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CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
Strategies to Control Excessive Talking in The Classroom: During Independent Work Times(Part 2)
Last Updated 7 November 2023/ By Zineb DJOUB
In the previous post, I talked about the strategies you can use to control excessive talking while you’re providing instructions in the classroom (click here to read it). But, how can you control excessive talking during independent work times, i.e., when we assign an individual task or activity to students to do in the classroom?
We want to check for students’ understanding, provide more practice, support them to apply what they’ve just learned, enhance their productivity, and also get feedback regarding our teaching. This is AN IMPORTANT stage of the lesson.
However, though students are supposed to be working quietly on our assigned tasks, they may disturb us with their EXCESSIVE talking during this stage of the lesson.
So, how to behave here to control it?
First, make sure to explain the task’s objective and your instructions so that students understand its relevance and relation to their learning, and what they’re expected to do within. Also, indicate the allotted time for completing it to make them more focused.
Then, use the following strategies in Case 1 and Case 2.
# Case 1
There are two students who are not on task, but they are talking. Do not disturb the rest of the class by talking to them from your desk and asking them to do the work. Instead, get closer and ask them to be quiet with a lower voice but SERIOUSLY.
You can also tell them that you’ll check their work and grade it or they’ll be the first to answer this task. If they keep on talking, make one of them sit in a different place (reseating).
# Case 2
In this case, a lot of students are talking and seem not to care about doing the task. Here you can :
1. Assess students’ work
If you’ve assigned a task to students to do in the classroom and you notice that the majority are not serious about it, make it more SERIOUS. Tell them you will correct their work and give them marks (either you collect them and take them home or you assess them in the classroom).
If you’re teaching large classes, you don’t have enough time to correct all students’ work, or you are tired from grading their work, you can select some of their work and leave the rest for other times (in case students talk a lot and disturb you again).
Another alternative would be telling students that you’ll ask them to come to the board to answer and you’ll give them marks. When it’s time for correction, try to select mainly those students you saw talking more.
You can include the marks you attribute to students within your formative assessment process (the student’s participation mark in class).
Show your students that you’re seriously taking those marks into account. Indeed, the way you talk to them about grading such assignments (your voice and attitudes) needs to show clearly that their behaviour has really annoyed you and because of this, you’ve taken this decision.
By doing so, you’ll have fewer or no students talking during silent independent practice because they want to avoid having their work graded.
2. Move around the classroom while maintaining your visibility
To control excessive talking in the classroom during independent work times, it’s better to move around the classroom while maintaining our visibility and control. If we sit at our desks we will allow for more talking to take place.
So, keep your eyes on your students while moving. If you see students talking come close to them and ask them about the reason. Then, remind them of the need to do the work in silence.
Besides, use your body language to stop any attempt to make noise without disturbing the rest of the students who are concentrating on answering the task.
Another important thing to do to make students focused on the task is monitoring individual students. During such a process, you can point out to mistakes, add input, encourage students self-correction, and provide guidelines for progress. While doing so, keep observing the rest of your students.
To make monitoring effective don’t interrupt the activity. Ask students to raise their hands once they’ve finished answering the task so that you can check it. Besides, don’t spend too much time with one student, there are other students who also need your support.
Your presence during independent work times is so necessary. Not only will you control excessive talking, but also support your students to perform better and get instructive feedback about their learning process.
3. Be prepared
Talkative students during independent work times are not necessarily those who refuse to do the work and prefer to talk to each other.
We can have students who have finished a task before others and found nothing to do, so they resort to talking.
To this end, you need to get prepared for such kind of situations. How?
Whenever you plan for your lessons, ask yourself: What if some students finish early? What shall I do? These students are not supposed to keep on watching others doing the work, or talk to each other and thus disturb.
Therefore, think about how you need to extend the work of those early finishers without giving them too much to do.
For example, after they’ve finished reading a text and answering the comprehension questions you assigned, they can relate those answers to form a paragraph using cohesive devices or find some words’ synonyms/antonyms in the text.
To control excessive talking, while providing instructions or during independent work times, avoid yelling at students, using threats, and getting into conflict with them. Instead, use the above strategies and believe in your ability to manage your classroom more effectively. You CAN do it!
If you have other strategies, please share them in the comments section below. I’d love to learn from you.
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Strategies to Control Excessive Talking in The Classroom: While Providing Instructions (Part 1)
Excessive talking in the classroom is really a major issue teachers struggle with in their day-to-day work. Such kind of talking which does not relate to students’ learning can drag teachers down, deplete their energy and so affect negatively their productivity.
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Have you ever felt you’re talking too much in the classroom? Teachers are talkative. But, we have to admit that if we exert no control over that talk, we will end up depriving our students of getting involved in their learning process.
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In each classroom, there are students who refuse to participate and get involved in their learning process. This annoys us as teachers because it makes us feel that what we are doing is alien to those students and we will never reach out to them.
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