Classroom Management: A Persistent Challenge for Pre-Service Foreign Language Teachers

Abstract

This qualitative descriptive study aimed to ascertain the extent to which classroom management constituted a problem among pre-service foreign language teachers in a teacher education program at a public university in Colombia. The study also sought to identify classroom management challenges, the approaches to confronting them, and the alternatives for improving pre-service teachers’ classroom management skills. The results revealed that classroom management is a serious problem with challenges ranging from inadequate classroom conditions to explicit acts of misbehavior. Establishing rules and reinforcing consequences for misbehavior were the main approaches to classroom management, although more contact with actual classrooms and learning from experienced others were alternatives for improving classroom management skills.

Keywords

• Classroom management
• foreign language
• pre-service teachers
• teacher education