Classroom Management

Agree four or five rules, not fifteen. A list nobody can recite is not a list anybody follows. Write them once, in English, on chart paper, and leave them up all year.

Phrase each one as what to do, not what to avoid: We put up our hand before we speak works better than No shouting out. Children comply with instructions far more readily than with prohibitions.

Make the class produce them in the first week. A rule the class wrote is a rule the class will enforce on itself; a rule you imposed is one you must enforce alone, forty times a day.

Sri Lankan note: agree the rules in Sinhala or Tamil if that is what it takes for every child to understand exactly what was agreed, then put the English version on the wall. Understanding the rule matters more than the language it was negotiated in.

A routine is a sequence the class performs without instruction. Each one you establish buys back time for the rest of the year.

The entry routine. Something on the board they begin without being told: five words to copy, a question to answer, yesterday's sentence to correct. The class settles while you deal with the register.

The handout routine. Papers go to the end of each row and are passed along. You never walk between benches distributing anything.

The attention signal. One signal, used consistently: a hand raised, three claps answered by three claps, or a single word. Change it and you retrain them from nothing.

The finishing routine. What a fast finisher does without asking: read the class reader, help a neighbour, write two more sentences. Decide it once and it prevents most low-level disruption.

Number the rows or benches. Row 3 answers, Row 1 checks. This lets you distribute turns fairly in seconds and stops the same six hands answering everything.

Choral work is not old-fashioned. For pronunciation, for a new sentence pattern, for a chant, the whole class saying it together gives every child fifteen repetitions in a minute. Follow it with rows, then pairs, then individuals — loud to quiet, safe to exposed.

Use the board as a shared exercise book. One question, everyone writes the answer on a slate or in a rough book, all hold it up. You see forty answers in ten seconds and know instantly who has understood.

Walk a fixed route. Down one side, across the back, up the other. Children at the back of a large class are the ones who quietly stop working; a predictable route means they are seen every few minutes.

Ask, pause, then name. If you name the child first, everyone else stops thinking. Ask the question, wait three full seconds, then say the name. The silence feels long to you and is not long to them.

**Nobody may say I don't know and stop there.** They may say I don't know, may I ask Nimali? or I don't know, please come back to me. Both keep the child in the lesson rather than out of it.

Change the activity every ten to twelve minutes. Not the topic — the activity. Listening, then writing, then speaking to a partner. Attention returns at each change.

Give the task before the example, not after. You are going to write three sentences about your journey to school — then the example. Otherwise they watch the example without knowing why.

Pairs need no furniture moved. Neighbour pairs, then turn-around pairs with the bench behind. Two configurations, both instant.

Give the pair one job and one product. Between you, write four sentences on this paper. One paper per pair forces both to take part; two papers produces two people working alone next to each other.

Set the time short and say it aloud. Three minutes. A generous time limit produces conversation in Sinhala; a tight one produces work.

Assign roles in a group of four: who writes, who reports, who keeps time, who checks spelling. A group without roles becomes one child working and three watching.

Stop group work while it is still going well. Ending on energy makes the next one easier.

Same task, different support is the principle. Not easier work for the weaker child — the same work, with more scaffolding: a word bank, a first sentence written for them, a partner.

**Build in an extension that is not just more of the same.** A stronger child who finishes writes the same story from another character's point of view; they are not rewarded with extra labour.

Pair strong with middle, middle with weak. Pairing the strongest with the weakest usually produces one child dictating and one copying.

Mark for one thing. If the lesson taught past tense, mark past tense. A weak child's page returned covered in red for spelling, articles and handwriting teaches only that English is hopeless.

There is fuller treatment on the Mixed-Ability Teaching and Slow Learner Support pages.

Use English for everything the class already understands from routine — greetings, instructions they hear daily, praise, the lesson's own language. This is free listening practice and it costs no comprehension.

Use the first language deliberately, not apologetically, for a grammar rule that is genuinely confusing, for checking that a difficult concept landed, and for anything to do with discipline or a child's welfare.

Say it in English, then check in the first language — not the reverse. If you translate first, they stop listening to the English half.

Keep a small stock of classroom English and never vary it: Open your books. Work with your partner. Put up your hand. In pairs, please. Stop now. Consistency is what makes it comprehensible.

Most silent children in a Sri Lankan English class are not shy in general — they are afraid of being wrong in front of everyone. Reduce the audience and the speech appears.

Let them rehearse before they perform. Say it to your partner first, then to the class. The public sentence is then a repeat, not an invention.

Accept the answer before correcting the English. Yes — and we say "I went" — keeps the child in the conversation. Correcting first ends it.

Ask a question you know they can answer. A child who has succeeded once volunteers a second time. Engineer the first success.

Do not force a genuinely frightened child to speak alone. Choral work, pair work and written answers all count as participation while confidence is built.

Transitions are where lessons are lost, not activities. Count them: if a lesson has six changes of activity and each costs ninety seconds, nine minutes are gone.

Give the instruction before the movement. When I say go, you will work with your partner on question three. What will you do? — then go. Instructions given during movement are not heard.

Prepare materials in row sets before the lesson, not in one pile. Counting forty sheets at the front of a waiting class is a guaranteed two minutes of noise.

Have a five-minute filler ready every day — a spelling chain, a word game, a dictation of four sentences. Lessons end early more often than they overrun.

Seat children who cannot see or hear well at the front, and check rather than wait to be told. Many families will not raise it.

Vary who is asked. Keep a class list and tick names as you call them. Without a record, the same third of the class answers everything all year.

Never allow laughter at a wrong answer or an accent. Deal with it the first time it happens, calmly and immediately; the class is watching to see whether it is permitted.

Notice the child who is absent often. A pupil missing one day a week is missing a fifth of the syllabus, and in a language subject the gaps compound.

Give every child something they can do on the day they were away. Returning to work you cannot understand is how children decide they are bad at English.