Student practice: Classroom routines

 

Student practice: Classroom routines

Welcome back to my blog, in this post I want to share some classroom routines I have observed during my teaching practice. 

First of all, when students enter the room, there are greeted by the head teacher or myself as they make their way to their seats. From there, on the smartboard students are presented with a morning task such as finishing up unfinished work from the previous class, read a book silently, or given a quick maths worksheet. I think this a good system as students do arrive at different times and they always have a task presented so they know what to do. This also saves the teacher her voice as she does not have to explain the task over and over again. 

When the clock hits 8:30, students are to put away their things and have a short-warm-up. This warm-up usually consists of one -two songs where learners can dance and sing. The teacher uses the website “Go Noodle”, and students pick a song on their dance list. This list was created ahead of time by the students, as they choose what songs they want to dance to. Then, after pupils got to release some energy and they are ready for the learning day. Students know that as soon as the song stops, its time for learning and return back to their seats and take out their notebooks. 

When students are enjoying their afternoon snack, they usually listen to a BBC news programme. At first this shocked me, as I was unsure that the language might be too difficult for some to understand. But, instead, they were eagerly listening to the daily news and receiving a lot of language input. Students are always so excited to watch this programme and it usually follows by discussing and commenting on various topics. 

By the end of the day, within the last few minutes of class, the head teacher plays a clean-up song and students automatically know that they have about 3 minutes to clean their desks ad surrounding areas. I think this teaches students responsibly of their belongs as they are in charge of keeping their area clean. Students know that they have to keep their areas clean before they can go home – it can be said that it is a good means of motivation.

Its amazing to experience how well the students knew the classroom routines so well and the teacher did not have to remind students of what they should be doing. As I will be a teacher in the future, I will definitely implement a lot of those routines in my classroom as they have reaped many benefits. 

Let me know your thoughts about classroom routines ! 

Sara