how do I get my seventh-grade students to stop talking?

Question

My studeents are driving me CRAZY! They will not stop talking! I have tried EVERYTHING: yelling, giving recess and after school detentions, having them write essays, praising or giving prizes to the good ones, waiting for them to be quiet, writing notes home, and having conferences with parents. Nothing seems to work. They don't care about any punishment, and they are so chatty that I cannot get anything done. None of the other teachers have any ideas either, so I am relying on the brilliance of strangers. Does anyone have anthing that might work?

I need new ideas people! I have been teaching for three years and have never encountered a problem like this. Other teachers say the same things. It is not a consistency issue or an engagement issue, or a "kids run the classroom issue" it is a kids-don't-care-about-punishment issue. They are acutally really sweet kids, but so impossibly talkative that I have overheard two of my girls have a conversation about how noisy they are and how they should be quiet, while I am trying to get them quiet!
I have 21 boys and nine girls- no boy-girl-boy-girl seating.
Though there are some that are worse than others, I would say about 70% of the class talks about 80% of the time. For those of you who have taughht before, you know it is very difficult to pick out the handful of non-talking kids amongst a group of kids who are mostly all talking, and it is impsssible to do anything, even activities where talking is permitted because the kids are talking through directions!

Answer 1

What would normally work would not be legal. I liked the duct tape solution. The cattle prod is over-kill. A shocking collar like those used for training bird dogs would be ideal, but not practical.

Here is a real suggestion: Pass out 3X5 cards and ask every student to list three other students in the class that they want to site next to. Have them also list three students that they do not want to sit near. Do not let them see each other's card and collect them personally.

Use this information to keep close friends as far apart as possible in making up a new seating chart. Post the chart and tell the class that if they cannot keep quiet then you will have no choice but to implement the new seating chart. Be prepared to do this if you need to.

I usually avoid "dark sarcasm in the classroom." Sometimes, it cannot be helped:

If you can get control of most of the class use the following technique on the few remaining offenders. Have the loud mouth take over the class. Do not take the student's seat, but remain very near the student to "supervise." Tell the other students to "evaluate" the "student teacher's performance." Be prepare to constantly correct the effort.

Enough "stick." For the "carrot" try pizza parties. Verbal outbreaks leads to some sort of scoring. Under the right conditions, if the score is right, you have pizza delivered or invite the students to a special Saturday or after school event.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Some thoughts:

1) I got out of HS teaching for the same reason. I am now almost done with a PhD...

2) Students highest value is their friendships. I did not realize this until I was out of teaching. When you ask them to be quiet, I think they hear it as "don't be friends in this classroom." They hear it as unreasonable and an attack on their value system. They hear the request the same way you take their inattentiveness as an attack on the value of the material you are trying to impart.
Somehow you have to let them talk a little. Perhaps give them a couple minutes in the beginning, and a "stretch break" in the middle and a couple at the end.

3) Long term rewards do not mean much. They are unlikely to understand delayed gratification, especially for deals like, be quiet all week and you get a reward. The first week they may get to Thursday and lose it. The next they wold give up on Monday. Instant rewards would work.

4) I like parent involvement. The days I had a parent observe, the kids "behaved" and the parent still said they were out of control. Parents usually have higher standards than you might think.

5) They need to give up something they value greatly. Time with friends is one. But you said it doesn't work. Figure something out

6) I do not like assigning extra work, since that makes my subject into a punishment rather than an interesting field. It also makes more work for me since I need to check it or at least verify its completion.

7) One thing I did once, since there was chatting during an exam, I said, "the next one who talks gets a 0!" For 10 minutes no one muttered a sound. Then someone slipped and said something. I yanked the exam away and announced his 0 and said the rule still applies. Two more people tested me and received 0's.


Good luck!

Answer 4

Well as a former student and now parent. I don't mean to sound harsh, but when I was in school that didn't happen because it was not tolerated at all. If we attempted to do that, seats got moved,in class to make it more hard to talk. and mean all 4 corners of the room. and sometimes the offender was put out to the hall. sent to the Principle, My teacher would totally stop teaching and stand there. until we were quiet. which meant if the important stuff wasn't done, the fun stuff didn't happen. getting a F for the day. These are just what was done in my day. and there wasn't the problems that there are today. The school systems are to nice trying to kiss butt. make a rule, set the consequences and stick to it. Private schools don't seem to have as much of these issues as public, what does that tell you.
Good luck.

PS I think the Educational system in this country needs a complete over hall

Answer 5

What are you teaching? Talking is okay if they are working. If you are lecturing the whole period then that's too much for them. Try giving them assignments in which they can work with each other and be social. If they work, they can work togather. Groups that aren't working get seperated and must work alone.

If they are talking when you are talking to the class--boy that burns me up in a hurry. That's a sign of disrespect to you and you must make it clear that it will not be tolerated. You must find something that they don't like--such as eating lunch with you. that would deny them social interaction time. Then make a chart with their names on it and 3 pockets. Put a green card in the pockets. (Each child has 3 green cards.) Every time one speaks or does something else disrespectful, calmly walk over, without saying a word or acknowledging in anyway, and remove one of the green cards. (The back of the card might be red and you could simply turn it over.) If they lose all their green cards then they get a consquence.

I think the key at this age is to NOT get in a power struggle with them. Which is hard because they are the age they are. but if you calmly apply consquences consistently they will get the picture--maybe by Christmas.

Answer 6

Get a ruler or a really big textbook, then slam it HARD and LOUD on the desks of the students talking.

Give them tons of homework at the beginning of class. If they be quiet and good, take some of the homework off. If they're loud and noisy, then add more and more. Then again, this will probably cause them to dislike you, or hate you.

Get one those horn things and that speaker thing. Blow the horn while holding the speaker thing in front of you.

Or you could just go on with the lesson. The good ones will probably be listening. After you've "taught" everything, give a huge test at the end of the semester. Obviously, if all the students do bad, that will count as their final grade. If they all do good, count in some other grades, or take some (or alot!) of their points off.

Answer 7

A few ideas....

1) Move their desks into a boy/girl/boy girl situation or move them so that the kids who talk together are broken up. Tell them why you're doing it. Don't show them that you're frustrated, because kids sense weakness and they like to exploit it. Tell them that you've moved their desks because they haven't been able to handle not talking up until this point and so you're breaking up the class.

2) Meet them halfway. Tell them you're giving them 5 minutes at the start and end of each class to talk (You're losing that precious time anyway with interruptions, so what does it really matter?) You will set the egg timer and they can talk about whatever they want and even get up and walk around if they so desire. Once the timer rings, they have to sit down and listen to you. If they don't, they go to the principal's office and have to leave class. If you keep sending kids to the prinicpal's office, they will get embarrassed and the principal will get annoyed too and will intervene on your behalf.

3) Break your group into teams and assign leaders to that team. You can rotate the leaders. Tell the leaders that they are responsible for keeping their team quiet. Kids love power, so they will like this idea. The leader gets a gift certificate to buy a CD or a gift certificate to iTunes if they have a good week. Keep a white board with the names of the group and the team leader on it. Put a check mark on it everytime they talk (or when they are good) so the kids can visually keep track.

4) Tell the kids that everytime they talk out of turn, they have to immediately come up to the front of the class and give a verbal presentation for 3 minutes on the topic of your choice. Ask them questions during their presentation to keep them talking. Kids hate being embarrassed.

Good luck!

Answer 8

LOL! Wow. You have my sympathy. Okay, now for some helpful suggestions. First, I'm sure you know who your worst offenders are. Rearrange your seating, move all the worst talkers to the front of the class. They will be less distracted by the other students since they won't be able to see them and they will be less likely to misbehave directly in front of you. Secondly, talk to your principal or vice principal to get their support and ask them to attend your class randomly. Thirdly, if your class lends itself well, organize some small group activities or small field trips to give them the chance to work some of that energy out. And lastly, try to have a lot of class involvement and make the material as relevant and interesting as possible. You may also level with your class and ask them how their class can be made better. Best of luck!

Answer 9

Something you might want to look into, is your classroom procedures, is your schedule predictable. This helps a lot with maintaining classroom management.

You can allow the first five minutes of class for socializing, this seems to work very well with the 8th graders that I am working with for my methods classes.

You need to have an opening activity for the class to start, something to grab their attention. Such as in math, have a problem of the day written on the board. Language Arts, can have a journal entry that needs to be completed.

It seems that you have allowed the students to take control of your classroom, instead of the teacher. You may want to try ignoring talking. I know that this is very difficult at first (I have been there), but once the students see that they are not getting reactions out of you, then the behavior will begin to decrease. You have to be very consistent with this strategy.

Good luck with your classroom.

Answer 10

Say they can't go to the schools games, dances or something. Don't ever give out of school suspension because that's what kids would prefer! I am a kid as well. Give some child a 3 day suspension in school and if that doesn't work expell a few of the worst kids and see if they stop. If not suspend them in school for many many days! Also you could give them ¡Saturday! Detention. They'll chill out! Or get the principle involved. Hope I helped you!

Answer 11

First of all realize that 7th graders have short attention spans!

Try making learning fun and interactive........

Come up with games and incorporate them into the lessons.
Maybe something they do at the chalk board, or they draw
and then sort of "show and tell" about it.

Divide ur class in half and have them compete against each other, but they have to answer your questions to get the points.
The winning team that week would get an extra 10-25
pts. added for extra credit.

Maybe you could even try letting your students teach the class.
I know that sounds crazy, but honestly the kids would pay
more attention to each other than you. (Of course you would
oversee and guide the student teacher of the day.)