Kids' World
Strategies for Effective Classroom Rules
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3. Commitment (cont'd)
Stamps and stickers: Stamps and stickers have been great motivators in getting students excited
about doing homework and written classwork. At the beginning of each class, I quickly check the
student's homework. Next to every correct answer, they get a stamp, and if the homework was all
done correctly, they get a stamp at the top of the page. As soon as incorrect answers are fixed,
they get a stamp. In some classes there's a homework chart glued inside their books, and they
can choose a sticker to stick on the space for that day. (For ideas on using stamps and stickers
to motivate English use, see "Classroom Language Is Real Communication".)
Stamps are cheap and reusable, which is why I like them, but stickers come in more varieties.
Either way, students enjoy them and enjoy collecting different ones, and it makes something
otherwise dull become a game.
Recognition: During dictation exercises, the first one to spell the word correctly gets to write
it on the board for the others to check their own work against or copy. I try to ensure that
everyone has a chance to write on the board at least once, such as by asking the people who finish
first to wait and let someone else write. Other forms of recognition can include public praise or
letting that student go around stamping other students' work as they finish.
Leadership: Kids love being in charge, and sometimes the best reward is letting someone be the
teacher. Forms of leadership include being the caller for a round of bingo, slap, musical chairs
or other game, calling roll and marking the attendance book, or deciding what color to color
something during a classtime exercise.
c) alternatives
Sometimes rewards and deterrents simply don't work. In one class I had a boy who could not stop
hitting other students or jumping on their backs. Keiji was a nice child, but seemed to be unable
to understand that the other students didn't like it and were getting angry. I tried a variety of
rewards and deterrents, including sending him outside the room for five minutes (more painful for
me than to him, I think! But the rest of the class appreciated that I was not letting the behavior
go unpunished.), but nothing seemed to work.
Finally, I took him out of all group activities completely by letting him be score keeper. This
kept him involved in a positive way and gave him a chance to use English while protecting the
other students from him.
Also, sometimes the students may not be able to immediately figure out what the desired behavior
is, and ways to guide them to that are needed before they can be rewarded. In the section on
consistency, for example, in order to encourage students to use English when they didn't know
something or wanted to ask what something was in English, an immediate response of praise or
deterrence would not have been helpful, and I didn't want to "feed" them "I don't
know" or "What is it?"
One thing I did was teach them non-verbal cues. When I
wanted to cue them to use "I don't know," I shrugged my shoulders. If the particular
student couldn't recall the English, usually someone else shouted it out. Then when the student
in question said it, he/she would be rewarded.
Resistance
Resistance to a rule or its consequences might best be viewed not as disobedience but as the
student(s) communicating with you. The first time I tried to do use the cha cha dance in response
to a student’s cheating, he refused. At first I thought he was being unfair, because another
student before him had done the dance, and he had laughed and cheered with everyone else.
I insisted, and these awful tears began trickling down his face. Did I feel terrible!
Now that I’m older and wiser, I realize that, at ten, he was sensitive to making an idiot of
himself, and now if someone seems hesitant, I offer to do it together. The shy ones just wave
their hands in the air while I go the whole enchilada, and everyone’s happy. It may seem that,
in these cases, the students get away "unpunished," but appreciating their close shave with
public humiliation, they are careful not to get caught again.
Continued resistance or a definite change in the atmosphere could signal that the rule and/or
its follow-up are not appropriate and should be changed.
Summary
Teachers bring to the classroom their personal visions of what education and relationships
between people should be, and rules can be one way of communicating these expectations and
values between teachers and students. Clarity, consistency, and commitment help ensure that
the communication is effective, while have a variety of strategies for implementing (or
enforcing) rules can help students come to believe in those values and expectations as well.
Students’ response to the rule and/or its follow-up should be respected as one way in which
they are communicating with you, and the time and effort you spend in working to understand
their language(s) will definitely be worthwhile.
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Michele Louwerse
A native of Hawaii, Michele Louwerse has taught at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong and organized summer English camps and teacher training workshops in Hong
Kong and Guangdong (Canton), China. After earning an M.Ed. in Secondary English
Education at New York University, she taught at the Nagoya (Japan) YMCA English
School for five years, including two years as head coordinator, and specialized
in classes for children aged 4-6 years. She is currently working at the National
Council of YMCAs of Japan.
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