Review of chapter 11, Class management and chapter 12, Planning, from Harmer Jeremy, The Practice of English

Language Teaching, London and New York: Longman, 1995.

(Vasile Andra, Grupa 4332, anul II, Specializarea Engleza -Franceza )

Review of chapter 11, Class management and chapter 12, Planning, from Harmer Jeremy, the Practice of English Language Teaching, London and New York: Longman, 1995. The title of the book is The Practice of English Language Teaching and it was written by Jeremy Harmer. The book was published in 1995 by the publishing house Longman. The book is structured in 12 chapters in which we can find details about how to teach English, it can be a guide for many teachers. The book can be very useful because in it we can find details about : the teacher , the students , about the methodology of teaching English, about the class management and also the plans for teaching English. A review of Chapter 11 (C11) , Class management, from Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching. London and New York :Longman, 1995, pp256, 3.10, ISBN 0-582-09133-0. This review is going to focus in Chapter 11, in title Class management, which deals with the role of the teacher in the classroom, the way s/he can group the students and possible instance and disruptive behavior that may appear during the English class. In a depth analysis of the chapter we can understand that is very important for a teacher to structure her/his class in a good way ,and take into accounts the troubles that may occurred in during the class. The Chapter 11 , Class management is structured in 4 subchapters , which , on their turn are structurated in other number of subchapters. The first subchapter 11.1 of the Chapter 11 is named The role of teaching. In this subchapter Harmer makes an inventory of the teaching roles. He present the teacher as controller, assessor, organizer, prompter, participant, as a resource, tutor and also as investigator. Jeremy Harmer draws a schema of two of the roles of the teacher which seems to be opposite: controller and facilitator. Harmer said that << those two concepts represent opposite ends of a cline, of control and freedom>> (1995:235). In this subchapter, Harmer also explains in detail all the roles of a teacher. The second subchapter 11.2 is named Student grouping. This subchapter contains information about some relative merits and uses of various students grouping: Lockstep,Pairwork, Groupwork, The use of the mother tongue, and Individual study. Employing a whole range of descriptions of situations and examples, he manages to emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of some types of organization class. First of all he presents the Lockstep which represents a class grouping where all the students are working with the teacher. He explains that using this method we can observe that all the students are locked into the same rhythm, and they had the same activity. Secondly he make a analyze upon the Pairwork. The work in small pairs seems to be very useful because this method allow the students to use language (depending of

course on the tasks), and also encourage the students to co-operate which is very important for motivation it gives to learn with others. Groupwork is similar with the pairwork, but here all the students in a group are working to complete a task. Moreover Jeremy H. make a parallel between groupwork and pairwork and his conclusion is that the first method is more dynamic than the second one. The biggest problem in the use of pairwork and groupwork is the use of the mother tongue by the students in monolingual groups. Jeremy Harmer gives some examples on how a teacher can solve this problem. For example he said that a teacher should verify if the students had understood them or the task that s/he asked. Harmer makes also a classification of some things that a teacher can do about the use of the students language, and this things are: talk with the class, encourage students to use English during an activity, and a method called back to basics. His insides into structure grouping remain most relevant today as well. Harmer also gives explications about the individual study, in which the student is focused on his own work. It can be benefic because the student works without being pressured from the other students. The third subchapter 11.3 is called Disruptive behavior. In this part, the author of the book The Practice of English Language Teaching, speaks about the causes of discipline problems and also about the actions in case of indiscipline. First of all Harmer gives examples of how teacher should act in case of indiscipline. Firstly he speaks about the fact that a teacher could make a code of conduct with their students, so that, s/he can avoid the possible disruptive behavior that may appear during the English class. Jeremy Harmer classify some possible reason for discipline problems: the teacher, the students and the institutions. He explains the possible problems that can interrupt the class but also he gives solution to solve this problem. He present a number of things that a teacher can do when students behave badly, such as : the teacher should act immediately, stop the class, reseating the student who had a bad behavior, change the activity of the class, explain the student after class, and also using the institutions. The last subchapter of the chapter 11, Class management, Jeremy represent the conclusions. Harmer starts with the summary of the Chapter 11, makes some conclusions for a better understanding of the chapter and the solution that he gave. The chapter 11 ends with a series of discussions and exercises and references. Jeremy Harmer propose those types of exercises and discussions in terms of helping the future teacher to verify their knowledge, and to check themselves if they understand the chapter.

A review of Chapter 12 (C12) , Planning, from Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching. London and New York :Longman, 1995, pp256, 3.10, ISBN 0-582-09133-0. This review is going to focus on the chapter 12 too. In this chapter Harmer stresses the important of the plans that a teacher should do before starting the class or during the class. Harmer approves that the best teacher are those who think carefully about what they are going to do in their classes and who plan how they are going to organize the teaching and leading (1995: 254). In this chapter he will consider some issues and come to some conclusions about guiding principles behind lesson planning. The chapter is structurated into six subchapters: Planning textbooks and the syllabus, Planing principles, The pre-plan, The plan and also the conclusions. The first subchapter Planning textbooks and the syllabus present the manner in which some textbooks or syllabus can often tie teachers to a style of teaching and to the content of the classes if they are not careful. The author present in this chapter the role of textbooks, the advantages of using a well done textbook, but also the present us the fact that some textbooks are not so good as we think. He explains why some textbooks are somehow destructive, and in this case what a teacher should do. Harmer gives some examples with reapers that a teacher should know for choosing a good book for his class. In the second chapter named Planing principles, Jeremy Harmer mentions the two overriding principles behind good lesson planning which are the variety and flexibility. He give solutions to teachers for avoiding the danger of routine and monotony that can be installed during the class which determine the students be demotivated. In this chapter we found out explications of this two concepts variety and flexibility. The author of the book conceals the teachers to satisfy most of their students at different time by vary their class. Variety is a principle that applies especially to a series of classes. [] Good lesson planning is the art of mixing techniques , activities, and materials in such way that an ideal balance is created for the class ( 1995: 259). We understand from this , that a good teacher should be well organized and before starting his class, a teacher should create some objectives for their students. The third subchapter named What teacher should know, is structurated in three parts : The job of teaching, The institutions and The students. From the first part we found out the fact that a teacher should be well-prepared, s/he need to know a lot about the job they are to do before they can start to make successful plans. Moreover Jeremy Harmer present us six areas of necessary knowledge: the language for the level, the skills for the level, the learning aids available for the ;level, stages and techniques in teaching, a repertoire of activities and management classroom skills. The second part of this subchapter refers to the knowledge that a teacher need to have about the institutions which are involved in their teaching. There are classified

the five crucial areas of knowledge, as follows: time, length, frequency; physical conditions; syllabus; exams and restrictions. The knowledge of these things is vital if the teacher is to make plans are realistic in the circumstances. The third part of subchapter three make reference on the students. Jeremy H. considers that teachers need to know a considerable amount about their students. The fourth subchapter is named The pre-plan . This subchapter president the idea of the pre-plan. The author expresses the fact that the pre-plan is based on teacher knowledge of the students, and the syllabus they can consider four main areas : activities, language skills, language types and subject and content. The writer also realize a scheme in order to understand better the concept of pre-plan and how it operates. He explains in turn the four major elements of the pre-plan mentioned above. The next subchapter The plan present and explain the way in which a teacher should organize the lesson before teaching it at the class. Firstly is presented the components of the plan : description of the class, recent work , objective, contents and additional possibility. The teacher should know very well his students in order to understand them in some problems and to make the objectives suitable for his class. Secondly the author of the book explains what a teacher needs to do in order to make a good plan. Harmer talk also about a specimen lesson plan and give a concrete example , making a table in which he explain what a teacher should wrote. The chapter 12 , Planns is also the final chapter of the book and it ends with conclusion , exercises and references too. In my opinion this book The practice of English Language Teaching is very useful , and I recommend this book firstly because it is very easy to understand , the author , Jeremy Harmer, use a very understandable language, using a descriptive style. On the one hand he analyze the theoretical elements and on the other hand he gives examples which can be applied on the teaching. The book is a major contribution to our understanding of the way in which a foreign language class should be structured in order to encourage students learning. It is very interesting because the examples from this book stem for the author own experience as a teacher. It is a theoretical guide, the theory derives from practical examples and empirical research. Jeremy Harmers book The Practice of English Language Teaching was definitely in the time that appear , 1995 the bible of English Language Teaching methodology.

(Vasile Andra, Grupa 4332, anul II , Specializarea : Engleza-Franceza)

Bibliography: 1. Harmer Jeremy, The Practice of English Language Teaching, London and New York: Longman, 1995. 2. on the role of the teacher see A wright (lgg7), and H widdowson(1987) in more philosophical vein. A Mclean'i provocative views on the traditional role of the teacher (Mclean 19g0) ari also worth reading.R Gower and S walters (1983) chapters 2 and 3 discuss the behaviour of the teacher and the management of a classroom. 3. K Blanchard et al. (1987) in their book Leadership and the one Minute Manager - written for corporation management in the usA - see the extremes in four stages: directing - coaching - supporting delegating where delegating is directly opposite to the direciing (or"controlling)-role. 4. lee C crouch (1989) for examples of successful 'performance teaching,. 5. See T Lowe (1985). 6. The teacher's role in rockstep can change. w plumb (192g) shows examples of this. 7. On group work see D Byrne (1986) pp.70-80, A Littlejohn (1987) and G Jacobs (1988) 8. D Byrne (see reference 6)suggests groups of roughly equal size. M Long(1977) suggests that it is not necessary to have groups of equal size if the sociogram (or similar device) indicates unequal groups. 9. D Atkinson (1987) argues that we have ignored the benefits that mother tongue use can bring. 10. See J Reid (1987) 11. A number of the ideas in this section resulted from collaboration with Jean Pender and other colleagues at the Instituto Anglo-Mexicano de Cultura in Guadalajara.