Paste yoLARGER CLASS SIZES: A CHALLENGE, A DIFFICULTY TO BE FACED BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
A. INTRODUCTION
Malcom once said that education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare it for today. Education is always regarded as the main and potential instrument of national development, national reconstruction and social change. The main purpose of education is to create and provide skills, knowledge, and awareness of our glorious and astonishing national heritage and the achievement and success of our civilization. Academic achievement and success of human civilization is the core of the educational growth. This is regarded as vital aspect of our lives. Since education is the vital aspect of the human civilization, we can prepare our young generation of today to reconstruct the nation.
Education can bring out the hidden talents and potentialities of different individuals. It can also unfold our natural abilities and interests in the society especially the abilities and interests of the young generation of today. Academic achievement is the outcome of the instruction and it represents the performance outcomes of the students that indicate the extents to which they have accomplished specific goals which focus on the activities and the instructions in a learning environment. This academic achievement is being determined by the grades, or marks that they have secured from the examinations and other activities.
Education really plays a big and vital role in the human civilization especially on the students’ lives. Students can learn. Students can be molded. Students can be our hope, can be our country’s hope and can be the solution to our different problems that we are facing.
In todays’ generation, education can be a hot-button topic for many people as everyone knows. New trends are emerging that are both controversial and encouraging. Like the different issues and problems we are facing today.
Our country’s educational problems are very chronic, critical and crucial. There must be initiatives to eradicate these serious educational problems of the Philippines.
Nowadays, even from the past, the Philippine educational system is faced with plenty of problems, including lack of classrooms, dilapidated school buildings and shortage of teachers. The three latter problems result to the prevention of the learning of the students in their classrooms. How could this be happen? The lack of classrooms, the shortage of teachers, and the overpopulation of the students create problems with regards of the learning of the students.
Class size is always a hot topic in every teaching community. Why? It is because class size has a great impact on the quality of teaching teachers can provide and quality of learning students can be acquired. Teachers have a hard time spending with the students if the class size is too large. Around the world, there are huge differences in population, and with some many countries having billions of people, and because of this the average class size can vary dramatically across the globe.
Large class sizes present many different obstacles that hinder the learning of the students. The students are very vulnerable to the problems which come about from the large class sizes. These problems that students are facing with that their class sizes are the poor quality instructions from their teachers, disciplinary distractions and lowest test scores. These could be resulted because teachers cannot handle the students properly for their bigger and larger sizes of the class.
Teachers, teaching the large classes, could be suffering from the pedagogical shortcomings of these classes. But, these classes also produce stresses which teachers could be suffered from. Students, being in the large sizes of classes, could be hindered from what they must be learning from the classroom. In the Philippines, class sizes averages around 45 students (Armstrong, 2012).
B. BODY
Due to the large number of population of students, teachers find themselves managing large numbers of students in a classroom. Students in large class are hardly being managed in a classroom with only one teacher. Teaching large class size could render discipline problems because teachers are not able to establish and organize the consistency needed to promote good classroom management as well as to promote good regulations, and manners among the students. If teacher struggles to handle individual student’s need, it is also very difficult to control and handle a large class. The discipline in the class is being ineffective, it becomes more inconsistent. According to an article that was published on the Scholastic website written by Carelee Adams (2016), teachers may suffer from feelings of ineffectiveness in dealing with fights between children or other disciplinary problems. Students can easily become unruly and disobedient when their teacher is busy dealing with behavioral problem with another student, which may result to an un-ending cycle of behavioral problems in the classroom.
In smaller classes, compared with the large sizes classes, the teacher can give students the attention they needed. The teacher could allow everyone to express themselves and the teacher do not have to make them quiet so that everyone could talk and express their thoughts (Jensils, 2016). There is really a big difference of the small class size between large classes in different aspects such as discipline, low quality of instruction could be acquired from the teachers of the students.
Larger class size presents many obstacles that affect academic success of students due to the increased distractions in the classroom and decreased ability of having intimate teacher-student interactions.
Large classes might hinder the students’ success in the sense that it is easy for a student to go unnoticed in a large sea of people (Gonzalez, 2015). This kind of setting does not hold students accountable for paying and giving attention in the class. In the long run, these are crucial interpersonal skills of the students which are needed to be developed by the time they graduate. There are substantial researches that had been conducted in the U.S. on class size. The researchers concluded that smaller class sizes results in higher achievement among students who are economically disadvantaged than those who belong in large classes. Large classes result in students’ lower academic ability. Lassmann (2013) said that class size affect student attitudes more significantly that it affects students’ learning and achievement.
The effect on the students’ learning in large classes is the direct result of the impact of the overcrowding on the teacher (Gonzalo, 2005). Large class teachers may spread too thin and unable to give the students the attention they needed. If the students are not given the attention they seek, they may fall behind. These situations affect not only standardized testing scores, but also the students’ enjoyment of school and learning, establishing in them the failure in the future. The teachers in the large classes may become more stressed, as though they lack the time and resources to really making a difference. This could lead to teacher burnout. In large classes, the teacher may find themselves spending more time managing the organization in the classroom rather than actually teaching. Students’ ability to learn or work is being affected because of the different distractions in their classrooms. It might also difficult for the teachers of large classes to connect with each student on a deeper level.
It is uncertainly difficult for a teacher to deal with large classes. It is still fruitless doing and having a remedy to the problems the teachers are facing in the large classes unless students are really motivated to learn. But there are some of the useful techniques that large classes’ teachers may use to alleviate the intensity of the situations. Through using a few different tactics, teachers could begin easing these burdens and focus on child development and student achievement and learning.
Crouch (2017) suggested different tactics and techniques for the situations to alleviate.
Divide and Conquer. In teaching in large classes, the teacher must divide the students into smaller groups and walk through the room between groups when having a discussion and interaction between teacher and students, asking guiding questions and maintaining the control over the classroom.
Flip Out. The teachers could give greater responsibility to students and reshape the classroom setting. Students would enjoy the learning process and would increase the eagerness to perform activities and work related to the lessons, and increase interest in applying and deepening their knowledge.
Become involved. The teachers should call local officials who influence education policy and should work with them to develop solutions for the situations in teaching large classes such as hiring more competent teachers.
It is truly difficult to manage big group as the large class size is being disadvantageous to the teacher-student relationship. Therefore, it is up to the teachers, the communities and the community members in whom they work to demand and implement solutions.
C. CONCLUSION
It is really pitiful to see students in the large classes packed like sardines. Larger classes greatly affect teacher-student relationship, as well as students’ achievement and students’ learning abilities.
It is real that teaching large classes than small classes is challenging as it is pedagogically unacceptable and pyschologically irrelevant. Teachers should know that these kind of classes most of the times involved students with mixed abilities, language levels, motivation, needs, interests, and goals. Nonetheless, teaching students and managing these large classes is possible if some suggested tactic and techniques are taken.
Larger classes are associated with less time spent on actual teaching of the teachers and actual learning of the students and having more time spent on keeping classroom orders. Therefore, the teachers of today should be flexible and can adapt easily on the different issues and problems they are facing. The teachers should think solutions on those problems for the successful teaching-learning process and for the students to learn at their best.
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