Keep a Noisy Class Quiet
Seven Tips for Helping Chatty Students Settle Down
One of the biggest struggles new teachers face is how to handle noisy students. Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You walk by other classrooms and hear absolutely nothing but the teacher's voice. As you step into your classroom, you are bombarded with a deafening din. You look helplessly around the room and try getting your class to pay attention. They don't hear you, so you raise your voice. The level of sound goes up as your students try to out talk you. If this has happened to you, you may want to take a look at some of these teacher tested tips for quiet classrooms.
- Begin the school year with concrete rules about talking during class and what happens when the rules are broken. Make sure you follow up on the rules and consequences that you've created or they will not be effective. You may want to have the consequences be a three step process, especially if you are working with younger students. For example, the first offense results in a verbal warning. The second time you have to hush a student, he or she has to spend ten minutes of recess sitting quietly. The third time results in detention.
- Create a signal for silence. Some teachers make a "v" sign. Others prefer waving hands or saying a rhyme or jingle. Train your students to recognize and obey the signal.
- Visit the local teacher supply store and take a look at the teacher aids available. One nice option is a stop light that is perfect for monitoring the level of noise when you are allowing students to work in groups and discuss the work with each other. As the students start to get loud, you can move the light from green to yellow. When they are too loud, change the light to red. When they quiet back down, it can go back to green.
- Give your students a way to remember to be quiet in hallways. Have younger students place a finger over their lips and keep it there as they walk by classrooms or ask them all to zip the imaginary zipper on their mouth before they walk out the door. When they reach their destination, remind them of the guidelines about talking in class and allow them to unzip their lips.
- Don't try to talk over your students. They will always be able to get louder than you, because there are so many of them. If you want to try talking without hushing them first, talk as softly as possible. A few students will usually stop talking to find out what you are saying and others will follow suit.
- Get their attention quickly by making an easy to notice change. Shutting off the lights or ringing a bell both are attention grabbers that create a momentary silence. Use that silence to quickly and firmly remind your students of the class rules on noise and to regain control of the class.
Finally, if your class is being particularly chatty, think about what is going on. Is it the day before a holiday? Are they taking achievement tests all day? In these situations, the best way to get your class to quiet down may be to do something else for a bit. One way to help them get back on track is to have them stand up, push in their chairs and sing a song as they march around the room. When they've burned off some of that energy, have them sit down and try being quiet and attentive again.
For more new teacher support, take a look at Tips for Teachers and Organizing the Classroom.
Noisy students make teaching difficult
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