When you Take a look at your class and you notice that most of the
students choose to occupy the same seat every day. Some prefer
to sit at the back, others in front and a few students opt to sit near
aisles or close to windows or doors. So, It is important for an instructor to
establish a classroom structure from the very first session Keeping a classroom
motivated and in order are more than trying different teaching styles and
methods. By simply rearranging how the desks in the room are setup, you can
not only get better control of your class but create an open and friendly
classroom environment.In fact, there are different approaches to arrange the
classroom. But as we can see that there are generally 4 types of arrangement.
I’ll discuss these approach to all of you .
Orderly-row seating arrangement is the most popular method used to
arrange classroom furniture.It is that students’ desks and chairs are
arranged in rows and the teacher’s table is situated in front of the
classroom. The advantage of this type off arrangement is that teacher has
clear view of all the students and the students can all see the teacher.
->so It makes lecturing easy, enable teachers to maintain eye contact with
students that he or she is talking to. In addition, it also makes discipline
easier since teacher can easily walk up and down to watch what they are
doing if there are aisles in the classroom
The second ad is that Teacher can work with the whole class. There are some
activities that are especially suited to this kind of organisation such as
explaining a grammar point, watching a video, using the board, demonstrating
text organisation on an overhead transparency which shows a paragraph, for
example. It means If all the students are focused on a task, the whole class
gets the same messages.
The problem of that arrangement is that Teacher should make sure that they
remain contact with students and keep everyone involved.
-> Teacher should ask students at the back, the quiet ones rather than the
ones nearest them. They must move round to see all the ss’s reaction to
what’s going on
-> To keep everyone involved, teacher should keep their ss guessing.when
teacher ask individual students questions, we should ask ss from all part of
the room in apparently random order to keep everyone on their toes. Because
when we ask ss in order, ss will know when they are going to be asked and
they don’t prepare for other question.
Circles and horseshoe:
In a horseshoe setup, desks are placed in a semicircle. The desks
face the front of the room and focus students’ attention to the center
of the room. The horseshoe style is typically used for demonstrations
or group discussions.And in the circle arrangement, we arrange people or
encourage your students to join a
objects around a circle.It also
classroom talk or discussion.
Advantages:
The teacher will be at the open end of the arrangement since the
teacher’s position where the board is situated is less dominating.
There is a greater feeling of equality than the teacher stays out at the
front.With all the people in the room sitting in a circle, there is a far greater
feeling of equality than when the teacher stays out at the front. This may not
be quite so true of the horseshoe shape where the teacher is often located in
a central position, but even here the teacher has a much greater opportunity
to get close to the students.
All the students can see each other.Students can share feeling and
information through talking, eye contact or expressive body movement
Problem:
It takes up a lot of space. It may not be possible in smaller
classrooms
Easier for students to cheat during assignments because their visible
range is increased, and multiple angles of view make it hard to prevent
the roaming eyes
- Separate tables
Advantages:
Teacher can walk around checking the students’s work and help out if
ss have difficulties.
The atmosphere in the class is much less hierarchical in other
arrangement. It much easier for the teacher to work at one table while
the others get on with their own work . So it feels less like teachers and
ss and more like responsible adults getting on with the business of
learning
Problem:
Ss may not always want to be with the same colleagues.->T should
rearrange their class so that they are not always face with rows and
rows of bored face
It makes “whole-class” teaching more difficult because the ss are more
diffuse and separated
