Detentions and Invitations

Today, we added two new forms of classroom management. Already, I have several things that I use to help keep my class organized. The first is my class participation record. This is a record that shows students' effort, participation, behavior, attitude and homework completion. When students do well, they get a plus. When students don't do their homework on time, when they don't bring their book to class, or when they misbehave, they get a minus. The second thing I use are my yellow cards and red card. If students begin using too much Japanese in the classroom, I put up a yellow card as a warning. If they continue to use too much Japanese, I'll put up two yellow cards. That means that students should only use English. If they continue to use Japanese, I'll give them a red card. The red card means that anyone who speaks Japanese in my English class without permission will receive a minus on their participation.

Today, however, I've added two new forms of management. The first is detention. Detention means that a student must stay after school. In America, detention is given for bad behavior. In my class, I give detention when students don't give me their homework. When a student is missing three homework assignments, they get a detention. I told me students: "You have a choice. I can either do your homework at home, on your own time, in your own way, or you can do your homework here, with me." In the past, when students didn't do their homework, I simply gave them either a lower grade for late work (which I will still do), or a zero for work they didn't do. However, now I can see that this isn't acceptable because students who don't do their homework are not learning the things I want them to learn, and so they are falling further and further behind in class. If this situation is allowed to continue, the student who doesn't do their homework will have a significantly lower English level than the rest of the class and will no longer be able to participate effectively and equally. Therefore, in order to make sure that students do their homework and continue to improve their English, I have started giving detentions. I'm pleased to say that one student who was given a detention paper has managed to avoid detention by turning in her work, and I'm further pleased to say that her work was very well-done.

This week, in addition to detention, I also began giving invitations. With detentions, I give students a time and day to come, and they must come. With invitations, I ask my students, for example, to please come next week when they have a little time. I'm beginning invitations because some of my students really need extra practice, especially in speaking, and in developing the confidence to speak in class. I really want to help them learn to speak more fluently in class. So, I'm giving them invitations to come. If they don't come, I'll start giving invitations with a time and date, but I would prefer the invitation to be relaxed, and for students to feel that they are volunteering to come. It's important for them, psychologically, to be making the choice to come, so I'm hoping I won't have to push them too hard to come and work with me after school.

Anyway, that's what's new this week: Detentions and Invitations.

Date: 2007⁄06⁄08 14:44｜Permalink｜Author：nelp

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