2. Consider the following classroom-related scenarios or questions, some of which you
discussed for your Spruz reactions this week. Compare your group members’
reactions or proposed ways of solving such scenarios. Are there differences?
Similarities? Are these real issues that you face in your classes?
•A student continues to use his cell phone to send text messages during class
time.
•A student is disrespectful to her peers, rolls her eyes when they speak, and
mocks her classmate’s language productions.
•A student is obviously depressed. He is unkempt, does not show interest, and
even though he comes to class regularly, he is rarely present mentally.
•You have found out that two students submitted identical homework
assignments.
DISCUSS

4. Classroom management
• Four areas where teachers can take
action as they shape the classroom
environment:
– Discipline and control.
– The physical classroom and our
involvement in its design as we try to
shape the learning environment.
– Designing the syllabus as an
organizational tool which allows both
careful planning and improvisation.
– Building cultural sensitivity into our
curriculum as a component in our quest
for social and moral growth of both
instructors and students.

5. Discipline
• What undesirable student behaviors
have you encountered in your class?
• Strategies for addressing discipline
issues:
– Define expectations and policies early.
– Be careful not to embarrass a student
in front of his peers .
– Consider possible causes of discipline
issues.
– Encourage appropriate behavior,
discourage disruption.
– Stay cool, but make sure to draw lines.
– Document disruptive behaviors.

6. Remote Control
• Classroom monitoring software
– Allows an instructor to access, in a lab
setting, computers used by the students,
supervising their work and
communicating as necessary with
individual students or with the class as a
whole.
• Student response system software
– Equips students with hand-held devices
and allows them to provide immediate
input that is processed on the central
computer used by the instructor.
– Students respond by pushing a button on
their hand-held devices, giving the
teacher an immediate indication of
whether or not he got his point across.

7. Think about and identify local resources
for classroom management. Does your
institution have a special unit that deals
with behavioral concerns such as
plagiarism, harassment, frequent
absences, and low performance?
DISCUSS

9. Classroom types
• Auditorium
• Medium-sized classroom
• Small classroom
• Lecture classroom
• Seminar room
• Lab room
“Smart” classrooms – have
technology console

10. Technology classroom
• Let pedagogy drive the tools in
and layout of our classrooms.
– McMaster University
• Inverted classroom
– Take technology out of the
classroom, reserve classroom
space for interaction
• “Teach Naked”
– NO technology allowed

11. Comfort in the classroom
• Is there an ideal classroom
design?
• What does it look like?
• Is the classroom you teach in
ideal? Why or why not?

12. Number of students
• ACTFL position statement on
class size (2006)
– “Given the goals of a standards-
based language program (i.e., the
development of students'
communicative competence), there
must be opportunity for frequent
and meaningful student-to-teacher
and student-to-student interaction,
monitored practice, and individual
feedback during instructional time.
This warrants attention to a class
size that remains as small as
possible.”

13. •What is the ideal number of students in a language
class? Why?
•What size class would you consider uncomfortably
small?
•What size class would you consider impossibly small?
•What size class would you consider ideal?
•What size class would you consider uncomfortably
large?
•What size class would you consider impossibly large?
DISCUSS

15. How much improvisation?
• A language instructor, while
planning for lessons should:
– intentionally leave a certain portion
of the time allocated to each lesson
unplanned
– allow for improvisation or
spontaneous reactions in response
to developments that take place as
the lesson unfolds
– let the students dictate, to some
extent, what happens in the lesson,
without compromising the integrity
of the curriculum or falling too far
behind

16. In-class activities
• Planned activities often end up
having unplanned effects or
outcomes.

17. The syllabus
• The syllabus is a document that
mediates the interactions between
students and instructors and between
instructors and their colleagues
• Should be balanced so that it can
appeal to students, motivate and
structure their learning, while, at the
same time, can convince colleagues and
external evaluators of the instructor's
professionalism and the course quality.
• Amendment to the Texas Legislature
House Bill 2504 (2009) includes
instruction on the content of syllabi!

18. •Consider the syllabus you use to teach your course.
•How much control/input do you have over the
contents?
•What parts of the syllabus are effective, according
to the above description?
•What parts could be improved, and how?
•What will you do differently when you get the
opportunity to design your syllabus entirely on your
own?
DISCUSS

20. The culturally responsive
classroom
• “A lack of multicultural
competence can exacerbate the
difficulties that … teachers …
have with classroom
management. Definitions and
expectations of appropriate
behavior are culturally
influenced, and conflicts are
likely to occur when teachers and
students come from different
cultural backgrounds.”
Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, and Curran (2004)

21. The culturally responsive
classroom (2)
• Some cultural issues that we may
encounter in our classes are:
– learners' attitudes toward the target
language or toward a teacher who may be
a non-native speaker
– parents' expectations from their children
and readiness to involve themselves in the
educational process, especially when it
involves a heritage culture
– a variety of learning and social interaction
styles that by now are ingrained in our
adult students
– different degrees of willingness to accept
and support students with language
learning disabilities

22. Helicopter parents
• Believe it or not, even college
students have parents who like to
get involved in their education!
• Remember the Family
Educational Rights and Privacy
Act (FERPA):
– schools must have written
permission from the student in
order to release any information
from a student's education record

23. Non-native language
teachers
• One of the difficulties that
language teachers face is rooted
in the perception that their
abilities and qualifications as
language teachers are diminished
if they are non-native speakers of
the target language.
• Consider advantages and
disadvantages to being a non-
native speaker of the language
you teach.

24. The “caring classroom”
• Create an environment where students feel
respected, trusted, and supported by one
another and by the instructor.
– Push students to the limit, but respect their
boundaries.
– Create a norm of sharing and group work, while
defining for the students areas in which they are
expected to work strictly on their own.
– Move around, and let students move as much as
possible.
– Encourage laughter and positive humoring, but
be careful not to let things get out of hand.
– Respect shyness.
– Allow students to speak about that which is
close to their hearts.
– Make students aware of learning styles.
– Allow students to mentor peers with language
learning disabilities or those who experience
difficulties.

25. Collaborate with a group of peers, each one focused
on a learning style: visual, auditory, kinesthetic. Have
a short conversation on what each style entails, and
then come up with questions and queues that you will
train students in a first-semester language class to use
as they interact with students with different learning
styles.
[Note: The point of the exercise is not to identify
students' learning styles, but to work with them in a
way that supports their learning styles.]
DISCUSS

26. 1
"a shy man cannot learn, nor can the
impatient man teach"
(Mishna Avot 2:6)

27. Homework
• Prepare technology module
• Spruz reflection 12
• Observation 3 due next week
• SPN 6940: Taller de enseñanza
next week