According to the book Qualities of Effective Teachers we can learn that one of the most common issues teachers face all around the world is classroom management and as some experts have claimed that classroom management are those actions and strategies teachers use to solve all those problems of order in classrooms, teachers need s to find the way to create the a positive classroom climate that involves students in an active learning. Good classroom management skills enable teachers to be prepared to cope and predict with those ups and downs that take place during the class.

A teacher must be aware of his role and try to limit disruption by involving students at the time of establishing fair rules in the classroom. The teacher also has to have a positive attitude and to make a balance between variety and challenges. Regards to this a good distribution of the space keeping tools as staplers, scissors, tape, glue, crayons, books, etc, accessible to students avoiding the waist of time and giving more time for academic task, also we involve students helping them to know what to do and when to do it.

To prevent that negative behavior that affects the learning process, Teachers must develop proactive management skills by explaining students in advance the role they are expected to have in the classroom. Another important thing is that effective teachers must have fair treatment to all the students providing feedback to the whole class instead of just paying attention to some students and ignoring some others.

In my experience as practitioner in junior high school, I have realized the importance of classroom managements. Even though I don´t have a large class, I am facing misbehavior problems. In fact there are two students who provoke disruption. But I think the problem regards on the dependence of the book, classes are designed to use the book and to fill in activities, cross out wrong words and some other. Students get bored and misbehave.

As Susan Eva porter says in her book “RELATING TO ADOLESENTS,” adolescents have social and affective necessities that arise in the classroom, also they have hormonal changes that make them to behave differently.

In order to develop a good classroom climate I will try to do the following activities:

· Prepare activities that will motivate students to participate.

· Try to find why the two students provoke disrupt.

· I will use a variety of activities in order not to be predicted.

· I will implement collaborative learning.

· I will use appropriate feedback with my students.

Teaching is a demanding job that involves big responsibilities towards student´s success. Even though a lot of people consider the teaching major as a suicide, it is a rewarding job. It is common to hear expressions like: “How can you deal with many kids? I can´t understand how do you work with many teenagers and don’t get crazy”

However, teachers have different opinions and value this beautiful profession. As teachers, we see the potential our students have. We get to love our students and get happy whenever they succeed but if we consider teachers as persons, what are those facts that make them effective?

James H. Strong on his book Qualities of effective teachers, chapter two explains seven characteristics of teacher as a person. I will consider two of them.

First I want to consider how well teachers know their students. As every student is different and has his personal needs and learning style, teachers must know his students in order to create a positive relationship that keeps the lines of communication opened.

Knowing students and their personality lets the teacher identify student´s potential, develop good relationships that allows him to show his interest on their achievement.

Second I would like to consider to what extent the teacher promotes enthusiasm and motivates his students towards learning. As students have a direct relationship with the teacher every day, they really appreciate when the teacher shows some interest on them.

According to Susan Eva Porter on her book Relating to Adolescents, Students have personal psychological needs of being accepted and they are aware whether the teacher cares on their learning or not. Thinking on this we can say that an effective teacher recognizes that students vary in their motivation levels, so they know how to support them intrinsically and find ways to provide extrinsic motivation to students who need it. When teachers are able to do this they motivate their students to be responsible, set high standards and become autonomous. Students also turn exited to learning so that they feel comfortable showing enthusiasm.

In my personal opinion both characteristics take an important role in the teaching life. In my experience as a teacher I have realized that students appreciate those teachers who motivate them to work hard and show them a real concern on their success. I remember one of my students who use to extremely misbehave since he was in kindergarten but when I received him on 5^th grade I realized that he was just trying to call other´s attention. I started to analyze his behavior and to show that I really wanted him to be different. One day the coordinator of the Biblical School decided that teachers must wear black pants, white shirt and a tie.

The first day I wore that uniform that student was really impressed and started asking me what I was wearing differently. The next Sunday he was wearing black pants and a white shirt when he was accustomed to wear jeans, polo shirts and sneakers. I understood that he was trying to be like me so after the class a talked to him and he said that He was happy on finding a teacher who really cares on him and since that day he started to behave differently and work hard.

PREREQUISITES OF EFFECTIVE TEACHERS

The development of a country is closely related to education but which are those key points that define the success of this important area? Many experts say that to reach high levels of education we need to have enough resources as good classrooms, books, computers, student’s supplies, etc. but they also state that not only those resources are needed but also competent teachers. It is clear teachers have a powerful, long lasting influence on their students, in other words they directly affect how students learn, what they learn, how much they learn and the ways they interact with one another. Based on this and through extensive research some experts have found five prerequisites that effective teachers share:

1. Verbal ability

As communication is essential in the learning process, Teachers with greater verbal ability make students learn more. Students need to be taught in understandable ways for succeeding in their school achievements. I my experience as a learner, I remember a special teacher who used to teach me literature at high school. Even though that subject is pain on the neck for most students, that teacher used to make it interesting. I remember she used to speak in a natural way, always smiling and with a positive attitude that made everybody feel comfortable with the subject but the next year everything changed the new literature teacher used to stammer while speaking and everybody got bored.

When we are in front of a class, we transmit our emotions and show our attitude toward students, which are clearly perceived by them. So teacher must work on their communicative skills in order to facilitate student´s learning progress.

2. Educational coursework

Teaching preparation is vital in the development of an effective teacher because each student is different and has personal needs. To understand this fact, teachers must know the different theories of education, which are based on extensive research. Professional preparation enables teachers to understand how kids grow, learn and develop their social needs, so that helps teachers to develop good classroom management, better relationships as well as curriculum development and lesson planning. For those reasons some experts say that teachers with better professional preparation are able to provide students with more diverse opportunities to learn.

3. Teacher certification

In every country in the world, teachers face pedagogical and content knowledge test to show their teaching abilities. Unfortunately many out-of-field teachers are infiltrated in de different education systems in the world affecting in tremendous ways student´s achievement. In the other hand those teachers who are well certificated have a greater impact on student’s achievement.

4. Content knowledge

There is proved that those teachers who have good content knowledge are able to go beyond the basic textbook content and involve students in meaningful discussions and student directed activities. In my experience as a learner I remember a teacher who used to teach me chemistry. He had lack of knowledge in that area. My classmates and I were always confused because that teacher used to contradict some chemistry principles in his classes. One of my classmates who used to be a top notch was accustomed to telling him his mistakes in the middle of the class and that teacher used to feel ashamed. Analyzing this example we can clearly see how important it is to be competent regards to knowledge but let´s say that subject matter knowledge is not sufficient; teachers need to have good pedagogical skills in order to help students to grasp, use and remember the information they have learned.

5. Teaching experience

Experience is crucial in the teacher development. A student who is in training to become a teacher should know everything about teaching approaches and getting good grades but should have problems at time of being in a real class. In my experience as a teacher in kindergarten last year, I could realize that all those things that I thought were good for helping my students to learn just didn´t work and that a soon as I was sharing time with students I identified their needs and the way in which they learned better. New teachers develop their teaching abilities through experience. Some research has proved that after three years of experience teachers can develop meaningful lessons, better classroom management skills, and better relationships with students where they are able to identify students learning style and needs.

To conclude I can say that all every student who is in training to become a teacher has the challenge of being a responsible student and go beyond the class doing extra research and trying to get all the knowledge and abilities that are needed for running a real class. In that way we can become good teachers and help our future students to learn better.

THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

Many psychologist, scientist and teachers have tried to understand how the learning process takes place in life. As everybody faces the challenge of learning something new every day, we have to consider the importance of this phenomenon. For that reason the famous psychologist Lev Vigotsky outlined his own theory called the Zone of Proximal Development.

Using psychological testing in schools, Vigotsky defined the Zone of Proximal Development as the distance of what a person can achieve both with and without help. Therefore, the zone of proximal development goes to reach the zone of potential development. This process has two important phases: the first one discusses the assistance a person receives from others who are more capable while the second one consists of the assistance provided by the self. After these two phases the person demonstrates the level of mastery on the subject. Although every day we learn something new through experience that becomes part of the zone of potential development, we also have to experience this process every day by creating a new zone of proximal development. In other words, this process never ends.

As we analyze the zone of proximal development, we realize that the socialization is essential for the learning process. We can observe this when children are unable to solve a problem or tackle a task. They often look for a more knowledgeable person who can help. Based on this, Vigotsky said that what a child can do with assistance today he will be able to do by himself tomorrow”. For that reason some psychologist argue that every function on the child first appears on the social level, which is known as inter-psychological level and then in the individual level also known as intra-psychological level.

As Vigotsky said that the cognitive processes are the result of social and cultural interaction, we can think that without these two important processes students will not be able to achieve some goals and that´s why teachers try to facilitate development through cooperation. Some experts say that children tend to improve their learning when they are with others who are more skilled on a topic but when they interact with a person who is less competent on a topic the result of that interaction should be regression. But as each kid is different and has different abilities, we can say that the learning process is not in front them but around them but considering that kids learn through experience, we can talk about tree types of tasks:

· Those which are able to be performed independently by the student.

· Those that cannot be performed even with help.

· Those that can be performed with help from others.

To better understand Vigotsky, we should consider the following key aspects:

1. The child is viewed as an active seeker of knowledge.
2. The child and environment interact together enabling cognitive development in a culturally adaptive way.
3. The mind is perceived to be socially constructed.
4. The child is born with basic attentional, perceptual and memory capacities.
5. Development occurs as a direct result of contact with the environment.
6. Child as self communicator – leads to higher order thinking.
7. Language and thought develop independently, but eventually merge and interact.
8. The community plays a central role.

References:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/menu/acad_depts/edu/learn/morphett/vygotsky.htm

http://www.guybunce.co.uk/writings/academic/vygotsky-and-the-classroom.pdf

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter94/welk94.htm

http://www.aare.edu.au/03pap/ver03682.pdf

http://golum.riv.csu.edu.au/~srelf/SOTE/EEL403/2HDT.htm#Sociocultural

www.distancelearningcentre.com/resources/Vygotsky.doc

http://www.sk.com.br/sk-vygot.html