Here are some general things that I´ve picked up while working as a native teaching assistant within a Spanish bilingual school.
- “Don´t smile until Christmas”
It will make your life a lot easier if you are quite strict at first. Some children might think that they can act out with a younger teacher, so you will save time and energy by being really quite strict until you get to know the children and how to keep them motivated.
- Own the room
Don´t let them sit down until you say. Seat them alternating gender if the group has been difficult in the past. Allow them to sit down once they have performed a task i.e. spelling their surnames, saying what they did last night, pronouncing a “hot word” correctly.
- Three strikes and you´re out
Tell a child who´s behaving badly that they have their first warning. Three warnings and they have to go back to class.
- Learn their names
If you´re really bad with names, then this is an opportunity to improve your memory. Once you know a child´s name it´s much easier to get them to stop talking.
- Be positive and reward good behaviour
When chastising, be positive “this behaviour is bad. I know you can do better.” Try to reward good behaviour as much as possible e.g. by allowing well behaved children to read aloud from the book, give their opinion to the rest of the group, or being chosen to answer a question. As much as possible, try to ignore bad behaviour, e.g. “Now, who´s going to go first? No, not you. You were talking before.” Then choose a child who behaves well.
- Isolate bad behaviour
Keep a disruptive child back at the end to talk to them about their behaviour, instead of wasting time talking to them during the group session. Ask them what they think they´ve done wrong: they usually know, but sometimes they don´t. In a new session, keep the disruptive child outside of the room, while you talk to them briefly, warning them that they will be sent back to class if they don´t behave better in this session.
