18.4. Disruptive behaviour

At some stage of their life all teachers encounter disruptive behaviour – a student or students whose behaviour gets in the way of the class. Such outbursts are frequently hostile to the teacher or the other students and they can be difficult to deal with.

Disruptive behaviour is not confined to one age group. Eleven-year-olds can become incredibly unruly and noisy, and adolescents may become completely unresponsive and uncooperative. Adult students are disruptive in different ways. They may publicly disagree with the teacher or try to become the class character to the detriment of their peers. There are lots of ways of disrupting a class.

One way of avoiding most disruptive behaviour (though not all) is by making sure that all your students of whatever age know ‘where you stand’. Somehow you and they have to agree upon a code of conduct. With many adult classes this is unspoken arrangement. With younger students it may need to be spelled out.

A code of conduct involves the teacher and students in forms of behaviour in the classroom. Certain things do not comply with such forms of behaviour – for example arriving late, interrupting other students when they speak, bringing drinks and food into the room, forgetting to do homework, not paying attention, etc. Where a code of conduct is established both teacher and students will recognise these acts as outside the code.

The teacher’s role in the first few classes with a new group will be to establish the code through discussion and example. If this is done, it will be easier to show students where they are going wrong later on. It is worth emphasising that the establishment of a code will be done differently, depending on the age of the students. With adults you may discuss the norms of behaviour that should apply, whereas with younger children you may be a bit more dictatorial – although here too the agreement of the class about what the code should be will greatly improve the chances of success.

Now they you have a code of conduct things should be all right. And yet students still behave badly. Why is this?

18.4.1. Causes of discipline problems

There seem to be three possible reasons for discipline problems: the teacher, the students and the institution. We will examine each of these in turn.

18.4.1.1. The teacher

The behaviour and the attitude of the teacher is perhaps the single most important factor in the classroom, and thus can have a major effect on discipline. We can make a list of things that teacher should probably not do if they want to avoid problems:

Don’t go to class unprepared: students automatically identify teachers who are not sure what to do in the classroom. Particularly for those classes they might cause trouble, the teacher has to appear to be well prepared and knowledgeable about the subject.

Don’t be inconsistent: if the teacher allows students to come to class late without taking action one week they cannot be reproached for doing the same thing again the week after. Teachers have to be consistent, in other words, about what the code of conduct is otherwise the students will lose respect for it.

Don’t issue threats: teachers who threaten students with terrible punishments and then do not carry them out are doing both the class and themselves a disservice. Hopefully threats are not necessary, but it is absolutely fatal to say that some action is going to be taken if it is not.

Don’t raise your voice: one of the great mistakes of many teachers is to try and establish control by raising their voices and shouting. This almost always has disastrous consequences for it contributes to a general raising of the level of noise in the classroom. Very often a quiet voice is fare more effective.

Don’t give boring classes: we saw in Talk 1 how important students found it that classes should be interesting. It seems true that perhaps the greatest single cause of indiscipline is boredom. Interested students do not misbehave in the same way.

Don’t be unfair: teachers cannot allow themselves to be unfair, either to the class as a whole or to individuals. Teachers should always try to avoid having favourites or picking on particular individuals. Most teachers, of course, have students that they like or dislike more than others, but a major part of their job is not to show these preferences and prejudices in the classroom.

Don’t have a negative attitude to learning: a teacher who does not really care and who is insensitive to the students’ reactions to what is happening in the classroom will lose the respect of the students – the first step to problems of disruptive behaviour.

Don’t break the code: if part of the code is that the students should arrive on time, then the teacher must too. If there is a ban on chewing gum then the teacher should not chew gum. If homework must be handed in on time then it must also be corrected promptly. A teacher who behaves in a way that is considered anti-social and which is disapproved of if imitated by the students will destroy the code of conduct, for it either exists for the group as a whole (including the teacher) or it does not exist at all.