A difficult lesson

It is never easy taking over someone else's class. For whatever reason you have to do this, there are issues to be dealt with - the last teacher's style, the rapport they had built with their students, the students' own feelings about having a different teacher halfway through the course.

I'm discovering that coming into a pre-school English course half way through adds several other issues.

First of all, there was no record of what the group had already covered. I was told "seasons, clothes for winter, some songs, and hello, what's your name?".

I had already decided before beginning, to start with Cookie and Friends, Starter, and work to supplement with further activities for the more experienced children. This system is working fairly well, although I must say that we end up doing rather more colouring than I care for. That is an issue I need to address.

The main problem for me (and this is no surprise!) is class(room) management.

The class roll has 30 children. Their ages range from just-gone-four to just-gone-six. There are two children who survived the Haiti earthquake, and are living the local youth hostel. This has created some discipline/management issues with the regular teachers, not just for me.

The classroom is long and narrow - it is actually a lovely space. There are large windows, and room to move. There are six hexagonal tables with chairs for the children to work at. At the start, they seemed to have assigned seating, but the last two weeks, I have noticed that this "rule" has become rather flexible.

And that is the crux of the matter.

My job here is not to criticise. I only wish to reflect on my OWN experience of teaching pre-schoolers and young learners. This means that I must establish "English Lesson Rules". What happens when I am not there must not concern me as the English Teacher (me as a mum of one of the pupils is another matter entirely).

So yesterday, after reading another chapter of "The Practical Guide to Primary Classroom Management" by Rob Barnes, I decided to be more pro-active. I translated "We play like friends." and "We keep our hands and our feet to ourselves." into Italian for them, and used it several times. I praised good sitting down, and good joining in, and good being quiet and listening, and everything else I could find.

I felt it had little impact, but with persistence, I expect to see results.