Most of the results of the searches made on this topic could hardly supply any idea, many of them indicated classes with around twenty students as 'overcrowded' and assumed of active, disciplined and enthusiastic students in a well facilitated school. The condition for me to deal with is completely different: fifty to eighty students in a class in an ill-facilitated school in a village with the guardians and students not much aware of the value of school education. Most of them appear sincere near the final examination and it is a rare case that the students make any questions to the teacher or complete their homework. Only about twenty five percent of the students are regular. Some can be termed as 'visiting students', too. Lack of incentives, future prospects, good teaching methods and techniques, etc. may be the causes behind them which can be discussed under another topic. Here, I mean to illustrate the lack of interest in the students. As for the guardians, they are busy most of the time and find it difficult to get any chance to come to school to ask the performance of their kids. Instead of helping them in their studies, the guardians have a compulsion to ask for a hand in their work. Not only this but also that the guardians can't make their kids study hard now a days because they don't want to make them angry. In total, there are very few guardians who can provide a satisfiable feedback to the school.
If you're teaching at primary level, you say that the children are not regular, their guardians don't take of their education well, they are small and will be disciplined and enthusiastic to study later on when they'll grow up. But if you are at secondary level, you see problems in the primary level. No one and at the same time, everyone is to blame for such a condition. I mean, it arises due to the problems in teachers and also the teaching environment.
Whatever the reason, your responsibility is to improve the quality in your students.
With a background as presented above, the followings can be of some help in managing large classes. (I don't say that I've been able to implement them all. I just say that I've been following some of them and have a dream of following the rest.)
#Sitting Arrangement:
If you are lucky and have steps in your class, you can keep your students in whatever way you like. If you don't have this facility but have benches and desks of various heights, you can arrange them from the lowest to highest. If you have of same height, you can keep smaller students at the front and the taller ones, at the back. If you can't decide, you resemble me!
In every case, you have to consider the equal opportunity of each of the students. So, in this condition, too, they shouldn't be lost somewhere. First of all, the students with physical or mental weaknesses should be at the front. In the remaining places, we can maintain a rotation system clockwise or anticlockwise. The students in the last bench yesterday take the second last bench today, the third last bench tomorrow and so on. You can change the position within a bench, too. Suppose you have five students ABCDE in a bench. Their sitting position can be changed as BCDEA – CDEAB – DEABC – EABCD – ABCD, and so on.
#Group Activities:
Even a crowded class is suitable, sometimes best, for some group activities and you don't need a space in the classroom for them. A group may consist of a bench or every alternate bench can turn back and face the bench behind it to form a group. Alternatively, you can divide the class into houses consisting of students of various talent and abilities as many as possible (four in general) and keep the members of the same house together in some benches. Next idea can be making a group of a row and that is easy, too. Sometimes, you can act as a group and the students, as another. After dividing students into several groups, you can assign them class works systematically. For example, if there are ten questions and five groups, each of the groups can be assigned to solve two questions. A person, not a leader, to be changed in every activity, can present the solution on the white/ blackboard. Similarly, the groups, in turn, can be assigned to make a speech, write a famous quote or perform something daily. If you have a monitor system, a person from each of the groups can handle the duty for a day/ week/ month. You can keep some comparatively talent students, one in each group, as a facilitator and that'll surely lessen your burden.
#Competitive Games:
It may come under the previous point but I want to discuss it as a different one. Students love competition whether a prize is managed or not but it must be kept in mind that it must be a healthy one. Generally, we refer to physical games by the term ‘games’. They can also be useful in keeping the weak students happy and, thus, stealing their attention towards study. But it will be highly fruitful if you can change those games for teaching purpose or if you can find games focused on your subject matter. There are hundreds of results about games in internet it searched but you have to be selective. For example, some simple games suitable for primary children may be about the subject matter difficult for your secondary level students. In my case, many games are like that because my students don’t have good English (you can guess from my language!). So, I prefer taking gist of the searched results and modifying them as per my need. Moreover, I’ve experienced that the games you create, whether simple or complex, are far better than the ones suggested to you. My request to you is to make a collection of your efforts and share it to the people interested. As you can see, I’ve presented them under the titles ‘Some of my activities as a teacher’ and ‘Some language games’ in this very blog.
#Use of Blackboard/ Whiteboard:
If your school provide a whiteboard, that’s very good but you can do with a blackboard as well. I don’t mean a standard board, but the one that covers a wall! In my school, there are white before I came and, previously, blackboards. All these boards are of the same size and do not fit into my imagination. However, the whiteboards are removable and told the students to remove them in my period because I wanted to increase their participation by inviting three or four students, at the same time, to write on the blackboard. Similarly, the students at the last benches couldn’t see my writing on whiteboard. I wonder how this problem was solved in other subjects! Ignoring the probable effect of the chalk dust, this plan worked for sometime but the students were not very much willing in removing the board just for one period and, moreover, there was a probability of some sort of accident in removing the support. So, I stopped it after six months.
Now, I’ve got a new idea: I’ve requested the principal sir to make a large blackboard (whiteboards are difficult to afford) by painting the cement wall at the back of the class and he is positive on it. My plan is to change the direction of the sitting position just in my subject without disturbing my colleagues who prefer a whiteboard. If my voice is heard, I’ll have a good chance of inviting as many students as possible to use blackboard. I hope, it will make them active and enthusiastic, too. Hence, when correction is made on a student’s writing, others will also be benefitted.
#Correction:
Now a days, there is an ideal view that home works or class works should be replaced by projects works. This is a great idea to be implemented as far as possible.
But most of the times, you’ve to make your students practice on theoretical matters through home works, class works, periodical tests, etc. If you have a short period of leisure, you cannot check all the assignment. Moreover, most of the students count the tick marks you’ve given instead of looking for the mistakes to be improved in their next writing. If you say that you check all the assignments regularly without disturbing any of your classes, that’ll be hard to believe. To come over this problem, I follow some methods. For example, everyday, I take notebooks of some of the students (about 10) randomly because I can’t check all. I say randomly but I check that all students’ answers are checked. But this idea is to be kept hidden because if they know that it is systematic rather than random, they may not complete the works until their turn comes. My view is that we must focus on quality. So, I want to be with the students while checking their answers so that they know their weaknesses. The common mistakes can be discussed in the class whereas individual ones should be dealt personally. Even then, sometimes you can talk about the problem indirectly, like: You see, friends, I found a notebook with full stops after every word but I forgot to check the name, can you help me finding the person, please? Everyone, including the very person, laughs at such a mistake and knows that his habit needs correction.
Peer correction can be another useful technique in checking a dictation or an exercise with question and answer. First, the notebooks are to be exchanged. Then the teacher can instruct students how to check and suggest. Simple exercises, sometimes little bit complex ones can be dealt in this way.
#Motivation and Discipline:
Mostly, the lecture of a teacher is a rainfall which the tilted or leaked pots can’t catch. So, motivating and making them disciplined are equally important to attract towards study. Here, the discussion assumes the lecture method only because that is what available in my school, like others in this area. I printed and pasted titles of some stories with their morals or proverbs on the wall and told the students to memorize them. They were also presented with their video clips. However, most of the students ignored it and didn’t want to learn. One day, I told them that I’d ask a question, in exam, out of those stories and also that I’d tear out the papers after two days. Then it was a sight to see the students copying and learning the proverbs. For the next academic year, I’m planning to assign them marks for the practical portion on the basis of their attendance, quality of handwriting, homework, class work, the materials like essay book or question bank they’ve to buy, the condition (neat and safe keeping) of their notebooks and so on.
Similarly, I followed the technique of house wise competition to overcome the unwillingness of the students to memorize short essays. Everyday, marks was given to their speech on the table pasted on the classroom wall. However, it was not so much satisfactory even in the lower secondary level- the talent ones were always ready whereas others did hardly feel any shame when their scores couldn’t take their house to a good position.
Through one of the trainings I participated, I realized the boredom we create upon the learners and their strength and compulsion to bear it away. Therefore, I try to make the environment easy funny but to be frank, in vain!
If the target is not clear, no one is motivated in learning. The success in future is a distant matter to be discussed with my pupils. So, I try focusing on their achievement in the examination. Taking tests time to time and providing them a positive feedback may help sometimes.
“If you like our hospitability, tell your friends; if you don’t, tell us” written on a restaurant is applicable in our classes as well. Though tough, we’ve to learn to find good aspects in students and also to highlight them in the class. If they commit any mistake, it must be minimized as far as possible and to be told or suggested to the concerned student individually. We must not forget that ‘it is better to lose a jest than a friend’.
#Personal Relationship (PR):
The farther you’re with your students, the more difficult it is to convince and handle them. And, there are people with several interests in the same class. To strengthen your PR with them, it is a must that you identify and be friendly with their interests as far as possible. Calling them with their first names, using a respectful language, showing interest in their interests, visiting and talking about positive matters of their families, etc can be some measures to strengthen PR. Most of the people, not only the students, want to avoid the discussion about negative aspects (problems) of their families. So, it is better to watch out carefully. But if you are close and can prove yourself a good help, discussion on such matters can keep your relation strong forever.
When students feel secure and close to you, it will be very easy to attract their attention.
#Pressure:
Everyone can’t be a doctor or pilot. Although you are supposed to teach everyone and make them talent but you must keep in mind that there are various types of flowers in the garden and you can’t force a rhododendron to be a marigold. Let them blossom as they like. Forcing just makes them pessimistic and unsuccessful in life.
(Personal views. Welcome for your suggestion.)
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Great views!
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