Teach English in TuozhAmin Zhen - Hulunbei'er Shi — Hulunbuir

As an English teacher, I’m afraid I won’t have the freedom to organise my classroom exactly as I want it; the desks, tables, and teaching apparatus available will be limited to what my clients provide. I like to imagine most clients would provide singular desk-chairs that can be moved around to my heart’s desire. However, I have experienced times during a seminar when, after we’ve spent five minutes arranging our seats into small groups, we would have to spend another five minutes to put it back into a half-circle or rows for a lecture. It taught me that mobility wasn’t always a flexibility, and could end up time-consuming. Ideally, I’d like to avoid excessive movement of physical seats and students in class. Even with limited to no mobility, such as a lecture hall, I’ve been asked as a university student to sit wherever in the hall as instructed, and ensure that in group activities, everybody can see and hear each other, with at least one person able to take down notes. As a teacher, being able to control the crowd and remain efficient with timing is vital to maintaining order and productivity in the classroom. So as a teacher, it’s important to plan the classroom setup, prompting the question: “What considerations are made when deciding on seating arrangements in the classroom?” To begin with, it would be vital to the question at hand to know what seating arrangements we are aware of, available to provide in the classroom. According to TesolClass.com, there are three main seating arrangements to consider: traditional rows, U-shaped, and clusters for groups/pairs. Traditional rows, exactly as the name entails, have students all face the front in individual seats, to focus on the teacher only. This is great for lectures, absorbing new content, and independent work/study, thought it limits peer interaction and makes it easy for students to be disengaged and not absorb the lesson. The U-shaped seating method is one large row, curved around the teacher to create a more inclusive, open environment. The students can now interact with the teacher and peers freely, or with a single item that can be passed around to allow only the holder to speak. There is certainly more room for interaction, and much more engagement; however, it is limited by class size and if there is a lack of engagement due to shy students or difficult topic, the U-shaped seating will not be at its most effective, and can’t cure a silent classroom. Multiples of smaller U-shape clusters can prove easier when an individual shy student only has the attention and interaction within their seated group. This leads to the final arrangement of putting students into clusters for groups or pairs. This setup encourages collaborative learning in any class size, within a safe space of a small group as opposed to sharing and receiving feedback from a large class. The teacher is free to roam between clusters to interact with each group, which is more intimate and personal than lecturing to a hall. The only issue with cluster seating is that disruptive behaviour is more likely to occur within a group, however the teacher can work to avoid that by monitoring the table, and assigning a responsible leader within each group. To conclude, which seating arrangement is best? We have various considerations to go through. For example, what if you are assigned to teach students of various age groups and English levels? Being able to equally distribute the students so that each group or part of the classroom has at least one student with advanced English can allow a sort of knowledgeable authority within peers for an activity. Still, the interactions between students needs to be controlled to avoid disruptive behaviour, and ensure maximum engagement. If anything, seating arrangement must be dependent on which is the most effective use of class time, the activity, the teaching style and objectives of the lesson. The challenge for a teacher is to meet students' needs to ensure the most efficient and impactful learning experience: for example, if the students are feeling disengaged, would a little physical activity, game, or change in seating make them more present in class? Flexibility of the classroom comes from the teacher’s leadership, and flexibility of roles; from acting as police doing crowd control, to becoming a fun, free-range facilitator. In the end, it’s entirely up to the teacher to decide the seating arrangement, on what would be best for the class based on knowledge and experience. Works Cited TesolClass.com. “Seating Arrangements.” https://www.tesolclass.com/classroom-management/classroom-seating-arrangements/. Accessed 15 Jan. 2020