Педагогические науки /3. Методические основы воспитательного процесса

Смущенко И.А., ст. преподаватель (Черниговский государственный институт экономики и управления, г. Чернигов)

Effective tips for monitoring students in the classroom

Monitoring is the assessment of students in order to ensure students are progressing properly. It is a highly valuable tool for teachers to use for many reasons. Primarily, teachers need to monitor students in order to gauge student receptivity during a lesson. Teachers are also able to use monitoring to check for advancement toward the goals for long-term instruction. In addition, monitoring is useful for helping teachers decide what works and what doesn't work in regards to their instructional procedures.

All the highly successful teachers spend most of their classroom time as alert classroom monitors. I believe that excellence in classroom monitoring skills marks the difference between an effective teacher and an ineffective teacher. When the student is off task he is not learning. When the teacher is not alert to students going off task, the teacher loses effectiveness.

Monitoring is a classroom management technique loosely defined as listening to the learners for their accuracy and fluency, or checking to see whether activities are going to plan and that the learners are 'on task'. However, monitoring is often carried out as a vague listening and looking exercise by the teacher, and sometimes not done at all, whereas in fact effective monitoring is a skill that needs to be developed if learners are to benefit fully from activities, particularly those of the information gap and group interactive types.

Monitoring a student's progress in the classroom can be tricky because there are so many different types of students and classes. Making sure to consider the work assigned and the interaction of the students in the classroom are effective tips for monitoring classroom progress.

Monitoring goes on all the time, but particularly during speaking activities when the teacher is concerned with the general assessment of learners' performance in relation to general progress or recent language and skills development. Monitoring of individual learners takes place during written practice exercises, when the aim is to point out errors and encourage self-correction. Guided practice activities, particularly of the pair work format, are monitored for accuracy, while less guided group work activities are monitored for task achievement and fluency. Monitoring may be general or multipurpose, focusing on one or more of the aims.

During independent work in the classroom students must be monitored in ways that will not disrupt the concentration of the class. Using signals for students to communicate that they need help or are done with the assignment is important to maintain focus and quiet during independent work. Folded hands can mean the work is complete and holding a pencil up can mean help is needed. A student can also stand at the teacher's desk if he needs help. Another important part of monitoring students during independent work is walking around the classroom. This will allow you to see how a student is progressing. It will also allow you to give individual students help and encouragement.

Group work is another time in the classroom where students must be monitored effectively. During this type of assignment students can easily fall of track and lose sight of the assigned work. In order to monitor students during group work a teacher must assign students specific tasks in the group. This will provide students with the responsibility they need to stay focus. It is also imperative to make sure students are paying attention and concentrating on the assignment by asking the students questions about the task at hand. These techniques are an effective way to monitor students in the classroom.

Another effective tip for monitoring students in a classroom is by making sure the students are interactive and enthusiastic. In order to monitor the students understanding of homework you should discuss the past assignments before leading into the new assignments. This will show a correlation between both lessons, refresh the work in the minds of the students, and monitor their comprehension.

Not all learners develop at the same rate. Monitoring offers the opportunity to assess the progress of individuals, and often provides an indication of what to re-teach or practise further. Specific aims of monitoring, depending on the stage of the lesson and the activity include:

1) Being aware of the whole class. The teacher should always be aware of how the class is getting on.

2) Listening for errors in the target language, particularly during guided practice activities.

3) Listening to ensure that learners are on task.

4) Taking opportunities for micro-teaching to individuals or pairs who have clearly not grasped the target language.

5) Assessing both individuals and the whole class. Monitoring provides clues to individual and group difficulties and progress.

6) Assessing the development of fluency. This involves monitoring from a distance, and the teachers role is often to take notes about common errors to be dealt with in a delayed correction slot, as well as mentally noting the use of target language in a freer context.

7) Assessing the task. Some activities work better with one class than another, others are being tried out for the first time. Monitoring offers the teacher the opportunity to assess the success of an activity and to get feedback from the learners.

8) Planning. Monitoring facilitates decision making in terms of what to do next, whether to modify the original lesson plan, planning future lessons and giving feedback to students on their performance.

9) Maintaining discipline. Large groups may become restless and bored if some learners have finished a task before others. The teacher should have some short back-up activities for these learners, or could use the quicker learners as assistants to help slower groups.

It is important to be aware of these effective tips for monitoring students in the classroom if you want to be a successful teacher. Monitoring students is important because it tracks their understanding and progress.