Case Study - Talking During Lessons

Introduction

The case study approach of this module has been designed to create an awareness of the general classroom behavioral problems that may be encountered on a day to day basis. The examples here are generalised and may be applied to situations other than the ones given here.

Description of the problem

Mr Smith is trying to teach his class about subject_verb agreement. While he is explaining the concept, several students begin talking to each other. Mr Smith tries to ignore this and go on with the presentation, but a moment later even more students have begun to talk. Mr Smith says, 'Would everyone please be quiet and listen. You're going to be doing some exercises and if you don't listen, you won't know what to do.' The class becomes quiet and Mr Smith continues his explanation. Within two minutes, the noise level begins to rise again and Mr Smith again reminds the class to be quiet.

Causes

Some students have learned that talking out of turn is a good way to get the teacher's attention. Most teachers will stop what they are doing and tell an unruly student to be quiet. Another reason that students talk during lectures may be that the teacher's presentation is not interesting enough to maintain student attention. If the teacher is boring, it's more interesting to talk to another student that to listen to the teacher.

Goal

During lectures and explanations, students will sit quietly and listen to the teacher.

The Plan:

Step 1:
Analyze the quality of your presentations. Are your presentations interesting, or are they dull and monotonous?. If they are dull, you should work to make them more interesting. Are you presentation too long? If you teach primary-aged students, any presentation longer than five minutes should be interspersed with questions and activities that allow the students to actively participate. In the intermediate grades, presentations should never be more than fifteen minutes long without allowing student involvement. No large-group activity should last more than twenty minutes at the primary level or thirty minutes at the intermediate level. If your schedule includes large-group activities that last longer than this, reschedule them so that they become two short periods rather than one long period.

Step 2:
If some students talk out of turn, praise students who are quiet. There's a natural tendency to focus on unruly students. Unfortunately, this procedure gives your attention to students who are misbehaving. Instead of doing this, praise students who are doing what you want them to do _ listening. In addition to this, be sure to praise 'talkers' who have begun to listen during presentations. Provide them with lots of positive feedback. Show them that you focus your attention on students who behave appropriately.

Step 3:
If students become so rowdy that it interferes with you presentation, just stop. Don't say anything to the students who are talking. Don't even look at them. Just stop. Look at the floor or the wall. Don't have any expression on your face, especially not an angry expression. Wait until it's completely silent. When there has been complete silence for five to ten seconds, proceed with your presentation. Repeat this procedure anytime the noise level in the room becomes too loud.

When students are silent and listening to you, remember to praise them. Even if you just had to stop the lecture because of the noise, reinforce students when it becomes quiet again.

Step 4:
If your reinforcement program has not effectively eliminated talking out of turn within two weeks, add the owing-time strategy to your program. Inform students that you are still concerned about the amount of talking that's occurring during large_group activities. Tell them that anytime it gets too loud to continue lecturing, the entire class will lose a minute of their recess time. Students need to understand that you cannot take time to record who is making the noise, so the whole class will be penalized.

The time owed should be paid back by having the students sit quietly at their desks. Make sure you continue reinforcing students who are being quite and listening. The fact that you have added a punishing consequence to your program makes it even more important that you provide positive feedback to successful students.