Developing the teacher management of English as a foreign language

classroom by applying differentiation in technics

ID: H00249992
Words count: 3665

Table of content:

Abstract....2
Introduction.3
Rational ..3
Setting and participants ..4
Cycle 1.....4
Cycle 2 ....4
Literature review.5
Research methodology9
Reflective journal .10
Interview ...10
Checklist ...11
Data analysis and finding from action plan12
Conclusion..17
Limitation .....17
Recommendation ..17
Personal and professional growth 18
Reference19
Appendices.22

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Abstract
This report is showing how using differentiation in activities during the lesson helps on
maintaining a good management of an English as a second language classroom. The context was
during nine weeks at a primary government school in Ras AlKhaimah, and the sample size was 4
differentiated skills students from grade 3. The strategies I used are theoretical where I searched
and found that this focus is a big case study and I choose the strategies that fits students skills
and the ones they desires the most. The data collection tools I used were qualitative (Reflective
journal, interview and checklist). The main findings were: 1) Counting down for an activity
seems to improve on task behavior, 2) Behavior chart appears to enhance the classroom behavior
management, and 3) Using rewards stickers seems to enhance the classroom behavior. I
recommend using more management techniques in government schools because the ones used
now are so traditional and making a step forward in using it is supporting our country vision
which is to make us developed as people to advance the UAE.

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Introduction
I choose to develop the teacher management of an ESL (English as a second language
classroom) by applying differentiation in strategies. In addition, I believe that the class that has
no management will have no learning.
Rationale
The reason I chose to apply this focus is because of the knowledge I learned in courses in the
Higher Collages of Technologies in Ras Al-Khaimah and the experience of planning and
searching for information, am looking for the best learning environment by applying theoretical
strategies to create a managed classroom.
I faced plenty of situations during the teaching practices I went to in the past four years in varied
schools like Government, Mag and Private schools with all the primary levels. Like having great
differentiated skills activities but could not apply some of them because of classroom
misbehavior and having no management in the class. And I went out with one doubtless result
that no good teacher can occur without a good management of the classroom that will
optimistically cause the learning to happen.
Also, when I was a student in the school I noticed that when we have a teacher who uses lovely
activities and attractive ones we tends to like participating with that teacher and we tries our best
to not miss her classes.
Many people believes that the United Arab Emirates and especially Ras Al-Khaimah is having
an education that is pushed up to become the best in the Middle East because of the excellent
management abilities occurred in its teachers. The much using of management strategies made
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the teaching in the mean while easier than the past, the many workshops that occur in Ras
AlKhaimah and the effect of that in this city teachers were huge, and this made this advantage
happen.
Setting and participant
This action research was conducted in a Government Primary School from grade 1 to 5 in Ras
Al-Khaimah that uses the UAE Parade curriculum. The class level I enrolled my action research
in is grade 3, with four girls as my sample size. I took my teacher, the principles and the parents
permission to conduct this research with those four students.
Cycle 1
I started working on this research paper since the last semester, where I planned to do it in a
Primary School in Ras Al-Khaimah with grade 5 ESL students. The sample size was 6
differentiated levels of smartness students. The research focus was the same as this semester
which is developing the teacher management of an English language classroom by applying
differentiation in strategies. The data tools I used were a survey, interview and a weekly journal.
Afterward, I saw that using those three tools do not fit together! And aimed to search for ways to
develop them next semester.
Cycle 2
From the results I had last semester I changed many things in my research, firstly I used one data
tool from last semester which is the interview and changed using a weekly journal to a reflective
journal I will use after each implementation of the activities. Also, it is my first time to use a
checklist. The students level in this semester research is younger which is grade 3 and the

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sample size is 4 students not 6 that is to make my concentration more on them in this small
period of time.
Questions:
1- To what extent controlling the activity time affect the classroom management?
2- The impact of using participation stickers on maintaining a good management of the
classroom?
3- How can using a behavior chart keep up a good management in the classroom?

Literature Review
Introduction:
The best learning environment is what all teachers around the world tries to build, so they uses
varies techniques to make the classroom they teaches in managed. Nowadays, the UAE schools
are different from the old days where the method used now are educationally, theoretically and
wide ranging more than that time where in the past century the relationship among the students
and their teachers where not as close as it is currently.
Definition for key terms:
Classroom Management:
Korpershoek et al (2014) believed that the class management is the techniques teachers needs to
do to maintain a good classroom with a less misbehavior occurring there, to organize and
manage the students during the lesson aiming at achieving the highest result they can achieve.

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Educational lesson activates:

Educational directed activities to avoid the possibilities for the students feeling bored that leads
to stop naughtiness attitude in the lesson that is directed to all the styles of learning (Morin.
2016).
Enjoyable learning environment
The fun part in learning is where teacher uses enjoyable equipment to the students, where it gives
excitement feeling to both of them in the lesson. The students love to have enjoyable lessons, so
they are noiseless and keep a good attitude in the classroom (Prensky. 2001).
2.2The management importance in the classroom
-

Peaceful environment

Making learning positive plays a principle role maintaining a management of the classroom and
should be achieved. If students are disorderly and disrespectful, and no apparent rules and
procedures guide behavior, chaos becomes the norm. (Marzano. 2016) There the surrounding
environment around the students gives its affect where it leads them to have difficulties while
learning. So, for making a positive environment for the students, they need to follow teacher
instruction during teaching the lesson. Moreover, sharing ideas and questioning in a flawless way
leads to a meaningful result. Eventually directing into a successful learning environment, this
clearly will clarify to us that having a peaceful environment is a learning requirement. (Klein, S.
2008)
-

Students performance

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If the managed and quiet environment is there, the students educational level will of course
become developed and in a period of time that development will appear when they gets their
grades. Approving that, Sally McCombs (2016) believed that the basic way to evaluate the
students performance and their levels of smartness is by their grades and how much they
participate in the lesson.
2.2.1 The reasons behind the students misbehaving
-

Home reasons

In real life a big number of students sense that no one cares after them, thinking they are
invisible because their parents or their guardian at home do not look after their daily needs and
do not sit that much with them keeping them from thinking that no one cares for them at all. So,
what most of them do is trying to take the attention of the surrounding people round them in
school environment, their mates, and their teachers. Lewis (2016) believes that students and
especially the young ones and teenagers wants care from the eldest nowadays because life now
are so different from many years ago, the students interests and disinterests are different. If
everyone at home were uncaring towards them, it might cause to a negative result later, like
becoming violent or having autism. Those little kids had those effects at home for that the school
needs to aim on helping this student condition be better by choosing to use activities that helps
on letting the joy occurring in the student life and builds up the relationship between she and her
classmates be close is suggested to lead her to feel that she is there, and she got people who care
about her. Moreover, the teacher needs to figure out the reasons why the kids are misbehaving
before she acts because if a student was sick cause of a fever or a common illness like that her
actions will not be as she is used to before (Lewis. 2016).

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School reasons

In the other hand, Bifulco et al (ND) believed that a lot of students are impacted because of their
classmates in the class who are extremely misbehaving. The students copy their colleagues
behavior when the more they are close to them the more they copy their attitude, and if the
teacher did not put an end to that fast, there is a big chance that it will be an overshadowing
behavior they will be used to do.
Techniques to manage the classroom
-

Managing time

The teacher can cover all the learning styles during the lesson by managing the timing of the
lesson which is very important where it will give the students the opportunity to learn in more
than one way that can be the closest to suitable them more. (American University. 2016)
-

Learning is fun

Instead of using tutoring for teaching that is boring and unhelpful for the kinetic learning style
learners, learning by doing is the solution where teachers can teach using this strategy that is by
giving some handy items to the students and they can learn by investigating those items. (Cox, J.
2016) Making the students interested in learning will happen if the students were involved in
learning using interesting activates, a replaced naming we can call in it is learning through
having fun.
-

Positive behavior reward system

Creating a managed classroom will be easy if the students were afforded with the passion to
learn and participate in the lesson. For instance, Sarat (2011) supposed that the points board
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which includes all the class students names with the number of points each one of them got, and
a place in it for the black points which the students hates to get and there are negative result will
happen to the students who will have a big number of black points, like giving them more
homework to do or if there was no respond from the students to the black points teacher needs to
communicate with the parent or the guardians. Shelley Giesbrecht (2016) also believed the same
where she said "The rewards help students remember the classroom rules and commonsense
manners.
Conclusion:
Managing the class with appropriate strategies with considering the conditions each student
lives, can keep the students from getting a misbehaving attitude. Another thing is that the teacher
needs to have a good plan so she can know what each student needs from activities to be
attracted to the lesson more. Finally, from all those theories now I know that differentiating the
activities really do give a big effect on the students performance in the classroom.

Research methodology
Over the nine weeks in teaching practice I applied some behavior intervention strategies after
collecting the data showed in my literature review. And the type of data collection tools I used
was qualitative and I used a specific research process showed in Figure 1.

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I went to teaching practice and in the first week of it I was observing, then I aimed to use specific
behavior intervention strategies such as managing the activity time, where the teacher can cover
all the learning styles in the lesson if she had the time to. Another activity is stickers reward,
that needs to lead the students behavior to be better and it was aimed for individuals in the
beginning but after two weeks I saw that making the stickers for group evaluation is better where
the hyperactive students became managed in the classroom, when they see their classmates
participate they will be motivated to get good behavior. And, positive behavior reward system
that encourages the students to help each other, and to give advice for their classmates to not
misbehave.
Reflective journal
The first data collection tool I used was the reflective journal which was supposed to be a weekly
journal but I saw that if I write about a whole week I will miss the important parts that have
connection with my research. So I have done a reflective journal and wrote in it after each
implementation for each of the above strategies.

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Interview
Another way I aimed to use was the survey but afterward I noticed that the results I will get from
a survey will be so quantitative more than becoming qualitative so I changed it to an interview
that I done in the seventh week of teaching practice to know do the students sense their behavior
and to figure out the reasons that leads for misbehaving attitude.
One more interview was with the school principle, who gave my research a huge perk where her
replays for my questions were not as I expected because she is an old teacher in the school and I
thought her way of thinking about teaching will not be as modern as teaching is now. But she
answered me that contributing with the students as if they were your own kids and giving lots of
attractive activities in the classroom will definitely take all the class attention to the lesson expect
for maybe the special needs students, who needs from you to care more and needs more suitable
activities to implement to them, that will make your classroom an effective and positive
classroom management. (AlShehhi, H. 2016)
Checklist
After using each strategy am implementing I examine if those strategies worked well or not by
putting specific standards. This is by putting those standards in a checklist then filling this
checklist at the end of each week. I observed four students from grade 3 and named them student
A, B, C and D and made a column for each one of them in particular.
Each one of those three tools is forwarded for the three strategies am using. And I used three
tools to make my research as academic and valuable as it needs to be.
Ethical Considerations

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While writing this research I need to be aware of the ethical considerations, not to mention the
school name but just describing it (A Government Primary School in Ras Al-Khaimah). And not
to say the class section or the students names, instead of their names am calling them (Student A,
Student B, Student C and Student D).
The moment I started teaching practice I explained the research project to my MST (Mentor
School Teacher) telling her what I need to do like interviewing the students, writing a reflective
journal about them and that am going to do a checklist on the students reactions toward the
strategies and putting a tick about their behavior. And I kept them aware that the information and
data am collecting will be private where no one will have accessibility to it.
I asked for the principlel of the school permission to sign the permission paper that confirms that
it is okay if I did this research and implement my data tools in the school with the students. (See
appendix 1.1) Also, I sent another letter for permission with the students for their parents to tell
them am going to do an interview with their children. (See appendix 2.1)

Data analysis and finding

The focus area am focusing on is developing the teacher management of an ESL (English as a
second language classroom) by applying differentiation in strategies. For applying this focus I
putted three questions:
1- To what extent controlling the activity time affect the classroom management?
Finding 1: Counting down for an activity seems to improve on task behavior. Where I have done
an interview in week number 6 of teaching practice with four students from grade 3 asking them
is it helpful when the teacher counts down for an activity or not.
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However, students A, C and D said Yes expect for Student B who said No because her
colleagues are working on finishing the task where she wants to play and not do the work, and
that clarified that I reached my goal because the group Student B is in are learning even when
she dont want to. (See figure 2)
But Student D answer caught my attention where she gave me a critical answer when she said
because teacher gives us time in the beginning, in the middle and when the activity will finish.
This proved for me that yes this strategy goal was reached successfully.

Figure 2: Students A, B, C and D answers for the interview question number 3

(Week 6) (See appendix 2.2)

Moreover, I used a Timer strategy to help on managing in between the activities. Which I used
since the first week of teaching practice until the last week, because I believe it needs time for
the students to get used to it.

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(Figure 3) shows week 8 reflective journal and the students reaction to the timer strategy where
Student A and B were focused while doing the strategy and instruct their group members to
focus too. In the other hand, students C and D where normally collaborate with their groups.

2- How can using a behavior chart keep up a good management in the classroom?
Finding 2: Behavior chart appears to enhance the classroom behavior management, where this
chart contains points of behavior of what the students may do in the classroom and what they
may not do there. There is a big difference between the students reaction to the behavior chart
between week 2 and 9 where in the beginning they were not used to it but after a while all of
them responded positively to it.

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Figure 4: Checklist for students A, B, C and D about their reactions to the

behavior chart (See appendix 3.1)
Moreover, as figure 5 shows the reflective journal
for week 9 where Ive achieved the behavior chart
purpose because all the students in the class
followed its direction and we benefited from it in
during the lesson.

Figure 5: reflective journal (See appendix

2.3)
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3- The impact of using participation stickers on maintaining a good management of the

classroom?
Finding 3: Using rewards stickers seem to enhance the classroom behavior. In week 1 I used the
stickers for the students individually but I felt that it is not working well on the whole class when
it is an individual stickers. So, I changed it in week 2 for Groups Rewards Stickers and it worked
better on the class where each member in the group is enhancing his mates on good behavior
because each member behavior will have an effect on the whole group where in the end of each
class am giving the best behavior group a sticker for achieving the highest number of stickers.

Figure 6: Interview (Week 6) (See appendix 2.2)

Furthermore, the sticker advantages where clear to me when I did the interview at week 6, where
no student answered No for this question, Student A, B and D answered Yes with their
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qualitative reasons that they want to behave well to get a sticker eventually. But for student C
who said Somehow because she doesnt get a sticker every class.

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Conclusion:
In this research I went out with a conclusion that the management of the class can develop
whoever the teacher is, with using good strategies the classroom will be managed. The students
behavior is in our hands so transforming it to become positive is in our hand too.
Limitations
The reasons why my research wasnt as much reasonable as I wanted it to be are because of the
time, sample size and qualitatively. The teaching practice time is only 9 weeks that cant be
comprised with what a class teacher teaches where the normal year time is 9 months! The
reliability and validity of the action research will lose its worthy. Having this small period of
time limited me from applying my data tools on a big number of students so Ive done my
research on four students only. Moreover, the qualitatively is not as subjective as it should be
where if I had someone to observe me and give me directions on how to do the strategies and if
the data tools where applied well then Ill be out with a trustworthiness research.
Recommendations
-

For Future Researchers

There needs to be more time in practice for the trainee teachers to apply the research on, that is
for the ones who wants to apply management technics in the classrooms where some technics
needs more time to be applied in.
-

For Future Practice

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Affording the teachers with more books about how to manage the class with practical
examination on managing the classes, like putting workshops under the name of Management
skills and strategies. Also, there needs to be more using of reward system because the students
loves to be rewarded not punished.
Personal and professional growth
Personally I grew critically and became a better analyzer and know how to criticize things in a
critical way. And now am more committed in time and organizes myself a period before any
important action happens.
Professionally, now I am a good planner and know how to put excellent plans with an academic
purpose. And from the many researches I have wrote I now got summarizing skills that can help
me in the future on summarizing my lessons for the students easily without giving them an
additional time for a thing they can learn fast and simply.

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