Investigating the Emotional and Physical Aspects of the Language Classroom

What exactly do we mean by classroom management? The way I see it, we have to split this particular subject right down the middle: we have the emotional side (the people) and we have the physical side (arranging furniture, placement of the whiteboard, seating plans, etc.).

The various theories I’ll be introducing and discussing over the course of several chapters in the first half of this book focus on the former, encompassing the methods of organization, administration, teaching and enforcing discipline in our classroom. These ‘emotional’ chapters shall consider how particular theories provide models for explaining how students learn, thus suggesting techniques for enhancing learning and decreasing distraction in our learning environments.

I’ll be following these with four chapters focusing on the physical nature of classroom management, looking at rooms I like, rooms I don’t, and discussing the nature of the perfect classroom. I hope these chapters will collectively help show you how knowledge of classroom management can help you investigate how you function in a classroom, and how you might reflect on changes you’d like to make to how you manage things.