Classroom Management Strategies

Now that the Moroccan academic year is in full swing, kids are coming to the dar chebab (Darija, or Moroccan Arabic, for "youth center") often, and in large groups, for a variety of classes, including French, math, philosophy and computer science. They also come to the dar chebab to attend English classes, some of which I teach. Being kids, they tend to be fairly restless in class. For the most part, disruptive kids mostly just talk during class.

I alternately employ a variety of strategies to try to keep them in line and to manage classroom misbehavior. They work to varying degrees.

I think I best like letting the kids police each other. I have them do this in various ways.

One, I ask the kids who I know to be studious and attentive to help me keep the other students to be quiet. Then, during class, those kids I have enlisted to help me tell the talkative ones to be quiet.

Two, and perhaps even better than the first way of getting students to police each other, when students start to talk too much, I simply stop talking. I just stand in front of the class until the talking subsides, a result helped along by the more studious children, who want the lesson to continue, and thus get the more talkative ones to be more quiet.

Sometimes if a student is talking quite obliviously to how I have noticed that he or she is talking, I demonstrate a teaching point with that student. I draw attention to the student. For example, during a recent class I was teaching the students some verbs. I had gotten to the verb "to throw." A student in the front row was talking and seemed completely unaware that I was looking right at her as she was talking. So I demonstrated the verb "to throw" as I tossed my magic marker at her. When it landed on her, she seemed embarrassed at being caught in the act of talking during class.

Sometimes I just loudly tap the end of my magic marker on the table in front of me, especially if the students at that table are talking. If they're unaware that I've noticed that they're talking, they're usually startled by the tap and thus immediately stop talking.

And sometimes I resort to an even more common approach. Sometimes I just utter a quick "Shh!"