Your Voice is a Great Tool to Show You Are in Control
When managing your classroom, one of the most important tools at your
disposal is your voice. The way in which you communicate to your
students verbally has a lot to do with how your students will respond to
you. And it goes far beyond the message that you are actually
communicating. The way you use your voice – the tone, pace and volume –
has a lot to do with how your message will be received and interpreted.
Students tend to react more to the way you speak rather than what you
may actually be saying. So, the way you speak needs to be considered
when you are teaching. Depending on how you speak, you can either wind
kids up or be ignored or abused. If you want to remove all potential
triggers for bad behaviour, you need to pay attention to, and possibly
change, the way you speak. The upside to paying attention to the way you
speak is that there are certain ways that you can utilize your voice to
show you are in control and gain immediate attention from your
students.
When giving instructions or explaining consequences, drop your volume,
drop your tone, and slow down your pace. This works wonders in getting
your message across. By speaking in this way, you can be sure to not say
anything that will wind them up. You will also have less of a chance
for your instructions to be misconstrued. Most of us tend to give
instructions the opposite of this way. We tend to feel the need to
conquer the noise level in the classroom – to speak loud and in an
irritated or excited tone. This only serves to wind up your class
because your students will tune into your tone and volume of your voice.
The biggest mistake a teacher can make when giving directions is to spew
out fact after fact from the front of the classroom expecting the
students to take it all in. If this is your dominant teaching method,
then you probably have to deal with a lot of behaviour problems.
Children can’t be still for long, and have trouble paying attention to
long boring lectures. This is true of adults to a certain degree as
well. No one particularly likes long lectures. So it’s important that
you keep your directions short and straightforward.
When you need to explain things to your class, try to make the time that
you are speaking interactive and use it as another chance to show
you’re in command of the group by constantly directing questions at
different individuals. This keeps students on their toes and paying
attention because they quickly catch on that they could be asked a
question. It also helps them to retain information better, as when they
are directly involved in the instruction process there will be less
confusion.
So, it’s good to remember that the way you speak – your tone, pace, and
volume – is just as important as the actual words you are saying. It
makes the difference as to whether students will tune you in or tune you
out.