Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 797, Managing a Classroom.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 797.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles California, on the West Coast of America.
Okay, I'll stop.
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Today, a story about a teacher managing his classroom.
Let's get started.
After three months of summer vacation...
I was looking forward to the start of a new school year.
Okay, everybody, settle down.
Take your seats and get out your textbook.
Charlie, eyes on your own book.
And, Kathy, do you have something to share with the rest of the class?
No?
Then put that away until recess.
Now, does anyone know the answer to this question I've written on the board?
Don't everyone speak at once?
Raise your hand if you have an answer.
Patrick, wait your turn.
Therese raised her hand first.
Michael and Stephen, no talking in the back of the classroom.
Tim, sit still and eyes forward.
Pay attention.
Mark, are you paying attention?
Okay, everybody, read silently at your desks for the next ten minutes.
I always forget how exhausting it is to manage a classroom full of students.
How many months is it before our next summer vacation?
Our story begins when I say after three months of summer vacation vacation is when you don't work.
I was looking forward to the start of a new school year.
Now the story begins, and I'm in my classroom talking to my students.
I begin by saying, okay, everybody, settle down.
To settle down is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to stop talking, to stop moving around, to listen to what I am saying.
It's something that a teacher would say to his or her students to get them to be quiet when they want to start their class.
So I say, okay, everybody, settle down.
Take your seats and get out your textbook.
To take your seat means to sit down, to go where you are supposed to sit down.
It doesn't mean to pick up your seat and walk away.
It means to sit in your chair.
To get out...
Something means to go into your bag or into your desk and remove it.
In this case, you're supposed to get out your textbook.
Your textbook is a book used in school about a particular subject.
It could be history.
It could be biology.
It could be English.
Those could all have textbooks attached.
Then I say, Charlie, one of my not-too-bright students, Charlie, eyes on your own book.
Eyes, E-Y-E-S on is a phrase we use when someone is looking at someone else's book, or someone else's homework perhaps, or someone else's test, when they shouldn't be.
Eyes on your own book would mean stop looking at something else and pay attention to your book.
In this case,
You could say eyes on the screen, meaning everyone lets watch what is on the television or on the movie screen.
Kathy, I say, do you have something to share with the rest of the class?
Kathy is talking to someone else when she's not supposed to.
So one thing that teachers sometimes do to get students to shut up, to be quiet, is to ask them if they have something to share with the rest of the class.
To share means to tell other people, to say to other people.
What the teacher is saying here is you shouldn't be talking.
And if you're going to talk, then you're going to have to tell everyone about what you are talking about in your private conversation.
So it's another way of telling Kathy just to shut up, to be quiet.
Shut up is a little rude.
It's not something you want to say to someone unless you're angry with them.
Well, you shouldn't say it when you're angry either.
But anyway, I then say to Kathy, who's not a very good student because she's not paying attention.
I say, no, then put that away until recess.
So perhaps Kathy is texting or playing a video game or perhaps she's passing a note to her friend.
But I tell her to put that away, meaning get it away from where you are now, put it in your pocket or your purse until recess.
Recess R-E-C-E-S-S is a break that you have in school when the kids.
The children usually go outside and they play for 15 minutes or 20 minutes in between your classes.
When I was in school we had, I think, one recess break in the morning so that for 15 or 20 minutes all the students would go outside, if it wasn't too cold, and walk around and play a game or smoke a cigarette.
You know what elementary school children do.
Well, back to my class here.
I now say, does anyone know the answer to this question I've written on the board?
The board, B-O-A-R-D, is the chalkboard.
At least it was when I was in school.
It's a board that you can write things on with a piece of chalk.
Usually the chalk is white and the board is black.
That's why we call it a blackboard.
Now we have what are called whiteboards, which are white pieces of plastic that you use colored markers on to write.
But when I was going to school, it was just the chalkboard.
So in the story here I'm asking if the students know the answer to the question I wrote on the board.
Then I say, don't everybody speak at once?
This is a joke that a teacher might make when no one raises their hand.
No one says they know the answer or indicates they know their answer by putting their hand up in the air.
We call that raising your hand.
I say, don't everybody speak at once.
At once means at the same time.
Of course, no one is speaking, so I'm joking here.
I'm reminding them that they don't know the answer because they're not very bright, my students.
I say, raise your hand if you have an answer.
Then I say to another student, Patrick, wait your turn.
To wait your turn means that you have to wait for someone else who is before you.
You're going to do things in order, in this case in the order that people raised their hands.
So first, Therese raised her hand, so she gets to answer first.
Then Patrick, who raised his hand second, can speak.
So I tell Patrick to wait his turn.
But remember, none of my students are very intelligent, so Therese will probably get the wrong answer, and so will Patrick.
Then I say to two more students, Michael and Stephen, no talking in the back of the classroom.
Michael and Stephen are talking when they should not be because they're bad students.
And I tell them they should stop talking.
No talking in the back of the classroom.
They're sitting very far from the teacher, way in the back of the room.
Then I say, Tim, sit still and eyes forward.
Tim, another student, is probably moving around in his chair.
I tell him to sit still, meaning don't move.
Eyes forward means you should be looking straight ahead, at me, the teacher, or at the blackboard, not around at all the other students.
I tell him to pay attention.
Pay attention means listen to what I am saying, watch me, not someone else.
Then I say to Mark, Mark, are you paying attention?
I just called on you.
To call on someone in a classroom means to say someone's name so they can give an answer to a question.
They're expected to talk.
When I call on you, I'm going to ask you the capitals of the United States and you have to tell me what they are.
All 50 of them.
That's to call on someone.
Then I say, Duane and Frank, I don't see you two jotting down the assignment for tomorrow.
To jot, J-O-T, down, means to write down, usually write down something on a piece of paper quickly.
I tell Duane and Frank two more of my bad students that they're not jotting down the assignment for tomorrow.
An assignment in this case is homework, but it could be anything that your boss or your teacher tells you you have to do.
In this case, it's homework, things you are supposed to do for tomorrow's class.
Then I say, okay, everybody, read silently at your desks for the next 10 minutes.
To read silently means to read something and not talk, not talk to anyone else.
I end my story by saying I always forget how exhausting it is to manage a classroom full of students.
To be exhausting means to be very tiring, something that makes you tired because it's so difficult.
It takes so much energy.
And managing a classroom, especially a classroom of not very intelligent or well-behaved students, students who are always talking or doing things they should not be doing, like the students in my story, can be very exhausting.
Now let's listen to the story this time at a normal speed.
After three months of summer vacation, I was looking forward to the start of a new school year.
Okay, everybody, settle down.
Take your seats and get out your textbook.
Charlie, eyes on your own book.
And, Kathy, do you have something to share with the rest of the class?
No?
Then put that away until recess.
Now, does anybody know the answer to this question I've written on the board?
Don't everybody speak at once?
Raise your hand if you have an answer.
Patrick, wait your turn.
Therese raised her hand first.
Michael and Stephen, no talking in the back of the classroom.
Tim, sit still and eyes forward.
Pay attention.
Mark, are you paying attention?
I just called on you.
Duane and Frank, I don't see you two jotting down the assignment for tomorrow.
Okay, everybody, read silently at your desks for the next ten minutes.
I always forget how exhausting it is to manage a classroom full of students.
How many months is it before our next summer vacation?
Our script writer is always paying attention.
That's because we have the excellent student, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
The names in today's story were completely fictional, made up.
They don't represent anyone real.
Did I mention that my brothers' and sisters' names were Tim Pat Mark, Mike Treece, Duane Frank Charlie, Kathy and Stephen?
No?
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
