Based on the task given, I have chosen to write a review on these three classroom management theories which are

Theories of Assertive Tactics, Theories of Instructional Management and Theories of Democratic Teaching.

Assertive Discipline is a model developed by Lee Canter and Marlene Canter. It is also known as Theories of Assertive Tactics. This model helps teachers to take charge in the classroom and train them to be calm yet influential and firm in controlling their students behavior. The key concept of this model is that, students have the right to learn in a calm, orderly classroom and teachers have the right to teach without interruption from the students. Support from parents, other teachers and school administrators contribute helps to maximize the efficiency of the theory applied by the teacher.

Canter suggests that the best approach to handle inappropriate behaviour is the assertive style. According to Lee Canter and Marlene Canter, when teachers give students clear expectations and consistent follow through, most students choose appropriate behavior (Canter,1974). Assertive teachers express their expectations to the class clearly, confidently, and consistently. They build trust and teach students how to behave appropriately by being the model of desired behaviours themselves. In the implementation of rules and consequences, assertive teachers make promises not threats. In which, they do not threaten to implement the rules and apply the consequences but they promise to do so when the situation get across the limit. Besides, assertive teachers do not damage students self-esteem with statements such as How can you be so dense to make the same mistake again? Cant you ever learn one simple rule? but they plan an appropriate way by considering the needs of the students. Therefore, in establishing rules, teacher needs to make sure that every rule is clear, specific, observable, and agreed by the students. This means, students are clear of the expectations and consequences for breaking them. Any follow up action must be relevant to students mistake and promote positive behaviour choices.

There are two types of consequences that might be experienced by a student which are positive and negative consequences. Recognition, praise, material reward, free time, and special privilege are the examples of positive consequences. Whilst, losing recess time, staying after school, and going to the principal office are the examples of negative consequences.

Basically, there is a technique suggested by Canters on how to implement consequences. It is known as Discipline Hierarchy. It is a step by step approach starts with issuing a warning when a student disrupts or break a classroom rule. The second or third time the same student repeat his or her misbehavior, teacher warn the student again and take action on him or her for example ask the student to stand for 5 minutes in front of the class. On the fourth time, if the student still breaks the rule, teacher will call his or her parents to report on the misbehavior. The fifth time the same thing happen again, teacher starts to settle the issue by including the principal of the school. According to Canters broken record, a maximum of three times request to stop students misbehaviour must be done before any consequences received by the students.

One of the advantage of this theory is it involve mutual agreement that each party will has a win-win situation that satisfied their need. Thus, a teacher will be able to control the class according to the desired behavior and students will get to learn in a comfortable and nonthreatening environment. Other than that, it emphasis on clear and positive ways to implement good classroom discipline which is good to encourages students participation in following rules and be responsible for any consequences cause by their own action. It also prevent time wasting because the rules and the consequences is already acknowledged by the students and the teacher. Hence, if a student creates a misbehaviour, the teacher will take any relevant action to stop the disturbance then proceed with the lesson again without taking longer time to overcome the situation. However, this theory also has some disadvantages. As Canter suggest the teacher to use the Discipline Hierarchy, a step-by-step approach to solve behaviour problems. It is quite ineffective sometimes because teacher might need an instant change of behaviour during the instructional time especially when the period is short and quality time is desperately needed. In addition, culture is one of the vital aspect to be considered in applying this theory. In some culture there are societies who feel uncomfortable receiving rewards or punishments. In this case, this theory is not suitable to be applied.

In local ESL primary classroom, assertive discipline model can be applied by establishing rules for classroom behaviour especially while conducting activities so that the smoothness of the lesson can be preserved. Implementation of Discipline Hierarchy to manage the classroom rules will create a positive learning atmosphere because students are given chances to correct their mistakes and act accordingly in a calm and non threaten ways.

The second theory is the Theories of Instructional Management by Jacob Kounin. This model is different from the Assertive Discipline discussed above. In this model of classroom management, prevention of any possibilities that will lead to undesired behaviour is being concerned. According to Kounin, implementation of a good instructional management happened when a teacher is able to monitor his or her students closely and able to control the classroom environment before students starts to act inappropriately and disturb the progress of the lesson. Specifically, this model focused on keeping the students attention and involvement across the lesson in which there should not be a chance for the students to feel bored or frustrated.

In order to achieve a good discipline classroom, a teacher need to master and understand all the approaches and strategies involves in this model. One of them is called withitness which means awareness. Teacher need to always be aware of all events, activities and student behaviours in the classroom. This includes the teacher to monitor classroom environment closely at all times. When there is a need to warn misbehaviours, teacher needs to quickly decide an appropriate moment and detect the particular student who initiated the inappropriate behavior. It is important to react quickly and accurately to manage class disturbances and stop the discipline problems in the classroom before they spread. An excellent withitness achieved when a teacher is able to monitor all the classroom activities and keep the students in control even when the teacher is giving attention on a student or small group who need extra guidance. Another way to get students attention is by maintaining students accountability. Group alerting encourages the students to stay alert, respond, demonstrate or explain what they understand from the lesson they had learn. This is due to the awareness created by the teacher at the beginning of the lesson that every participation and contributions will benefit the group each students is in. Group management approach efficiently encourages motivation and attention among students because they feel responsible to participate and contribute something to their respective group.

Apart from that, Kounin Instructional Management imparts the application of Ripple Effect technique. It is called ripple effect because when a teacher correcting one student for a misbehaviour, it will also influence other students around the target student. To implement the technique, teacher must specify the inappropriate behavior for example ,Firdaus, stop talking

and pay attention to what I am saying and provide instruction about how to stop the misbehaviour and provide the reason for example, Lisa,go back to your seat,You cant remain in the class if you insist on walking all over the classroom when I am teaching. This way, the students understands the instruction very clearly and the others understood the displeasure of the teacher. Such words as I mean it or I want it done now also help to covey seriousness on the demand. Rough physical treatment of misbehaving students should be avoided since it tends to make the class uneasy and fearful.

Overlapping is the ability of a teacher to deal with more than one situation simultaneously in the classroom. This is also one of the important techniques in achieving successful instructional management as claimed by Kounin. Teacher should be able to supervises more than one group at the same time for example Hanis,continue with your presentation, I am listening, Faiz, get back to your seat and listen to what Hanis is saying. If a student is done with a task assigned, teacher should provide them with another task, and while keeping them busy, teacher is able to move around to assist or monitoring the class.

Another two techniques of Instructional Management is momentum and smoothness. Momentum is a forward movement of the lesson.Meanwhile, smoothness is a steady progression of the lesson. A good momentum and smooth lesson is a lesson without a sudden stops and start, getting off track, making irrelevant statement, leaving a lesson hanging, changing back and forth from one subject to another and suspending activity when students are participating in it. Usually the smoothness of the lesson is also disrupts when overdwelling and fragmentation occur. Overdwelling is arise when a teacher tend to focus on a single issue long after the students have understood it. In the other hand, fragmentation is arise when a teacher tend to break down an activity into small parts when it could be done as a whole. The effects of these situations are students get bored and it leads to misbehavior. Kounin suggest to keep the students focused during the lesson, a teacher need to always keep them in suspense, for instance asks the students to perform or answer question, use a variety of activities to capture attention, worthwhile and sufficiently challenging.

The advantages of Instructional Management by Jacob Kounin is easy to apply anywhere the lesson is carry on, practical to be used with every stages of student, effective to handle and helps to avoid discipline problem. In the meantime, the disadvantages of this theory are it only could prevent misbehaviour but could not cure and students tend to neglect their

responsibility for their behaviours due to the ripple effect. The practicality of the theories in local ESL primary classroom are teacher can create a lesson that is engaging to students and fun, make the students as a part of decision-making process and arrange the classroom systematically so that all the students are always within eyesight.

In my opinion, this theories helps tell the students that the teacher is controlling the class and always aware of the action make by each one of them. Kounin said that it was not necessary for the teacher to know what is going on, but for the students to aware that the teacher knows. Effective implementation of this theories helps to prevent misbehavior at the first place. Hence, when the students are in control, it should not be a big problem for the teacher to handle the rest of lesson requirements.

The last theories is the Theories of Democratic Teaching by Rudolf Dreikurs. It emphasis on democratic classrooms which he claimed learning occurs best. It includes promoting active student involvement, sense of belonging and self-discipline to exercise responsibility. Students are motivate to participate in decision making, make positive choice and treated as social equals by the teacher. Dreikurs highlighted mistaken goals cause by unfulfilled need are attention-seeking, power-seeking, revenge-seeking, and withdrawal. Dreikurs also encourage the use of logical consequences to correct misbehavior in which, the students should be given a choice to correct his misbehavior and not be forced to behave as directed.

Based on the Logical Consequences, teachers must identify mistaken goal and discuss with students in a non-threatening manner where punishment is the last thing to use. For example, if a student pushes someone on the stairway, the teacher may let the student decide whether to avoid pushing in the future or go back to the class and wait until everyone else has cleared the stairway before he goes down. If the students disturb others, they may agree to no longer disturb the class or they may be isolated from the group. Dreikurs suggest teachers to develop self control based on social interest. It is achieved when they become able to show initiative, make reasonable decision and assume responsibility in ways that benefit themselves. Encouragement is essential and should be given more than praise. In a democratic class, teacher are seen to always speak in positive terms, encourage students to strive for improvement not perfection, emphasize students strengths, help student learn from mistakes, encourage independence or responsibility, show faith, offer help, encourage students to help

each other, display students work, be optimistic, enthusiastic, and use encouraging remarks for example You have improved.(Dreikurs &Cassel,1995)

The advantages of Theories of Democratic Teaching by Rudolf Dreikurs are it promotes mutual respect between teacher and students, help students understand their misbehaviours and help teacher to focus on causes of behaviour before taking action. Meanwhile, the disadvantage is the trouble in determining students actual motives of causing misbehaviour because students may not truly admit their motives. In local ESL primary classroom, teacher can adapt this theories by having a class discussion in solving conflicts or deciding rules. Other than that, teacher might choose to seek out students needs to discover the most suitable method to help the students overcome their misbehaviour problem.

Based on the theories, it shows that students misbehave to achieve self serving goal, getting attention, seeking power, taking revenge, and withdrawal. No matter what the reason is for a students misbehavior, as a teacher, we still need to give positive and negative response to the students in order to control their action and fulfill their needs. Application of theories suggested by Dreikurs using logical consequences develops mutual respect among a teacher and students which motivates them to behave nicely in a democratic learning environment. Thus, it is a helpful theory to be applied especially with students who always commit disciplinary problem yet, able to follow the rules when their social interest is considered by the teacher.

According to Canter, a system based on positive interaction and positive recognition will encourage students to continue appropriate behaviour (Canter,1992). In my opinion, positive environment during the instructional period is the most important factor that encourages the effectiveness of any theories applied by a teacher. Other than that, as a teacher, we must not show prejudice towards our students. Instead, we must be fair to all students regardless of any theories we used to manage our classroom behaviour. Lastly, teachers need to determine what works best for their class to make the students feel comfortable and what support their instructional style the most to gain trust and respect from the students. Every teacher must begin each day with a clean perception, which means that consequences taken by the students one day are never carried over to the next day. For me, all of the three theories are relevant to be used together in a classroom because all of those are able to create well discipline classroom environment.