Introduction to the author and the course

Hi, welcome to this course. I’m Jill Hadfield and I’m the author of this course.

I have been teaching English and training English Teachers for a long time. I have travelled extensively to dozens of countries, giving workshops, sharing research at conferences, and promoting the books I have written. In 2018, I was a finalist for both the Ben Warren Award and the ELTons Awards for Innovation in Teacher Resources.

I know how important it is to have great classroom management, so I’m delighted to be sharing some best practices with you here. We’ll start with some basics, looking first at the physical environment and ways you can arrange your spaces and manage the interaction patterns of your students. Then we will discuss the dynamics within the groups of students and how these can be developed to build a positive learning environment. Later, I’ll share my ideas for raising your students’ awareness of the importance of the class dynamics and their role in creating a supportive atmosphere. In the final week, we’ll look at activities that can be adapted to the language classroom context to help foster group dynamics.

About the first week of this course:

Getting on top of the basics of classroom management is a core requirement for effective teaching and learning. This week we will show you how to organise the physical layout of your classroom and explore the impacts of different layouts on student interaction patterns. You’ll learn expert tips on maximising student talking time and why that’s so important, as well as how to grade your language while giving instructions to your class.

Please note: We encourage a strong learning community. Share your own experience and knowledge, and listening to new perspectives from others. We hope that you will enjoy interacting with and learning from each other in this way. Don’t forget to comment, reply to other learners and ‘like’ comments. Our educators will comment from time to time as well, but won’t be able to respond to every comment.