for how it is addressed in teacher education. We begin by showing how definitions of classroom management vary widely, ranging from narrow conceptions focusing on behaviour and activity management to broader conceptions which, we argue, embrace methodological assumptions and/or imply a correlation between certain personality traits and effective classroom management. The chapter next describes a small scale research project which investigated perceptions of the scope of classroom management in ELT. The project included a content analysis of the classroom management syllabus of the Cambridge CELTA and Delta courses and comments related to classroom management in teaching practice feedback. We also designed a questionnaire to solicit teachers’ and trainers’ views both of what constitutes classroom management and the extent to which different aspects can be taught. This had both quantitative and qualitative components and involved 30 respondents. A particularly interesting finding from the questionnaire was that certain features considered to be core, e.g. establishing rapport and classroom presence, were not necessarily regarded as trainable. We draw two main conclusions from the research: 1) We need to be aware of our methodological assumptions when dealing with certain aspects of classroom management; 2) Teacher educators may need to reconsider how ‘vital intangibles’ of classroom management such as rapport and classroom presence can be addressed, perhaps drawing from fields beyond ELT.