Classroom Management

• The EA should assist in classroom management by:
  • marking the class register on a daily basis;
  • keeping records/registers of subject attendance;
  • following up with parents when learners are absent;
  • filing correspondence from parents and doctors’ certificates;
  • assisting in the distribution of LTSM resources (e.g. textbooks, exercise books, workbooks, posters, wall charts etc.) provided to learners at the beginning of the year.

During the Lesson

• The EA:
  • ensures that learners follow the teacher’s instructions;
  • distributes worksheets or any other resources to be used by the subject teacher during the lesson;
  • establishes, where possible, problems that could be created by non-detection of learner challenges like poor vision or difficulty with hearing;
  • observes, monitors and supervises class activities and raises the teacher’s awareness of the need to intervene and troubleshoot where and when necessary;
  • helps the teacher to assign roles to group members, ensures that all participate and reports instances of dominating to the teacher;
  • circulates during the group sessions to offer guidance, records anything of note and brings it to the attention of the teacher;
  • assists learners during class discussions and group work by providing clarification where necessary;
  • supports learners with reading activities;
  • aids learners with skills of writing essays, transactional texts or paragraphs;
  • guides and supports learners (under the supervision of the teacher) for each writing piece through the following steps: pre-composing, planning, drafting, editing & proofreading, presenting & sharing;
  • lends a hand to learners with dictionary usage and
  • supports the teacher to ensure that activities are completed within specified timeframes.
• During the execution of the lesson, the EA:
  • supports the teacher with managing class activities as follows:
    • Jigsaw: Helps the teacher to divide the class into groups, supervises Home and Expert groups, supports the teacher to guide discussions and monitors how learners teach their section;
    • Buzz groups: Supports the teacher to create a non-threatening learning environment in which learners can freely share ideas with a partner, pair, small group or a third party;
    • Pairs: Assists the teacher to get two learners to work as pairs, ensures that the two are fully engaged, that interaction with each other takes place, checks and consolidates their learning;
    • Brainstorming: Supervises and guides learners as they generate as many ideas as possible in a given timeframe on a given topic, issue or situation and ensures that everything is recorded;
    • Questions and answers: As the teacher poses questions to learners, the TA notes learner responses to questions, checks understanding and gauges learner progress for post lesson reflection with the teacher;
    • Gallery walk/ Inter-group activity: Guides learners under the supervision of the teacher to:
      • gather information on a given topic;
      • display their work;
      • engage in a gallery walk;
      • nominates one member to stay with the displayed work;
      • share information.

After the Lesson

• The EA:
  • collects resource materials or learner books for control, marking, comments on learner performance and signature by the subject teacher;
  • provides learners with notes to help summarise the lesson where necessary;
  • notes the learners with content gaps for assistance during intervention classes;
  • ensures that learners who are learning through the medium of an additional language are supported in accordance with directives given by the teacher;
  • supervises informal tasks/ workbook activities/ enrichment activities/ remedial work/ home work for reinforcement;
  • meets regularly with the teacher to reflect on the progress of learners’ content knowledge and skills acquired in preparation for the formal tasks and
  • encourages Additional Language learners to write diary entries about the lesson content as part of expanded opportunities to write.