Quiet and listening.

A piece of feedback I received during both my placements was that I should create a way that is unique to me with assisting in settling the class. I found either the start of the lesson or bringing students back from group work the most challenging. Although I have good voice projection, I would often find myself having to raise my voice louder and louder asking the students to stop talking and pay attention.

My supervisors had some suggestions, such as clapping or instead of raising my voice, lowering it so the students couldn't hear (clearly, this did not work!) I tried the silent treatment and the 'stop and glare' technique, which I found would be effective once or twice but I would end up participating in the game of 'raise your voice'. I was really at a loss of what to do.

After watching an English lesson, I noticed that the teacher would say 'quiet and listening' to gain the attention of her students. Although this type of attention grabbing wouldn't personally work for myself and I wasn't terribly sold on it's effectiveness, I asked the teacher where she got her idea from. Her reply was from classroom management guru, Dr. Bill Rogers. I decided that night that I would do some research into Dr. Rogers and see if he has any tips for this situation. And indeed he did.

I totally related. Questions like, 'why are you here?', 'are you a teacher miss?' and 'what's your name miss?' were thrown at me in ample supply. I even had wolf whistling in one class, which was both disrespectful, confronting and foreign. And as Dr. Rogers explains, most teachers will ask 'can you please sit down' or 'can you please be quiet' (guilty as sin!) however this is a question, not a statement. Yes, I really did need a technique to utilise. I needed a 'sense of calming and focus so that they can begin the day' (Rogers, 2012).

The main points I took out of Dr. Rogers video were:

1. I needed to utilise clam, clear and positive directional language.
2. Describe what the student is doing and then give them a directing cue.
3. Only when there is calmness, can you thank the students for responding appropriately.

After watching this video and chatting with my mum (who is also a teacher with nearly 25 years experience), I decided to try the cue of 'let's look and listen'. This was going to be my technique and will say it with a calming firmness (sounds great on paper, doesn't it?)

Hopefully, crisis averted.