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teachwire.net/secondary X X X X X X X X X X X Mind your LANGUAGE! Effective behaviour management is anchored less by what teachers say, andmore by the meanings produced by their mode of speaking, says PeterNelmes ... E ver wondered what the secret at the heart of effective of behaviour management is? I certainly did at the start of my career, as a teacher of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, back when my classroom was often a place of chaos. I therefore embarked on a quest to find out what it was that successful teachers were doing to keep their classrooms havens of peace and learning. I recorded and analysed hours and hours of talk. I thought the answer could be found in teachers’ use of language, so I looked closely for the ‘emotional bits’ but found almost none. The tapes simply sounded like ordinary teaching and learning. There was nothing to base my doctorate on (the vehicle for my research), nothing to allow me to use to improve my own practice. I was at a loss. These teachers knew their pupils’ potential for mayhem and worked hard to make sure that problems were avoided – so where was the evidence that they were doing so? Shared meanings The eureka moment came when I realised that the assumptions upon which my research was based were wrong. I had assumed, for example, that challenging behaviour came from the child, and that the promotion of teaching and learning came from the teacher. I had assumed also that language would be key. What I came to see is that it’s not so much the language, but rather the shared meanings that lie at the heart of everything. If a teacher and pupil have jointly constructed a meaning between them – to the extent that they’re on the same page and completely get where the other is coming from – then teaching and learning follow, and the likelihood of challenging behaviour diminishes. The behaviour comes from the transaction, not from the child. It occurs when those shared meanings break down, and the teacher and pupil cease to understand where the other is coming from, be it cognitively or emotionally. I realised that everything teachers did – from setting the activity up, to choosing the level of lesson complexity and their style of delivery – was designed to establish and maintain shared meanings with their pupils, so understandings could be reached and anxieties kept at bay. Their aim was to ensure the pupils could access meanings which built up their sense of competence, a sense of positive identity and a sense of belonging in the classroom. Through their teaching, these teachers were seeking to contain difficult emotions and counter pupils’ expectations of failure, while promoting success, fun, and above all, hope. My recordings sounded like straightforward teaching on the surface, but once I understood what was actually going on, those same recordings became quite moving to listen to, given the pupils’ histories of exclusions and rejections from other schools. Facilitative mode That’s not to say that the language used was sugary sweet; any teacher attempting that approach with these image-conscious adolescents wouldn’t have lasted for more than a few minutes. Moreover, there were times when boundaries had to be restated, which was done with clarity and firmness. Fig 1 58