EFL teachers’ classroom discipline strategies: the students’ perspective

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 31 (2012) 309 – 314

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Prof. Hüseyin Uzunboylu.doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.12.060

Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000

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WCLTA 2011

EFL teachers‟ classroom discipline strategies: the students‟ perspective

Mehrak Rahimia *, Fatameh Hosseini K.a aEnglish Department, Faculty of Humanities, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University, Lavizan, Tehran, 1678815811, Iran

Abstract

This study investigated Iranian EFL teachers‟ classroom discipline strategies from their students‟ perspective. One thousand and four-hundred ninety-seven students filled in the classroom discipline strategy questionnaire that assessed their perceptions of the strategies their English teachers used to discipline the classroom. The results showed that Iranian EFL teachers appeared to use recognition/rewarding strategies more often to discipline their classes, while using aggression and punishment were the least common classroom discipline strategies. Female teachers used punishment, discussion, and aggression strategies more in comparison to male teachers. Also, public school teachers used aggression strategy more than those who worked in private schools. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Classroom discipline, EFL, teachers, strategies, students;

1. Introduction

One reality that continues to challenge even the most experienced teachers is how best one can deal with persistent behavior problems in the classroom (Hoover & Patton, 2005). Teachers‟ discipline strategies are among the most potent school-related factors that can determine student responsibility in classrooms (Ingersoll, 1996; Lewis, 1997a). Students mostly report a sense of belonging and being engaged in the class with a warm and supportive teacher (Woolfolk Hoy & Weinstein, 2006). If teachers act offensively and coercively (Lewis, 2001), learning is negatively affected (Banfield, Richmond, & McCroskey, 2006) and as a result of that, students report more psychological and somatic complaints (Sava, 2002). Although much effort in the realm of language teaching has been directed towards classroom activities and language teaching principles, we witness a dearth of research on the issue of classroom discipline in language classes.

1.1. Classroom discipline

According to Lewis (1997a), discipline is generally represented as what teachers do in response to students‟ misbehavior. There are at least three main approaches to classroom discipline, each advocating particular techniques (Lewis, 1997b; Wolfgang, 1995). Some educationalists argue that in order to promote responsibility in children, teachers need to develop clear expectations for student behavior and then judiciously apply a range of rewards and

* Mehrak Rahimi. Tel: +9821 22970035 ; fax: +9821 22970033 E-mail address: [email protected]; [email protected]

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Prof. Hüseyin Uzunboylu.

310 Mehrak Rahimi and Fatameh Hosseini K. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 31 (2012) 309 – 314 M. Rahimi, F. Hosseini K. / Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000

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recognitions for good behavior as well as punishments for misbehavior (Swinson & Melling, 1995; Swinson & Cording, 2002). Others argue that the aim can only be attained by less emphasis on student obedience and teacher coercion, and more on student self-regulation. This is facilitated by techniques such as negotiating, discussing, and contracting (e.g., Freiberg, 1996; Pearl & Knight, 1998; Schneider, 1996; Vitto, 2003; Wade, 2000). The third orientation favors group participation and decision making, whereby the group takes responsibility for ensuring the appropriateness of the behavior of all its members (Edwards & Mullis, 2003; Glasser, 1984; Johnson & Johnson, 2006; Schneider, 1996).

In practice, however, most programs addressing classroom behavior management combine techniques from all three approaches with varying emphases. Even a behavioral program such as assertive discipline, as it has developed in schools, has incorporated counseling techniques (Canter & Canter, 1992). Similarly, a heavily negotiation- oriented program such as “stop, think, do” includes the options of logical consequences (Beck & Horne, 1992).

Recent research addressing classroom discipline suggests that there are a number of discipline strategies which students perceive to be more common in classes (Lewis, 2001). Some of these strategies, however, such as the application of punishment, which increases in severity when resisted or ignored, appear to be of limited usefulness in promoting responsible student behavior (Lewis, 2001). In contrast, there are strategies that may be more productive, resulting in less misbehavior and more responsibility. These include recognition of responsible behavior, discussions with misbehaving students about the impact their behavior has on others, and hints that identify the existence of unacceptable behavior.

1.2. Classroom discipline and language classes

According to Brown (2001), grappling with classroom management can be considered as the next step in a succession of practicalities of interactive language classrooms. Also, Gebhart (2006) points out the goal of classroom management to create a classroom atmosphere conductive to interacting in English in meaningful ways in order to provide students with progress. One of the principles of classroom management centers on the issue of how to teach under „adverse circumstances‟ under which lies a number of management concerns such as teaching large classes, teaching multiple proficiency levels in the same class, compromising with the institution, and discipline and cheating (Brown, 2001). If all students were hardworking, intrinsically motivated, active, dedicated, intelligent learners, the teacher would still have what could be labeled discipline problems.

Williams and Burden (1997) believe that too little known literature on learners‟ and teachers‟ perception of classroom environment has grown up over the past twenty-five years. In a study done by Molica and Nuessel (1997) on the characteristics of effective English teachers, for instance, maintenance of classroom discipline was viewed as an aspect of classroom environment which is considered critical in their outline of the traits of good language teachers. Some researchers found that in a poorly-managed classroom, teachers struggle to teach and students usually learn less than they should, and there are abundance of discipline issues (Martin & Sugarman, 1993; Rose & Gallup, 2004) while a well-managed classroom provides an environment in which teaching and learning can flourish (Marzano, 2003).

Davies and Pearse (2000) describe issues with classroom discipline as mainly the preoccupation of some who teach large groups of children and adolescents. Lewis and Lovergrove (1987) consider students‟ beliefs as a significant factor in determining a teachers‟ approach to discipline. Nunan (1995) believes it is important to determine how students think about how their classes are conducted. When there is a mismatch between what teachers and learners expect to happen in the classroom, there is a negative impact on learning (Nunan, 1987). Yet, as mentioned before little attention has been specifically paid to this issue in language education. It seems that the literature has taken the issue of classroom discipline or behaviors of resistance in language classes for granted

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(Crookes and Schmidt, 1991).This study seeks to find Iranian secondary school students‟ perspective on their teachers‟ classroom discipline strategies considering the following research questions:

1. What strategies do Iranian EFL teachers mostly use to discipline their classes? 2. Is there any difference between EFL teachers‟ classroom discipline strategies with respect to their gender? 3. Is there any difference between EFL teachers‟ classroom strategies with respect to the context of teaching

(private vs. public schools)?

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

A total of 1600 students from different secondary schools in Sari, a city located in the northern part of Iran, were sampled to be included in this study. The sample were selected according to stratified random sampling based on Krejcie and Morgan‟s (1970) formula with confidence level of 95% (margin of error = 5%) among 3748 female and 3956 male students from district 1 in Sari.

Out of 1600 distributed questionnaires, 1484 were fully completed. One hundred and three questionnaires were incomplete and were therefore discarded. The rate of returned questionnaires was %93.6 which could provide satisfactory data for the study. Of the sample, 653 (44%) were female and 831 (56%) were male students. One thousand and a hundred ten students (74.8) were studying in public schools and 374 (25.2) were students of private schools.

2.2. Instruments

To measure teachers‟ classroom discipline strategies, the 24-item questionnaire of classroom discipline (Lewis, 2001) was used. The 24 items in the scale measure six discipline strategies including punishment, recognition/awarding, discussion, involvement, hinting, and aggression. In order to assess teachers‟ discipline strategies, students were asked to indicate „how frequently the teacher acted as described in the statement when trying to deal with misbehavior‟ on a 6-point Likert type scale. The response alternatives provided were nearly always (6), Most of the time (5), A lot of the time (4), some of the time (3), Hardly ever (2) and Never (1). The Cronbach‟s alpha reliability of the whole scale was found to be .81 and the following reliabilities were estimated for different factors of the questionnaire: punishment .79; recognition and rewarding .82; involving in decision making .74; hinting .65; and aggression .77. Demographic information of the participants (age, grade, school type) was also gathered by a separate form.

3. Results

3.1. Iranian EFL teachers’ classroom discipline strategies Iranian EFL teachers‟ classroom discipline strategies were represented by a mean score on a 6-point scale, where 6 (nearly always) represents the maximum score of the scale and 1 (never) represents the minimum score. Table 1 illustrates the distribution of mean scores on six types of classroom discipline strategies.

Table 1- Distribution of mean scores on classroom strategies (n=1484)

Scale Number of items Possible range Mean SD Average per item

Punishment 4 4-24 10.83 5.04 2.70 Recognition and reward 4 4-24 17.07 6.01 4.26 Discussion 4 4-24 13.23 5.55 3.30 involvement 4 4-24 14.95 5.93 3.73 Hinting 4 4-24 15.24 5.14 3.81 Aggression 4 4-24 10.11 5.72 2.52


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As the table 1 suggests the most frequently used strategy to discipline the English classroom by Iranian EFL teachers is the recognition and reward strategy (mean=4.26) and the least frequently used strategy is aggression (mean=2.52). 3.2. Classroom discipline strategies, gender, and school type

A 2-way MANOVA was conducted in which the six classroom discipline strategies served as the dependent variables and teachers‟ gender (2 levels) and school type (2 levels, private and public) acted as the two independent variables. Preliminary assumption testing was conducted to check for normality, linearity, and univariate and multivariate outliers. Homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices was assessed by Box‟sM Test of Equality of Covariance Matrices (Box‟s M=99.111, F= 1.55, p=.003>.001) implying that the observed covariance matrices of the dependent variables are equal across groups. Levene‟s test of Equality of Error Variances showed that the assumption of equality of variance for dependent variables was not violated.

The results from the Multivariate tests table for the first main effect suggested that there was a statistically significant difference between male and female teachers on the combined dependent variables (Wilks‟ Lambda=.912, F=23.635, p=.000<.001, partial eta squared=.088). When the results for the dependent variables were considered separately, the differences to reach the statistical significance, using a Bonferroni adjusted alpha level of .017, were punishment, discussion, and aggression (table 2). In order to examine the results for the dependent variables separately, the results of Tests of Between-Subjects Effects were checked. Using a Bonferroni adjusted alpha level of .017, (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007) the differences to reach statistical significance for the comparison between male and female teachers were punishment, discussion, and aggression strategies (table 2).

Table 2-Tests of Between-Subjects Effects

Source

Dependent Variable

Sum of Squares Mean Square F p

Partial Eta Squared

Gender Punishment 2628.031 2628.031 117.090 .000 .073 Discussion 478.354 478.354 23.911 .000 .016 Aggression 777.287 777.287 26.427 .000 .018

School type Aggression 260.866 260.866 8.869 .003 .006 An inspection of the mean scores indicated that females‟ use of classroom discipline was higher than males in

these three strategies (table 3). Table 3. Descriptive statistics

Dependent Variable Gender Mean SD Punishment female 12.472 4.89712

male 9.352 4.62775 Discussion female 13.672 4.52053

male 12.341 4.44340 Aggression female 10.807 5.62338

male 9.110 5.37624

Investigating the second main effect showed that there was not a statistically significant difference between teachers who worked in private and public schools on the combined dependent variables (Wilks‟ Lambda=.992, F=1.860, p=.084>.001, partial eta squared=.088). When the results for the dependent variables were considered separately, the only difference to reach the statistical significance, using a Bonferroni adjusted alpha level of .017, was aggression (table 2). An inspection of the mean scores indicated that public school teacher‟ use of aggression strategy was slightly higher (M= 10.45, SD=5.67) than private school teachers (M=9.46, SD=5.51).

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The interaction of gender by school type was found to be statistically significant (Wilks‟ Lambda=.966, F=8.637, p=.000<00.1, partial eta squared=.034). This interaction implies that female teachers who work in public schools tend to be more aggressive in their classroom strategy approach.

4. Discussion

The aim of the current study was to explore Iranian students‟ perspective toward their EFL teachers‟ classroom discipline strategy use. The results suggest that Iranian EFL teachers use recognition and rewarding most often when dealing with misbehavior to maintain discipline in their classes. They use punishment and aggression less frequently. Harmer (2001) states that discipline does not mean a series of punishments applied to misbehaving students but refers to a contract which binds a teacher and a group of students together so that learning can be more effective. In doing so, an effective style of classroom discipline minimizes problems and disruptions in the classroom (Daloğlu, 2002). There are a number of researchers who recommend that teachers should recognize students‟ appropriate behavior (Buisson, Murdock, Reynolds, & Cronin, 1995; Cavalier, Ferretti, & Hodges, 1997). In other words, the most useful techniques for generating positive reactions are recognition and reward for responsible behavior, and discussions with students where a negotiated outcome is achieved (Lewis, Romi, Quic, and Katz, 2005).

This finding shows that in Iranian context, teachers are less authoritarian (punitive and aggressive) and they appear to be more supportive of students and as they have less legitimate power, they may try to use more reward power (Tauber, 1999). This strategy and minimizing the usage of aggressive discipline strategies while increasing the frequency with which teachers recognize students‟ responsible behavior can foster quality relationship (Lewis, Romi, Quic, & Katz.2005). While most research findings have criticized EFL programs in Iran due to problems with regard to methodology and teaching materials (Rahimi & Nabilou, 2009), it seems that this finding is a promising result and shows that at least with regard to class management and discipline Iranian EFL teachers do not face much problem.

Also, the study revealed that male and female teachers were different with regard to the amount of the punishment, discussion and aggression strategy application. Female teachers use these strategies more than their male counterpart. This finding is in agreement with what has been found in other Asian countries (Dong, 2001) and can be related to greater stress levels experienced by female teachers (Zhou & Zhao, 1998).

Moreover, public school teachers use aggression strategy more than teachers in private schools. This is a proof for the fact that the aspects and climate of school affects classroom and classroom management (Brown, 2001). It has been found that teaching effectiveness in private education can be attributed to the “way of funding (and the incentives which result from it), its difference in scale, its pupil characteristics (due to the non-random selection of pupils) and its potentially more efficient educational system (thanks to ideological background and better teacher selection)” (Cherchye, Witte, Ooghe, & Nicaise (2010, p. 564). Moreover, it is also believed that in public schools disciplinary problems, including talking, leaving seats without permission, passing notes, poking and hitting other students, making sarcastic and hostile remarks and so forth are still annoying problems (Elam & Rose, 1995). Respectively the mentioned issue may be the result of larger average class size in public schools (Chen, 2007) that causes more disciplinary problems there.

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EFL teachers’ classroom discipline strategies: the students’ perspective