Sus an Re n aud, Eli za be t h Ta nne nbaum, an d Phillip S t an t ial

C A N A D A A N D T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S

Student-Centered Teaching
in Large Classes with Limited
Resources
We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. (Peace Corps 1992, 11)

J
osue enters his classroom where teaching in journals and books is
his secondary school students irrelevant, even laughable.
all 78 of themare waiting, We began to work with Haitian pre-
squeezed together on sagging wooden service teachers at the State Teacher
benches. The small room is so crowd- Training College and with groups of
ed that Josue cannot move from the in-service teachers throughout the
narrow space left for him between country in 1998. At that time, we
the front wallwhere the polished did not fully grasp the realities of
cement has been painted black to teaching English, or any subject, in a
serve as a blackboardand the first country like Haiti. We soon realized
row of benches. His students have no that much of what we were present-
books. There is no electricity, it is hot, ing to the teachers could not possibly
and Josue has only a piece of chalk be applied in the Haitian classroom.
and his imagination to help him teach Many of our techniques did indeed
his students English. seem irrelevant and laughable, yet
This scenario is repeated every day we had teachers who wanted to teach
in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but it could effectively, and they had students who
just as well be in thousands of schools wanted to learn.
in hundreds of developing countries
What is a large class?
throughout the Caribbean, Africa,
South America, and Asia. According Josues class of 78 students,
to Cross (1992), in some situations described above, is not at all unusual
teachers have no copying facilities, in Haiti. A few teachers have reported
no home base, no supplies of any having classes of up to 200 students.
kind. Under such conditions, much At a recent TESOL (Teachers of Eng-
of what is written about language lish to Speakers of Other Languages)

12 2007 N U M B E R 3 | E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M

07-0003 ETF_12_17.indd 12 6/27/07 9:47:17 AM

 conference workshop, participants were asked Challenges of large classes
how many students would make up a large Despite these advantages, the challenges
class in their teaching environment. The involved in teaching large classes can be
most common answer was 25. According to daunting. The ideas we present for dealing
a study cited by Ur (1996), the average per- with these challenges have been developed
ception of a large class is around 50 students; over a period of several years and are the
however, she suggests that the exact number result of both our research of the litera-
does not really matter: what matters is how ture on teaching large classes and our work
you, the teacher see the class size in your own with Haitian English teachers. These teach-
specific situation (302). Baker and Westrup ers brainstormed with us, conducted action
(2000) echo this thought when they say: A research while trying out these ideas (and
large class can be any number of students, if many others, not always successful) in their
the teacher feels there are too many students classrooms, and then reported back to us on
what worked best.
for them all to make progress (2).
The major challenges of teaching large
Our experience in Haiti has shown that
classes presented below are grouped into
there is a limit to the size of a class in which
four categories: (1) managing the classroom,
student-centered methods can be used with-
(2) using pair and group work to encourage
out creating chaos. We have observed and cooperative learning, (3) teaching with lim-
presented to classes of up to 80 students ited resources, and (4) motivating students in
where communicative activities were success- heterogeneous classes.
fully used. As one teacher pointed out, a class
1. Managing the classroom
with more than 80 students becomes a con-
gregation rather than a class, and the teacher The idea of trying to manage a classroom
must become a preacher: lecturing, writing full of noisy, often hungry, teenagers who may
notes on the board for students to copy, and or may not be interested in learning English
hoping that at least some of the students will is daunting at best. Two of the most serious
learn something. Therefore, for the purposes challenges are how to maintain discipline
of this article, we are going to define a large and how to correct large amounts of written
class as having between 50 and 80 students, work.
and we will discuss some successful tech- Maintaining discipline
niques for teachers who teach large classes Most discipline problems are the result of
with limited resources. boredom or alienation. If students are inter-
ested in the class, many discipline problems
Advantages of large classes disappear. Students who are paying attention,
Hess (2001) points out that in a large class who are involved in activities that appeal
there are always enough students for interac- to their interests and needs, do not act up
tion, and there is a rich variety of human and often help control more rambunctious
resources. The teacher is not the only peda- classmates. Some techniques that can help
maintain discipline are described below.
gogue, and since a large class is usually hetero-
Set classroom rules. At the beginning
geneous, more proficient students can be used
of the year, ask students to work in
to help lower level ones. She also states that the
small groups to write down rules they
teacher is never bored and that professional
think are reasonable regarding class-
development occurs naturally as the teacher room behavior and the consequences
tries to find new ways of coping with the for breaking the rules. Collect and
large number of students. In addition to these write up a summary of the ideas on a
advantages, Ur (1996) explains that because large sheet of paper. In the next class,
the teacher is less able to attend to every indi- ask students to consider the rules and
vidual, the students must develop strategies make any suggestions for changes. Ask
for helping themselves and their classmates students to vote to accept the rules
through peer-teaching and collaboration, thus and make a final copy to be hung in
fostering an atmosphere of cooperation. the classroom for the year. If the rules

E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M | NUMBER 3 2007 13

07-0003 ETF_12_17.indd 13 6/27/07 9:47:17 AM

 come from the students, and they con- Correcting large amounts of written work
sider them to be fair, they will be more Large classes mean lots of written work to
willing to follow them. correct, which is often too much for a teacher
Plan a variety of activities that appeal to who has to plan lessons, teach classes, and
students with different learning styles meet with many students. Two techniques
and interests. This will usually keep can help alleviate the workload of correcting
the attention of the majority of stu- written work.
dents. Often the students themselves Have students work in groups to pro-
are effective in maintaining discipline. duce one piece of writing for each
If many students want to hear what the group or to complete grammar exer-
teacher or their classmates are saying, cises together. This encourages com-
they will ask their neighbors to be quiet munication and also cuts down on the
and pay attention, too. number of papers the teacher must cor-
Establish routines. Starting the class rect. Tell students that students within
with the class agenda on the board can a group will all receive the same grade
help students to focus and prepare for so that they will all take an interest in
the days class. Set up signals that the producing something good.
students understandfor quiet, for For all written work, have each student
silence, and so onusing hand signals, go through the process of self-editing
a bell, or some other method. and one or two rounds of peer edit-
So as not to waste time calling the roll, ing before turning in the paper. This
give the students a sign-in sheet to pass decreases the amount of written assess-
around at the beginning of the class. ment that the teacher needs to provide.
When it comes back to the front of the (Students need to be trained to do peer
room, draw a line under the last name. editing in a collaborative, uncritical
Any names that are written below the way. They may be resistant to the idea
line are those of late-comers. Another of peer editing at first.)
strategy is to have students make name
2. Using pair and group work to encourage
cards to display on their desks (folded
cooperative learning
so that the teacher can see them eas-
ily). Collect the name cards at the In Haiti, where the educational system
end of class. At the beginning of each is traditionally based almost solely on rote
subsequent class, as the students enter learning, and where the classroom is a highly
the room, have them take their name competitive place, convincing students of
cards. Those cards that arent collected the necessity of working cooperatively with
belong to students who are absent. their peers is not an easy task. The tech-
This takes care of attendance and helps niques described below suggest some ways
the teacher learn names, too. to get students to work together and remain
Create a seating chart (and require interested.
students to sit in their assigned seats.) Spend some time at the beginning of
This can help in learning students the school year talking about language
names. When the teacher knows and learning and looking at the learning
uses students names, they feel more process itself. If you can convince
like individuals and are less likely to act students of the necessity of using the
up. language to communicate in order to
Give the more advanced students learn it well, they will be more will-
responsibility for helping others, as ing to try working in pairs or small
group leaders, monitors, or teaching groups.
assistants. When you introduce pair and group
Teach students to show their respect work for the first time, plan simple
for others by listening to what they activities for very short periods of
have to say in group work or when they time. At first, having students ask the
are reporting to the whole class. person next to them a pre-set question

14 2007 NUMBER 3 | E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M

07-0003 ETF_12_17.indd 14 6/27/07 9:47:18 AM

 may be enough. The time spent on an address, turn-taking, and so on. Stu-
activity and the complexity of activities dents who do not follow the rules can
can gradually be increased as students be expelled from the group and made
become used to the routines. to stand at the back of the room.
To limit the time it takes for students Give instructions clearly and careful-
to get into groups, have students work ly, and check comprehension before
with those next to them, or imme- the pair or group work begins. Write
diately behind them. Seats can be instructions on the board so groups can
changed weekly or monthly in order to refer to them as they progress. Model
allow students to work with different the activity with a student.
classmates.
3. Teaching with limited resources
Set up groups in advance and have
them stay together for several class Many students in developing countries do
periods, which will avoid the time-con- not have textbooks. The only materials they
suming daily reorganization of groups. bring to class are a notebook and, sometimes,
Assign roles to group members so that a pen or pencil. The teacher usually has a
everyone in the group feels involved blackboard and chalk supplied by the school,
in some way. For each activity, roles but no access to photocopies, no electricity,
should rotate among group members, and often little access to books. Many teach-
with different students acting as the ers do not even have an English dictionary
facilitator, secretary, recorder, time or an English grammar book available. The
keeper, and so on. suggestions that follow can help overcome the
Establish quiet signals to show students scarcity of resources.
when to start and stop activities. Stu- Rather than always writing notes on
dents must be trained to stop working the board for students to copy, try
on a task when the teacher gives a sig- some more interesting ways of getting
nal by doing something such as raising the necessary information into their
her/his arms, ringing a bell, or holding notebooks. For example, dictate the
up a stop sign. The teacher should information using a dictogloss, which
never try to out-shout 40 pairs of stu- is a method where the students listen
dents who are all speaking at once. twice to a passage read at normal speed,
Make one copy of handouts per group taking notes during the second read-
or pair of students. This obliges stu- ing. They then work with a partner to
dents to share and to work together, try to reconstruct the text. When a pair
and fewer copies are needed. thinks they have it, they write the pas-
If students are using too much L1 sage on the board and the class works
during pair or group work, ask them together to make it as close to the origi-
to set a goal for L2 language use dur- nal as possible. The teacher makes final
ing activities. At the end of the pair or corrections, and the students correct
group work, ask students to evaluate if their work (Wajnryb 1990).
they met their goal or ask group mem- Ask students to bring an item from
bers to evaluate each other. In most home to use as a talking or writing
cases, some use of the L1 in pair or point for the class. This can help
group work might be tolerated as long build community in the classroom and
as the students are on task and must encourage student responsibility and
talk about and produce something in participation in the activity.
English at the end of the activity. To save time during class, write texts or
Teach students rules for polite com- questions on large sheets of newsprint
munication and make it clear that or brown paper before class rather than
this is what is expected when students writing on the board. In a very large
are working together in groups. One classroom, make two or three copies
member of the group can be put in that can be posted on the side or back
charge of monitoring correct forms of wall so everyone can see.

E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M | NUMBER 3 2007 15

07-0003 ETF_12_17.indd 15 6/27/07 9:47:18 AM

 Use pictures from magazines, or learn To ensure that students speak up loud-
to draw simple pictures to illustrate ly in class when answering questions or
vocabulary or to generate interest in making comments, the teacher should
reading, speaking, or writing activities, move away from the student who is
or as a basis for discussion. (1000+ speaking, rather than coming closer
Pictures for Teachers To Copy by Andrew to hear him or her better. In this way,
Wright is an excellent resource.) everyone should be able to hear and
Bring realiaactual objects that remain involved.
language learners can see, hear, and Adapt the material according to the
touchinto the classroom. A teacher language level, age, and needs of stu-
can generate a great deal of interest dents. In multi-age, multi-level classes,
when he or she pulls surprising things plan a variety of activities to appeal to
out of a bag! as many students as possible.
Use what the students themselves say as Develop sequential activities with sev-
input. For example, to practice chang- eral steps so that higher level students
ing direct to indirect speech, a student complete more while lower level stu-
can be asked a question, and another dents work at their own pace. When
student asked to report what was said preparing worksheets, add some option-
either orally or in writing. This can be al sections for more advanced students.
done in groups after a few examples Use higher level students as assistant
have been given to the whole class. teachers or monitors who can help and
Or a topic can be given (for example, support the lower level students.
Food) and the teacher can ask a few Prepare activities that allow students to
students to make a statement about it. show their different skills and interests.
The rest of the class then writes down As much as possible, be available to
the sentences in a student-generated students before and after class to estab-
dictation. lish personal relationships, so that they
feel that they are individuals in the eyes
4. Motivating students in heterogeneous
of the teacher, not merely part of the
classes
herd.
In a large class, it is easy for students to Make students aware of the goals of
feel alienated. If they feel that the teacher each learning activity. If they under-
does not know them or care whether or not stand why they are doing it, they will
they learn, they will usually put very little participate more willingly.
effort into participating actively in the learn- Make all activities success-oriented.
ing process. Some ways to motivate students Students will participate willingly in
of different language levels and ages in a large tasks that seem achievable. When they
class are described below. have confidence in their success, they
At the beginning of the year, include will be motivated to try.
some information about the impor- Below are descriptions of two large classes
tance of English as a world language, we observed in Haiti, where teachers were
either as a listening or a reading activ- able to lead their students towards specific
ity. Encourage students to brainstorm learning outcomes while integrating some
reasons for learning English and the student-centered activities and maintaining
advantages of being able to speak discipline and interest.
another language.
To keep more advanced students chal- Fanfans class
lenged, prepare an activity resource Fanfan walks into the classroom, a tall
notebook to keep in the classroom. unassuming man of about 35 with a bright
Students who finish activities quickly welcoming smile but a presence that says he is
can work on the supplementary activi- in control. The students fill all of the approxi-
ties while waiting for the rest of the mately 100 desks of the classroom, which is
class to finish. about the size of a U.S. living room. They

16 2007 NUMBER 3 | E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M

07-0003 ETF_12_17.indd 16 6/27/07 9:47:18 AM

 go immediately to their assigned numbered Moi. Emmanuel has encouraged them to
chairs, take their seats and turn toward the use English to communicate, and not just
cracked, peeling chalkboard. There isnt any for grammar exercises.
of the fooling around that you would expect The students observing must listen careful-
among a group of American high school ly to help disqualify any student who touches
students. These students know how lucky the wrong body part based on the command.
they are to be at a public lycee (high school) The student who wins each round gets a small
in Cap Haitian, Haiti. Only a small percent- star or heart sticker from Emmanuels collec-
age of teenagers attend any high school, and tion. Unlike Fanfans classroom, where there
these students are among the luckiest since is no possible way for the teacher to move
they have gotten one of the prize places in the around the room, Emmanuel can squeeze
public schools, which means no tuition pay- down the aisles and monitor students work
ment. These students are all in their next to as they take out their copybooks to work
last year and they will soon face the grueling on a group story they began the day before.
final exams that will determine if they pass Students turn to face the bench behind them
secondary school. (Only a few do.) to make groups of four. Emmanuel calls stu-
Fanfan gets the students ready to study dents by name, remembering the stories they
with a short song in English that he has have worked on before and encouraging the
taught before and that the students love to shyer ones to participate.
sing. He conducts the class, first all together, One wall of Emmanuels classroom is
then one half of the room, then the other half, partially open to the courtyard of the school
and then all together again. With the class so noise from other classes comes in. In the
warmed up and ready for English, he writes middle of class, the electricity goes off, but
on the board five sentences using the simple the students just continue their work in the
past, all with mistakes. The students task is semi-darkness of the concrete walled room.
to find the mistakes in these sentences. There As the bell rings for the class to end, the stu-
is a comfortable buzz in the room as students dents cluster around Emmanuel to say good-
work alone and together. Then Fanfan, call- bye in English as he leaves to go on to another
ing on students from throughout the room class and another English lesson.
by name, has the students tell each other
Conclusion
the correct form. Students then copy down
the sentences and Fanfan tells a story using It is obvious that, given a choice, all teach-
the simple past, followed by comprehension ers would choose to teach in a classroom that
questions and then a written assignment. The is bright and well equipped and is limited to
50 minutes pass quickly. 20 students who all have books and materials
to support their learning. That is not the situ-
Emmanuels class ation in many classrooms in the world today,
Emmanuel has squished himself into and it will probably not be the situation for
one of the benches already filled with five years to come. In the meantime, as we have
seventh grade students. He and the class tried to show, there are ways to make learn-
of 50 students are watching a group of six ing better, more fun, and easier for both the
students in the front of the class respond teacher and the students. We cannot direct
to commands from another student. They the wind, but we can adjust the sails!
have just finished learning body parts and
References
basic commands. Emmanuel first worked
Baker, J., and H. Westrup. 2000. The English
with a group in a fast paced drill of Touch language teachers handbook: How to teach large
your head, arm, nose, etc., and now he has classes with few resources. London: Continuum.
turned over to a student the task of giving Hess, N. 2001. Teaching large multilevel classes. New
commands. Several groups and leaders get York: Cambridge University Press.
a chance to perform, and Emmanuel selects Peace Corps. 1992. Teaching English as a foreign
language to large, multilevel classes. Washington,
them as they quietly raise their hands. Some DC: Peace Corps Information Collection and
call out Me, teacher, a great improvement, Exchange. http://www.peacecorps.gov/library/
Emmanuel notes, from the previous cries of pdf/M0046_tefllarge.pdf.
Continued on page 34

E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M | NUMBER 3 2007 17

07-0003 ETF_12_17.indd 17 6/27/07 9:47:19 AM

 Student-Centered Susan Renaud, Elizabeth Tannenbaum, and Phillip Stantial
(Continued from page 17)

Ur, P. 1996. A course in language teaching: Practice ELIZABETH TANNENBAUM teaches

and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University methodology and applied linguistics
Press. courses in the MAT Program at the School
Wajnryb, R. 1990. Grammar dictation. Oxford: for International Training, Brattleboro,
Oxford University Press.
Vermont. She has trained teachers in the
Wright, A. 1994. 1000+ pictures for teachers to copy.
London: Nelson. United States, Asia, the South Pacific, and
Haiti.

SUSAN RENAUD was a Soros Foundation

English Teacher Trainer in Haiti for seven PHILLIP STANTIAL administered an ESL
years. She has taught English and trained program in Florida for many years. More
English teachers in the United States, recently, he has been involved in teacher
Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia. She training. In addition, he has worked in
currently works as a trainer for the School Peace Corps training and administration in
for International Training TESOL Certificate Eastern Europe and Central and Southeast
Program. Asia.

ANSWERS TO THE LIGHTER SIDE

Fair Finds
16. watermelon
15. cotton candy
14. cherry pie
13. apple pie
12. squash
11. pumpkin
10. apricot
9. lettuce
8. potato
7. horse
6. corn
5. cake
4. goat
3. duck
2. cow
1. pig

34 2007 NUMBER 3 | E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M

07-0003 ETF_30_34.indd 34 6/27/07 9:46:44 AM