CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT: IDENTIFYING FEATURES IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION FROM

PRACTITIONERS TEACHERS AT PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN NEIVA-HUILA

Around the world, education has brought some principle bases to develop English learning process in classrooms; it
demands an active participation from students. As a result, teachers have different types of methods in which they can
rely on the process of teaching English as a foreign language. In Colombia, specifically in Neiva- Huila at USCO
University, a teacher education program, the students are provided with different stages where they are exposed to
didactic, pedagogy and practicum classes. Consequently, they are expected to face the reality of this field. Thus, in-
service teachers have learnt all the necessary to perform rightly in their jobs, such as, to plan a lesson, to look for
material, to identify needs and the most important one, classroom management skills.
In this way, classroom management becomes in an important issue to handle for pre- service teachers and practitioners
at public schools. One of the mayor reasons is due to the effort practitioners make to control the class during certain
hours of classes in which they have to deal not only with the motivation but also the behavior. It is observed that taking
control of the class is a particular difficulty for teaching a lesson due to different perspectives students have towards
English in the public sector. According to Velez-Rendon, “…Colombian students’ perceptions about the United States
were found to be ambivalent. On the positive side, the United States was associated with such concepts as development,
progress, modernity and prosperity. On the negative side, it was associated with exploitation, oppression, domination
and imperialism”. Without doubt, this represent a problematic towards English teaching matter, due to an overall
thinking that English it is not an important subject. Taking into account that classroom management constitute a real
problem and it is evidenced based on observations and journals from practitioners along the years it is necessary to
determine particularities that differ from other subjects and consequently make English teaching unique.
According to Macias and Sanchez, they state that “… further analysis of the classroom management approaches
participants appeared to favor in this study constitutes another avenue inquiry”. Taking into account the statement
above, it is necessary to go beyond the practicum students and look forward the in the public sector for having a
complete overview about this topic.

Research questions:
- To what extent particularities in classroom management determine a difficulty in foreign language teaching at
some public schools?
- What characteristics exist in the approaches practitioners have to deal with classroom management in English
classes?

General objective:
- To describe particularities in classroom management with practitioners from Usco university at public
institutions in Neiva-Huila.

Specific objectives:
- To identify students’ attitudes in English classes at public schools

- To categorize classroom management features in foreign language teaching at public schools.