Report

Classroom management is the ability of a teacher to manage their classroom

to create a conducive learning environment for the students to learn. According to
Albert and Troutman (1986), classroom management is the ability of teachers to
provide a conducive environment for learning by cooperatively managing time,
space, resources and pupils roles and behaviours. This is the essence of classroom
management as it will enhance the quality of teaching and learning session. Hence
teachers need to posses effectual classroom management strategies to manage
pupils behavior and at the same time be able to create a safe, orderly and pupilfriendly environment to execute instruction productively (Manning and Bucher, 2013).
It is therefore important for us as a teacher trainee to master classroom management
skills.
Classroom Management in Primary ESL Classroom is one of our major
subjects as a TESL students in order to prepare us for our practicum at semester
five. The assignment of this subject requires us to observe how our mentor conduct
and manage his/her classroom during the first week of our practicum before we start
teaching. My mentor is teacher Nadhirah who teaches a year two class. I requested
to enter the class with her for me to observe on how she manages her classroom.
Year two Setia class is one of the well known problematic classes as they
cause headache to a lot of teachers in the school. They do not listen to what teacher
is talking about and do not pay attention in the class. Some of them are even playing
and fighting in the class. These had caused a lot of problems to the teachers as it
interrupts the teaching and learning session.
During my observation of teacher Nadhirahs class, I found out that she
applied a few models and theories of managing classroom in order to manage the
class. There are Building the Foundations model and Token System. These are
among the strategies that found to be effective in managing a classroom even though
with pupils who are having disruptive behaviours.
The model of Building the Foundation by Skinner, Glasser and Gordon
provides teacher an understanding of the key concepts of a variety of classroom
management theories that will help them develop their own philosophy and
techniques of classroom management. The theories found under this model are
Skinners Behaviour Modification, Glassers Model of Choice Theory and Gordons
model.

Through the observation I had done, I was able to discover the application of
Skinners Behaviour Modification Model in managing the classroom. This model
stresses that human behavior can be shaped along desired lines by means of the
systematic application of reinforcement. The reinforcers might be oral rewards such
as teacher praises and material based which attracts pupils the most like sweets.
Pupils who do not follow the procedures, who misbehave or who perform poorly are
denied desired rewards or are punished in some way.
As stated above, the types of reinforcers can be divided into social and
tangible reinforcers. Social reinforcers are rewards that use oral as the medium. For
example, teacher praises such as well done, very good, and excellent. On the
other hand, Tangible reinforcers are real objects that pupils can earn as rewards for
desired behaviour and are more powerful for some pupils than other types of
reinforcers. They are widely used with pupils who have special behaviour problems.
The examples of inexpensive reinforcers are popcorn, crayons, colour pencils,
badges and sweets.
During her class, teacher Nadhirah explains to her pupils that they will get a
mystery gift from her if they behave correctly as listed on the classroom rules. This
shows that she uses tangible rewards to attract her pupils to make them follow the
classroom rules and do not misbehave during the teaching and learning process. As
in return, they will receive a mystery gift if they manage to follow all the rules. This is
quite effective as most of the pupils follow the rules set by the teachers as they
wanted to get the mystery gift.
Furthermore, tangible rewards create extrinsic motivation for pupils too.
Motivation is a kind of stimulus which arouses and sustains the interest of an
individual to achieve a goal, including the change in attitude and behaviour.
Motivation is an internal power which arouses, directs and controls
human interest and behaviour.
(Woolfolk,
1990)
By giving praises, rewards or better grades, it motivates pupils extrinsically and it
really helps a teacher to control their class more effectively. This is because there are
a force that drives them to follow the classroom rules set by the teacher.

However, there are pupils who are not attracted to the mystery gift. Hence,
they do not follow the classroom rules. They started to make noise and walking
elsewhere without teachers permission. They even ignored me when I asked them to
sit at their place and pay attention to teacher Nadhirahs lesson. This is one of the
weaknesses of Skinners Behaviour Modification Model. Pupils will misbehave when
the rewards offered for their performance of the desired behavior does not attract
them or not the materials that they wished to have.
To overcome this problem faced by teacher Nadhirah, I suggest that she
change the ways of offering rewards to her pupils. For example, she can prepare a
star chart and explains to her pupils that every one of them has to follow the
classroom rules in order to avoid the numbers of star from decreasing as the result of
their friends misbehavior. This will make her pupils to help her manage her
classroom as they will ask their friends to stop misbehaving if they want to rewards.
But there are factors to be taken into consideration too. The teacher should remove
the stars whenever needed to avoid pupils from thinking that the teacher will not
remove the stars and keep on misbehaving.
Instead of using reward system to motivate pupils and shaping their
behaviour, teacher Nadhirah too uses punishments to her pupils who do not follow
the classroom rules even though warned. As a result, she punishes them by asking
them to stand behind the class and face the wall for the remaining time. According to
Jordan and Porath punishment is a reinforcer that decreases behaviour. In classroom
management, shaping behaviour is always a better choice than decreasing
behaviour. It is therefore not suitable for the teacher to punish their pupils in the
classroom.
According to Gordon in his Choice Theory, human beings are rational and
they are able to make their choice either to behave correctly or wrongly. In short,
good choice forms good behaviour and bad choice forms bad behaviour. Teacher
Nadhirah should use another strategy that is quite similar to punishment, which is the
negative

reinforcement.

According

to

Skinner,

negative

reinforcement

is

strengthening of behaviour by stopping, removing or avoiding unwanted or undesired

behaviour. By giving pupils choice to choose either to remove unwanted behaviour or
to get punished will surely avoid them from misbehaving as they will not choose to
get punished. This can be one of the strategies that can be applied by teacher
Nadhirah instead of using punishments as it will decrease behaviour instead of
shaping it.

Other than the two suggestions that are mentioned above, there are also
other strategies that can be applied by teacher Nadhirah in order to manage her
classroom effectively during the teaching and learning process. Token Economy
System is one of the most popular and effective strategy to be used.
One of the most important technologies of behaviour modifiers and
applied behaviour analysts over the last 40 years has been the token
economy.
(Matson and Boisjoli, 2009*, p.
240)
Token economies are used as a method of strengthening behaviour, or increasing its
frequency, because the tokens are a way of paying children for completing tasks
and the children can then use these tokens to buy desired activities or items
(Miltenberger, 2008).
This system is very useful in shaping behaviours. Pupils will be given a token
such as stars and stickers if they perform the desired behaviour. After a predetermined number of tokens are collected, they can be traded for rewards they
desired to get from the teacher. Candies and extra rest time are among the popular
choices of young pupils. It is also effective in providing a less obstructive form of
reinforcement in the classroom. However, to apply the Token Economy System, a
teacher must remember to use small and countable items as the token and define
the desired behaviour clearly for pupils to understand fully the requirements to get a
token from their teacher.
As a conclusion, there is no one model or strategies of classroom
management will suit all situations faced by teachers in a classroom. But the
knowledge of these models will allow teachers to build their own management style
that combines all the models and theories into a unique and interesting style of
managing a classroom.
.