At our mid-year conference, my fellow ETAs shared some of their classroom successes and ideas. It was really helpful to get some fresh and creative lesson plans. One of my favorite suggestions was made by Dani. All of us ETAs have students that misbehave or generally ignore the fact that we're teaching. Other teachers at our schools either don't use any forms of discipline or use physical punishment [hitting, thrashing hands, push-ups, etc.]. I'm a fan of discipline, but I'm not a fan of physical punishment. Dani had the grand idea of using embarrassment as punishment. When her students misbehave she makes them sing I'm a Little Teapot in front of the class. She said her students loved it. As she was telling me this I was imagining my classes of 36 17 year old boys dancing around to I'm a Little Teapot...if nothing else, it would probably cheer me up when they were being bad.
Below is a sample from Class 1 MA. Don't worry! They're not being punished, they're just learning the song. As for enthusiasm, they are not the most enthusiastic bunch I've got. I have some classes that love the song! Again, enjoy!
Thanks to Chesh for the great travel video camera!
I'll be interested to hear how this works. Shaming (when appropriate) seems better than hitting, that's for sure.
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