Jean Simpson, Tenerife
Discuss with your pupils 5 rules for the classroom. Get them to help you decide which rules are most important to help them learn most efficiently. Write the rules out together and decide what the consequences will be if a memeber of the class does not keep to the rules. Explain that as it is a joint decision for managing their learning environment, it should be a joint effort to maintain the rules. My classes often decided that the the rules should be based on respect for each other - which meant giving each other space, no interference with each other physically or mentally, the right to work quietly and to listen to the teacher - paying attention & not chatting.

The most effective technique for quietening a noisy clas was to find someone who wasn't talking - or who was talking the least, and praise them in a quiet voice for being attentive and ready to learn! Talking softly to someone often makes the rest of the group strain their ears (and shut their mouths) to listen to what is being said!!

Eleanor McCallin, UAE
Do not give any instructions until all students are quiet. Wait as long as it takes. Have a signal like raising your hand at the front of the class. Once you have given instructions, have a student repeat them back for you and the class. Ask a few others some questions to check they have fully understood what they have to do. Ask questions like..."Which exercise are you going to do?" "What will you do next?" I hope this helps.

Andew, France
Hello Deborah. I am afraid this is an age old problem with children. Things I have tried:
Stand at the desk and wait, saying nothing, but scanning the room visually and confidently - make notes of persistant chatters and speak their names quietly to catch their attention, then just nod to them or put your finger over your lips. You can repeat this step as often as you like. Quiet will arrive as the children wonder why YOU are not talking. Confirm they atre quiet as you ask and then talk firmly, assertively, but quietly so that the children have to listen to hear what is being said.
Bang on the desk and shout to shuttup!! This works, but I prefer the first. Again, once you have their attention speak quietly so that they have to concentrate - but do not whisper, this reeks of lack of confidence. If they are unruly, at this point just talk over them, more loudly than they are. Do not repeat your instructions more than once at this point. Tell them to geton with the work you have just described. Those that cannot must then come to your desk where you can chide them quietly, away from the others, issue instructions and ENCOURAGEMENT in more private circumstances. This can obviously be repeated as often as you like.
These and more strategies will be required and each works with some children and not others. Experiment I'm afraid!!

Nazlee, South Africa
Hi Deborah
A useful strategy I learnt during my CELTA training was the 'stare down' approach. Firstly, as a rule, you should never give instructions while students are talking, reading, writing, etc. Ensure that you have their full attention - so if they're reading or writing, say something like "pens down / papers down / books closed and look at me please". Once they're all looking at you, then only do you issue an instruction. If some are still talking, writing, etc, keep looking at them in silence - this causes the quieter, obedient students to start 'shoo-ing' and word usually gets around that 'teacher's waiting for you'. Once they are quiet and all looking at you, give them their instructions. Don't let a lengthy wait for silence and attention get you frazzled. Just be quiet and keep looking at the noisy bunch. If they persist, walk towards them and stand right in front of them until they notice you. If they don't, and only after you've waited quite a while, you could say "can we begin?" (more in a statement than question kind of tone). Then say something like "Thank you... now heres what we're going to do now" and go back to addressing the whole class. Once you have this silence and have given instructions, check that they understand the instruction you just gave them, by asking them what they're about to do eg. "so, are you going to be working in groups or alone? how many minutes do you have to do this?" etc. Only once they confirm the instruction back to you, do you hand out worksheets, put them into groups, start the activity. Never hand out material before instructions - you'll battle to get their attention because they'll be more interested in reading what you've just given them than listening to you. Oh, and never ever try to shout across a group of noisy students in an attempt to quieten them - particularly young learners or teens. They may find this behaviour 'interesting' in that they've managed to get their teacher out of control and in a near-panic state - so they may continue doing this just to get a kick out of it! :-) This may sound crazy but kids are all about playing games and this is just one of the games they love playing! :-) Let me know if this helps!

Mohamed Essadki, Morocco
Dear Deborah,
First of all ,Iwish you success in your new career. Students' noise in the classroom may be due to a lot of reasons, mainly: uninteresting topics, overcrowded classes, difference in students' levels....
Most of the time students are not interested in topics presented in their syllabus. To remedy for this, teachers need sometimes to devise material by themselves.
turbullant students are either very intelligent - and so find themselves ahead of their mates with much free time; or they are slow at understanding newly presented items - which they try to hide resorting to noise. Very often, I find myself obliged to move around and around to check whether all the students are engaged in the same activity as well as assisting the weakest ones and assigning extra activities to those ahead.

Helen, UK
If these are French teenagers I sympathise!!! I believe the key to getting students to be quiet and attentive is effectively engaging them pre task. Course books are notoriously monotonous, so students often know what is coming next. Try bringing in pictures / telling them an anecdote related to the theme of the lesson before they " Turn to page 34 etc." Give instructions in the target language, vary the way you do it - an idea to try is giving instructions as a chinese whisper or as a dictogloss task and ALWAYS remember to concept check. Bonne chance!

Albertina, Mexico
Your students chat because there are no consequences for their acctions. If you explain more than once, they know you are going to be there, so there is no problem in chatting. Start marking consequences for their acctions, use a timer so you can discount the time from an activity they enjoy. For example, if they chat five minutes, you discount that time from an activity they enjoy or their recess. The more constant and solid you are, you are going to have less chatting. Good luck.

Imelda, France
I teach in France too, from 12 tp 16 year olds and it's my first year in the state system. I have several very difficult classes. Here are just one or two ideas that don't take into account the disiplinary sytems of the schools.
Try begining the lesson with listening work with always a task to do at the same time. It helps to calm things down. Make sure that you can move all around the room easily to say a word or give a hand or tell someone to get to work. Mostly the kids can't understand English so I get one of the better ones to translate what I say, I don't like doing that but I haven't found a better solution for the moment. Let me know how you get on.

Tony Goncalves, Paraguay
I have been an ESL for 10 years, and have come across this situation several times. One thing I was taught by my tutor was to change sitting arrangements. Make a chart with the layout of your sitting arrangements where you cn see exactly where your studetns are. The make a ROTA. Every week they are supposed to sit next to a different group of students. This will foster cooperation, improve interaction avoiding clashes between students and most importantly put across the message that they are in class to work. Students talk a lot in class because they have been together so long in and outside classroom that they don´t feel like doing the tasks anymore. Then they come up with the usual sentence WE HAVE FINISHED and start talking.
I hope that will help.

Hassania, Morocco
I think that the best thing to do is to keep the pupils busy as much as possible. Get every single student involved by having them work in pairs or in groups of four and award those who respect the time limit. Choose materials, topics that meet the students interest and need. Make sure that it's the student rather than you who is at the center of the whole process.
Good luck

Romina, Argentina
Hi! I have the same problem very often. But sometimes, what is useful to me is to know the names of my students very well, so when I'm teaching I call their names with the purpose of having their feedback. For example asking them to give examples of what I'm explaining or something like that. So they try to pay attention because they don't know when I'm going to call their names and they don't want to be embarased in front of their peers.
I hope it's useful your you! Good luck! And patience!!!

Ana Maria, Uruguay
Dear Deborah,
Getting ss' attention is becoming harder and harder. What I might suggest:
1) give the instructions once, then wait, don't go ahead if they keep chatting; if you're in silence then they might listen! 2) make sure you're using a special tone of voice for the instructions; 3) write the instructions on the board without saying anything, including the time they have for the activity. Hope it'll be useful.

Jamie, Singapore
Dear Deborah,
Take heart for you're not alone. It can be a rather frustrating and challenging experience. There's no one approach to classroom management as all children are different. What works now may not work later. Do remember that children are still individual persons and they've different needs. Talk to them individually to find out what concerns he has. Perhaps, he already knows the concepts and he's bored. Or he really doesn't understand your instructions. Try differential teaching. There're obviously more reasons than I can list but I think children will respect us if we respect them. Developing rapport with them is a good start. Be a friend and teach from your heart not your mind. Good luck!

Gopal Midha, India
A technique which works like a charm is the Q rule in class. Often most of the techniques provide an adult's perspective on handling the problem - that every issue can be handled logically and children would "understand". What works well also is to look at the solution from a child's perspective - hence a childlike solution is what appeals more to them.

The Q approach belongs to John Holt (you may google him or this approach) - he put a capital Q in the top left of the blackboard when he needed the children's attention. The rule meant that there would be a pin drop silence the moment the Q is written. If someone is still talking - his/her name appears below the Q and he/she has to stay and write a Q statement ( about keeping quiet whenthe Q is on the board) at the beginning of lunch or sports period. The punishmnent, if you can call it that, takes 2 minutes but is perceived as painful as those noisy children whose names are mentioned have to wait and write for 2 minutes while the rest of the class scoots away. This approach has worked wonders for my class and I hope you read more about it on the web or in "How children Fail" - the classic by John Holt.

Monorien Christopher, Nigeria
A noisy class is not an enabling environment for effective teaching and learning and should be the concern of a teacher who wants to realise the pre-set objectives. As a teacher who has worked with students for eighteen years, l have observed that the starting point is cultivating friendship with your students. You will have to admire and commend the good qualities you have noticed in them. Thereafter, your students would want to please you. The next step is to find out what your students enjoy doing with you. Some students enjoy stories from the teacher; others enjoy quiz competitions. A teacher should use this to quieten the students. How? The students are allowed to enjoy the above mentioned if they keep quiet during lessons. I would also suggest using the student centered approach. When students are actively involved in teaching, the class tends to be quiet. A teacher is therefore advised to shun the teacher centered approach which renders pupils passive and makes the class noisy.

Joanne Odin, France
I am a teacher trainer in France and I think Hassania's suggestions are really the most effective on a long term basis. We should start by asking ourselves why are students chatting. Why are they disinterested? If they are motivated enough they might (but not always) want to hear what they are going to do. Of course sometimes there is just so much other stuff going on in their lives that nothing interests them and the other solutions are necessary.

Hema Subramanian, India
Hi, This seems to be a universal problem. I have tried to solve this with a few strategies in my class and have quite often succeeded in quietening the students. You can start by ringing a soft bell to attract the attention of the students. I use this only if the group is very excited and has not responded to my silence. The different sound from the bell always seems to work. If the group is very large clapping your hands and waiting for the students to respond by doing the same helps. Some of the students pick up your clapping and respond and after a few rounds you will have the attention of the whole group. This really works. Hope this will be useful for you. All the best.

Tracey Oliver, South Korea
One trick i have learnt that works very well. Is stand at the front of the classroom silently and look at your watch. As soon as a few students quiet down tell them 'i am just counting how long you are staying for after class'. They shut up pretty quickly after that. But the first time you must follow through and keep them after class for however long you had to wait. Its only usually a few minutes. After that they all shut up pretty quickly once you start looking at your watch.

Rachel, Greece
I think by far the best strategy is to stay quiet, this seems to unerve the students, they wonder why the teacher is not talking anymore. I also encourage the students to tell me what they have told their friends but in English, this has on occasions opened up great discussions and debates in the group and encouraged even the quietest students to join in. I try then to incorporate these discussions with my lesson plan. Books are boring and the lessons can be repetative, as long as we generally follow the curriculum it is sometimes fun to steer away from the planned lesson for some unplanned activity, the students love it when l say 'right, close your books, lets talk,' they feel as if the learning has stopped.

Don Payzant, South Korea
I work with Korean co-teachers, so in addition to all the reasons stated above, my students talk because they are waiting for the translation of what I am saying. I ask my co-teachers for minimum translation, which helps me to focus on keeping all of my talking VERY SIMPLE. Clear instructions are extremely important so I generally MODEL all activities with my co-teacher or a noisy student - then check to make sure all the students understand the task.