HOW TO TEACH LARGE CLASSES MORE EFFECTIVELY.

There is no law that says that the larger a class, the poorer the learning must be, though many parents, teachers and students would argue that this must be the case.

Similarly, there is no guarantee that small classes must lead to more effective learning.

Of course, the better the ratio of facilitators (and assistants) to learners, the more the chance there is to give personal support and guidance; so, in this respect, smaller is better.

But learning is something that can only be done by the individual.

It is always done privately, one student at a time.

And that means that there is no reason why a learner cannot learn (or fail to learn) equally well in a class of one as in a class of one hundred.

What a large class is depends a lot on what you are familiar with.

Mentally, I distinguished roughly these ranges:

One-to-one teaching.
A very small class (2 to 10 students).
A small class (11 to 20).
A standard class (21 to 30).
A large class (31 to 45).
A very large class (46 +).

What will be your definition of a large and a small class?

Many school classes fall into the large category, though, in some countries, it may be normal to have even bigger groups; a teacher may have to teach 70 plus learners in a single class.

Each size calls for slightly different teaching approaches, though, for all of them, the same basic teaching skills will be more important than any changes caused by the group size.

What applies to a group of 15 often equally applies to 70.

You always need to find ways that get all the students engaged and working, and these are essentially the same ways whether you are teaching one or a hundred.

Working with large classes you may need some of these strategies below;

#01

Don’t feel that you can only do teacher-led, whole-class teaching.
Some teachers feel that, because they have such large numbers, they can only use up-front teaching approaches.
It’s the opposite that is true.
Large classes are likely to benefit from lots of pair and group work if learners are to get any chances to use or practise the language themselves.

#02

Make sure they know that you know them all.
One thing often missing in a large class is the sense that the teacher knows you and is interested in you.
Help this by learning names quickly and using names when you ask questions or talk with people.
Keep notes of some personal information (family, home, interests, etc.) about each individual, and ask them about it when you have a chat.
Learners must not doubt that you know who they are.
Create systems for managing materials efficiently.
The larger your class, the more likely it is that materials will become a problem.
Maybe you don’t have enough coursebooks, so students have to share.
If you use handouts, you have to prepare huge quantities.
Just to distribute them around the room can seem like a major operation.
Collecting in and sorting tasks, tests, and homework can get very complicated.
If learners see you as the stationery supplier for pens, paper, erasers and so on, you will spend the whole lesson running around sorting out their needs.
Deal with this by making robust systems for managing materials.
Maybe use responsibility roles or train students to do specific tasks in regular ways.
Set up clearly labelled areas for storing books and materials so that students can easily collect things from there.
Similarly, set up areas for students to hand in tasks and homework.

#03

Don’t assume that the class has to look uniform and dull.
Can you improve the use of space to make it feel more welcoming and less crowded?
Would it help to get rid of the traditional rows?
Is it possible to create some open space in the room for meeting up, movement, mingling, sitting on the floor and so on?
Make sure that learners who have difficulties with hearing or seeing are placed so that they don’t have problems.
Consider grouping weaker learners where you can easily get to them to help.
Get learners to suggest their own ideas for improving the room.

#04

Train learners in how to be organised
Devote some class time to training learners to be more organised and in ‘learning to learn’,
Show them ways to become more autonomous and less dependent on the teacher telling them everything.
Get routines in place for starting lessons and for tidying up at the end.

#05

Even more than with a small class, you must make use of the whole room.
Move about a lot.
Do input, instructions and explanations from lots of different places.
Have lots of conversations with various individuals (but remember that if you come up close to the individual and talk quietly, it can quickly exclude the rest of the class).
Move round the room following different paths between rows, rather than always patrolling the same columns.
Just don’t get stuck at the front

#06

How about creating four or five very different classrooms within the classroom, clumping groups of seats together in different ways to make separate islands for working subgroups?
Teach them independently for parts of the lesson.
Try mini classes within the class

#07

Don’t spend all your time getting tied up in discipline issues.
Sometimes, there is so much going on in a large class that the teacher seems to have to spend all his or her time dealing with micro-management of discipline problems.
Find a simple catchall solution that minimises wasted time for such issues.

#08

In a large class, learners can feel that they never get the chance to talk privately with the teacher.
Compensate for this by offering specific times when the learner who wants to can talk with you.
This could be for half an hour after school once a week, or even within lesson time, perhaps an in-lesson slot every week when you set a quiet task for students to do while anyone who wants to talk with you can book a five-minute slot.
Offer private contact time

If your school already operates systems to give you in-class support, make the best use of them you can.

If this doesn’t exist, argue the case for appointing assistants or see if you can get permission for using volunteer assistants in your class, even if it isn’t a general school policy.

An assistant is someone who can help you in any aspect of classroom life.

They may be parents, trainee teachers, volunteers, retired facilitators or anyone who would like to be involved.

Show them ways that they can help you in basic classroom management (e.g. distributing handouts, organising seating changes) and close-up help (e.g. supporting students who have a problem and/or need clarification, etc.).

Trainee or trained facilitators can help you in delivering the up-front teaching content as well.

You may decide that the best use of some assistants is in supporting specific members of the class, e.g. weaker learners, or those who have specific problems.

Employ the use of student deputies and monitors if possible

Appoint students to help you similarly, taking wide-ranging responsibilities to help you in both administrative and academic ways.

These could be long-term appointments (e.g. a half-term) or short-term (on a Rota, changing lesson by lesson).

These posts could be awarded to students who show particular progress or make an individually significant achievement in a previous lesson.

Alternatively, they could be given on a Rota basis, or voted for by students themselves.

Allocate students specific roles to help get your class organised and running efficiently.

They should be able to take over a lot of the nitty-gritty organizational stuff and free you up to help where it is needed.

For instance:

Hand a seating plan to the seating monitors who ensure that people sit in the correct places for this lesson as soon as they come into the room.
Materials Monitors then distribute books, handouts, worksheets, etc.
Group makers help to form groups according to your instructions.
Task Monitors have a copy of task instructions that they go over with a group, once they have read them out and so on.

Using monitors and student deputies has the added advantage that a large number of students are actively involved in making the lesson work and have a stake in things being done well.

This may well reduce discipline and nuisance problems.

For these roles, don’t assume that only the good students can do them.

You may find that giving a ‘troublemaker’ responsibility to carry out might just turn everything around, and the previously impossible student becomes the new advocate of good behaviour and order.

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