Classroom Management

So, I teach high school girls. You would think that high school girls would be motivated by, well, you know, girly things. And I guess in a way they are. If the girls were in fourth grade. My girls love stickers. And, inward shudder, pink things. I don't do stickers and I especially don't. Do. Pink! But here, now, they are slowly wearing me down. Sigh. Motivation is key here! And, truthfully, I just want them to be quiet!

But there is another way. Competition. Any task, if you say whoever is the first group to finish gets 2 marks or points, they rush to complete it. I love it! I used that trick just today. I wanted them to look up vocabulary words, which they hate, so I said whichever group can find and write the correct definition down in their notebooks first, gets 2 marks and can write the definition on the board. It was like I had thrown chum in the water with sharks around. And not only did the motivated girls work fast and rack up meaningless marks, the lower girls got to copy the definitions from the board rather than using the dictionary and got to ask questions in Arabic from the other girls.  It was a win win! 

Ciao for now!