10 ideas for class control: ensure a smooth lesson

I am going to cover 10 Effective control mechanisms for managing your class. I will give you the advantages and disadvantages of using each of them. I have used these myself and they work 100 percent of the time when applied under the right condition. At the time of writing thing, I am a subject teacher so these rules were developed from the perspective of a subject teacher. So although these will also help someone who is a main class teacher, I want to be clear that the perspective is mainly from that of a subject teacher.

THE FRUSTRATION Of teaching without good classroom management or control.

First of all let me say that you’re not the only one having issues with class control. I've been frustrated many times concerning control. I’ve tried everything.

I've done the shouting, done the walking out, done the sending kids out, I’ve even argued with kids, how shameful. I've basically done everything which doesn't work, and everything which works only for a short time. To be totally honest, occasionally this still happens, which I will explain in point number 10 very soon.

Let me take a moment to say that it would be really awesome if you could show your support to this channel by liking this video and subscribing if you enjoy it. I have a little bonus as well at the end of this video so be sure to stick around to the end. Let’s get into it.

WHY CONTROL? is control important?

1. The state of the class can affect the mood of the teacher. Try teaching something fun when you’re irritated
2. Lack of control makes it difficult to teach deep topics that require attention
3. Lack of control makes it makes it difficult to focus on kids who don’t perform well. Not the noisy bad performing ones, I mean the obedient ones with bad performance.
4. Lack of control prevents the good ones from winning. Time is often wasted and this could have been spent on learning more.

THE CONTROL MINDSET: Good control starts with a mindset.

Before I start feeding you a dish of my favorite control methods, let's just address one very important thing that makes these rules applicable. The "Control Mindset". What is control? To me, control could be many things and needed for many reasons. So instead of talking about what control is, I would rather talk about what control is not! Of course from my perspective

• First of all, control is not silencing the child, because that silences the child's interest in the lesson as well
• Secondly, control is not preventing the child from participating or learning
• Third and lastly, control is not releasing your anger, which is something I've seen and done a lot of before. Really? Taking out your anger on kids for behaving as kids? Really?

Some kids can be really irritating, and for me, I grew up in a time and a society when "getting a slap in the back of your head" was common. So sometimes, honestly speaking, I could quickly get ideas about how to deal with stubborn kids. But please don't be violent, I don't advice or endorse that. Trust me, kids are kids, and nothing works permanently. There's no one control method that works all the time because you're not dealing with robots.

So with this mindset, whenever you think about applying these methods, you'll know it's rather in the best interest of the child. The main essence of control is to get the child to participate in whatever activity and learn in the most effective way. Sometimes control is required for one child, other times it's required for the whole class

THE 10 CONTROL METHODS

Number 1: Make the class interesting

You've probably heard it before, the best form of defense is attack. In this application, the best form of control is actually an interesting lesson. There’s many ways to do this and if you’re a teacher, I don’t have to delve deep into this since you already know what an interesting lesson looks like. You have most certainly had a very interesting lesson before.

Basically using techniques that draw the kids attention automatically. An example is when I brought an umbrella to class and each kid was dying to hold it too. Another example is when I was teaching the phrase "I’m hungry" and I brought cookies to class. Such a lesson has control built into it and you barely have to do anything.

ADVANTAGE: the good this about making the class interesting is that all the effort goes into the lesson and you don't have to do anything else as a form of control. So you can focus all your attention and energy on the lesson.

DISADVANTAGE: The not so good about making the class interesting is that it requires a lot of energy and preparation, which is something you can't do as often as you'd like. Especially when you're teaching between 6 and 10 lessons each day. I teach at least 10 lessons each day, and I don't care who you are, but you're not that creative. I know I'm not haha. You can't prepare 6 interesting lessons each day for a whole week. Try to do that for a whole month. Yeah. There you go.

Number 2: Call and response or response phrases

Response phrases are one of the effective methods to capture attention for beginning a lesson or after a break. Basically you say something and the kids respond with a corresponding phrase. So it’s called a call and response. A common one I use is, I say, “follow me” and then the kids respond, “follow you”. Or “look at me” and they respond “look at you”, “listen to me, listen to you” and so forth.

This is not limited to one language. It’s likely if you’re an ESL teacher, the other language teacher also has these phrases that capture the kids’ attention so you might want to let him or her intervene briefly when things go haywire. You can choose to learn and use these phrases yourself, but the more they adjust to you as a local dialect teacher, the less effective your teaching as a foreign language teacher will be. So I would usually, avoid doing this, although sometimes it helps too.

ADVANTAGE: it’s quick and instant and let’s the kids attention come to your briefly.

DISADVANTAGE: it’s only for a brief period and you need a follow up. Else you just loose them again.

Number 3: Rewards

Let’s face it, who doesn’t like rewards. Who doesn’t like a good hit of dopamine to keep them going. When one child sees the reward the other one got, they’ll be ready to do what it takes to get it too. This is when kids who are not paying attention begin to scream the answer you’re expecting.

This is actually the most preferred method and technically the most hailed method for teaching kids. Personally I don’t use this often because kids also tend to try and manipulate the teacher just for the reward. One thing I like to do once in a while is to go overboard with something like stickers.

I’ll usually give as many as 5 or 6 or 7 stickers to one child. The kids participation is no longer to get one sticker, but to get as many as possible, so you can let them keep repeating words just to earn more stickers. Don’t do this often, even once every three weeks or once a month is enough for the overboard.

ADVANTAGE: it makes it easy for scenarios where what you’re teaching seems difficult and kids have to participate more in order to learn.

DISADVANTAGE: sometimes the kids just take the reward and continue to play without paying attention. Other times the reward can be what prevents them from paying attention. So you need to have a way around this such as telling them to put it in their bags or put away the reward until a further time to enjoy it. What you can also do is limit the reward at the beginning to the kids you know won’t be distracted by the reward. And then slowly dish it out to the other kids per their participation.

Number four: the mean teacher (basically Punishment)

This is rather on the opposite side of rewards. I know a lot of people speak against this, although almost everyone has done this before at some point in their teaching career. I think if used properly and in limited fashion can be really effective. Because only rewards isn’t a good balance.

If you do this always, the kids will adjust to it as your temperament and they will play around it. If you don’t use it at all, the kids might feel they can get away with anything without affecting you.

Sometimes It’s good to let them know how their actions affect you and the class once in a while. The most important thing to know about using this technique is that it’s just about putting on a mean appearance, it’s not necessarily being angry. So you might look angry, but you don’t necessarily have to be angry. Sometimes you may be truly angry and that’s ok, because some kids really know how to get on your nerves. Also whenever you do this, make it clear as to why you have a mean appearance, and let them know it’s about the attitude, not that they are bad people. The mean teacher can be exhibited in a couple of ways.

1. A strategic punishment which won’t disrupt the class, such as telling a noisy kid to stand up  or taking away a kid’s toy and quickly adding that anyone else who repeats that kids action will join in on the punishment.
2. Forewarning: an example is putting a chair in the corner showing that anyone who disrupts the class will sit in the corner
3. The teacher’s loud voice: kids generally respond to loud voices. But let it be reasonable, and this should really not be often
4. God cop, bad cop: if there’s a main class teacher who can speak the local language of the kids, let him or her be the person to issue reasonable threats about their attitude. Again, reasonable, and about attitude. Never attack kids.
5. The angry stare: giving the angry look to one kid, or to the whole class. This works particularly when they know what results from you being angry. For example if you’ve shown an angry look and punished someone as a result, the kids respond better to that. So I say again, don’t make this a common thing, let it command some level of respect from you and the kids.

ADVANTAGE: when this is done effectively, it can have a long term effect to mold how kids behave during your class.

DISADVANTAGE: doing this the wrong way could exclude certain kids and make them dislike either the teacher or the subject.

Number 5: let kids teach and moderate the lesson or game

They are kids but they also have the same instincts and desires every human does. They crave attention, they want to be praised, the want to be noticed, they want to be rewarded, they want to help the teacher, they want to be friendly with other kids, they are simply immature adults.

Sometimes when you involve the kids in the process it saves you a lot of trouble and effort. Especially when you involve the most troublesome ones. So what I sometimes do in my class is give the bundle of stickers to the troublesome and talkative ones. And then I tell them to stand beside me, and then when they notice any of their friends saying it well, they should reward him or her.

This keeps that one child busy and also frees up the other children who would have been distracted otherwise to focus on the lesson. Another thing to do is let the kids hold flash cards and raise it up for the rest. One other thing I do is let one child hold the flash card for the others to say the word and tap it.

When I switch it between different kids, each kid wants to be the one passing the card around. There are many ways you can use this this technique to involve your kids in the lesson. If they want to act like adults who are independent, treat them as such and give them responsibilities.

ADVANTAGE: It has a high rate of success and really good for isolating kids who are difficult to deal with in other ways, because now they have something interesting to do.

DISADVANTAGE: if you forget to teach the one kid helping, they might end up not learning anything themselves. So be mindful

Number 6: a quick side activity

Another really effective technique with which can gain the attention of the kids is to resort to a short side activity. This could be a short poem of four or five lines that the kids like. This could be doing one quick TPR song that they are used to. Something you know gets them motivated. One thing I sometimes do is let all the kids go down and we jump and say certain words which they may know already.

The good part is they will become active, the downside is that they might want more of that instead of the actual serious lesson. 

Number 7: Play and pause

Similar to the side activity is something I like to do, you can call it a partial side activity. This works when you have a class TV or projector. I usually put on a cartoon or one of the TPR songs that is very interesting, or something new which they’ve never seen. The moment their attention is drawn to it, I pause it and teach for a few minutes. I let them practice the words I’m teaching a few times and then I play the video again, when they seem really into it, I pause it and continue the main lesson. Sometimes I tell them, learn two, play one. And they seem to love the idea and work hard with the expectation that they would get to watch the video.

ADVANTAGE: is that you get a good vibe with the kids and sometimes there’s a mutual understanding

DISADVANTAGE: they could become more into the video that into the learning, just like the side activity

Number 8: reshuffle sitting positions

Some kids are like fire and others are like petrol. When you put them together, a flame of disturbance and pandemonium is what you’ll get for the whole day or the whole lesson. Separating these kids seems to be a simple thing and yet sometimes it goes a long way to prevent certain disturbances that you have to deal with.

Some kids are familiar with others and therefore when those tow sit together, they hardly participate in the lesson, they just play. What I sometimes do is let them sit as one boy and one girl, which helps a lot and after a while they get used to it and they sit this way themselves before the class.

ADVANTAGE: it’s simple to implement and could have a great return by helping certain kids focus

DISADVANTAGE: sometimes moving around one child a lot bonds him with the others and he infects other kids liKe a virus spreading. Also sometimes this can be time wasting and rips away part of the time supposed to be used for teaching

Number 9: Understand and use your class demographics

it’s the responsibility of the teacher to know every child. To know their temperament, to know their energy levels, to know their performance. It takes a while to get to know all these, but it’s really beneficial to know. The classroom can be divided into three groups of kids, based on control.

1. The good: automatic self control - you do little to no control with these kids. There’s usually few of them.
2. The average: easy to control - they easily follow whoever is in charge, whether it’s you the teacher or their friends who are running around uncontrolled. They are the majority
3. The naughty: difficult to control - these ones are difficult to control and you usually require a lot of energy and attention to deal with them

Don’t worry about the good, they’ll always listen to you, they are obedient.

Don’t prevent the average from participating in the class, they are the main focus group for every lesson, and without them your class might be dull, so don’t restrict them, just issue instructions to them because they usually listen.

The naughty are the ones you have to devise ways to deal with. If you don’t control them, they will control the population of average kids, and they are the majority in terms of headcount. When one naughty kid runs around uncontrolled, guess what, the other kids begin to follow them.

What you can do is let other class teachers pay attention to these kids. Engage these kids in different ways. You can give them special activities to perform.

Advantage: it’s really good for understanding and diagnosing classroom management problems.

Disadvantage: punishment should come after the crime but in this case you might be administering the medicine before the disease shows up. Do you get my point? If not done carefully, you might have an adverse reaction on that little naughty group. And if history has taught us one thing, it is that sometimes this little group of naughty kids go on to do great things in life. From Einstein to Steve Jobs to Elon to Jack Ma and many more.  

Number 10: Do nothing

The one magical technique which I’ve discovered to transcend the above 9 methods is this step. Do Absolutely nothing.

The last and final control strategy is not to control at all. Trust me, you can't do everything. Sometimes it helps to just do nothing and stare at the kids and let them go at it. Sometimes just stop teaching and stand for a while watching them. Sometimes just do nothing about the one kid who's being troublesome. Sometimes it’s just towards the end of the week, it’s Thursday or Friday and you’ve expended all your energy. 

Keep in mind that, there’s no such thing as a hundred percent control. I don’t subscribe to the idea and belief that you’re always in control and there’s no child messing up in class. Sometimes it goes well and other times you have to re-strategize. Why? Because as much as you learn to manage the kids, the kids also continue to grow and adapt. And the problem sometimes is that what works in semester one might no longer work in semester two. Bam! Yeah! That’s right. So sometimes, just do nothing.

Advantage is that Sometimes you and both the kids need this silent or rather rowdy break.

Disadvantage is that you may look like a fed up teacher with a little cigar at the window looking into the sunset. Hahaha. So don't do this always as it can make you loose a lot of credibility.

As a bonus for those who teach ESL or classes where there’s another teacher to help mainly with control, these are a few things to consider.

1. The first point of control for the secondary teacher is participation in the lesson. Kids do what kids see. When they see one teaching goofing off, they also do as such.
2. Control should not detach the kids from the main teacher who is teaching a lesson. However you try to control your kids, be sure not the drive wedges into the flamboyant relationship the teacher has with the kids. I’ve seen teachers shout at kid unnecessarily. Even telling kids not to get close to the teacher. That is really not class control.
3. Control should be in line with the lesson. Telling the kids to sit down to suit your convenience when the ESL teacher requires them to do an activity is not the way to go
4. Understand that class control is the primary responsibility of the class teacher, not the subject teacher, and you should know that the class teacher would certainly command more authority over the kids than the subject teacher. Well, theoretically.

So yeah, these are my 10 points that I rotate to deal with my classes.

Let me know what you think especially about doing nothing. Let me know what you do, down in the comments section below.