COPING WITH CONFLICT IN THE CLASSROOM

Nancy Coles (English Unlimited, Poland)

Groups are dynamic things. The people in them have differing opinions, interests and values and may be learning English in a different way for the first time, being challenged and trying new things. The more cohesive a group becomes, the less inhibited students become about expressing themselves, and conflicting values, opinions and personalities may emerge. Conflict in a classroom is rarely very extreme, and may take the form of angry mutterings, pointed, just audible remarks, or a quiet but determined refusal to co-operate.

Many of us are afraid of conflict. It’s an unpleasant and awkward thing that we quite often avoid in our own lives for the sake of harmony, and even more so in the classroom. After all, our job is to teach, not interfere with inter-student relationships, and we shouldn’t have to deal with disgruntled students, should we? Students should be able to manage their own relationships in the classroom. Surely people should know how to behave! We aren’t trained for dealing with such things - we aren’t counsellors.

Now, this may strike a chord with you, or it may be that you disagree and feel that it entirely disregards an important part of your job. My perspective is that working with people is necessarily unpredictable. We cannot help but touch upon people’s emotions and issues as language learning encourages people to relate their knowledge to their daily lives, fears, hopes for the future etc. Further, they have to do this as part of a group, which can be a stressful and disconcerting experience which may resurrect past experiences of this sort, and may involve some self-development. All kinds of everything may bubble up from this concoction, and although we may feel that it’s not part of our job to deal with such things, I think that sometimes the teacher can help to get students through to the most desirable outcome with the least amount of stress and (even) everyone feeling better afterwards! It’s always good to be prepared, and I’d like to mention here some basic counselling techniques which, whether you see yourself as a counsellor or not, I and others have found to be extremely useful in the classroom.

1.Don’t panic!  An attitude rather than a technique, but it’s a necessary starting point. Take a deep breath and try to accept the conflict calmly and philosophically. Your heart may be thumping in your chest, but to allieviate SS’ worries, it’s important to stay in control of the situation. If your reaction is calm, measured and accepting, they will feel reassured and also have a model of how to react and behave, which should keep the situation from escalating. Think of your role as the facilitator of a discussion, as you’ve done many times before in the classroom. Your aim throughout the situation is to keep students focussed on the actual problem and avoid miscommunication and escalating emotions. The following techniques can help achieve this.

2.Respond to the feelings underlying the words: confronted by a student asking, „why do you never let me speak?” a ready response might be, „because you talk too much and the others can’t get a word in edgeways”. However, to answer the question would be to miss the message. The student is clearly feeling hurt and shunned, and to explain why you are behaving as you are may answer the overt meaning of the question, but doesn’t address the student’s feelings or perspective. A reply along the lines of, „It sounds like you’re feeling quite upset and angry with me. Could you tell me a bit more about it?” is more likely to draw the student out because it acknowledges his feelings and  his perspective, and once this communication has been achieved, the wheels have been oiled for further co-operation.

3.Describe specific problem behaviour: be real about what is happening in the classroom. If things are not ok, pretending that they are can easily make matters worse. Calmly describing problem behaviour, without judging it, encourages students to examine the behaviour and the effect it has on the group. For example, rather than complaining to a student, „You didn’t do anything - you just sat there all the time and everybody else had to do the work!”, it might be better to describe what you saw i.e. „You sat with your chair a little 

bit away from the other students. You were leaning back and you answered when you were asked a question, but that was the only time you spoke”. Here, no judgements are being made and no assumptions. It’s a non-confrontational comment.

4.Use and teach active listening techniques: whether it’s a confrontation between a student and yourself, or between students, the people involved need to be communicating clearly and a  common cause of mis-communication is not having clearly received the other person’s message. If each person is asked to state what the other’s point of view is before making their own point this can be avoided, as the listener will have shown that he/she has understood and the speaker knows that he has been heard accurately. Also, a little silence let fall will let the speaker feel that he has a special forum to be heard in and give him time to get through his surface thoughts and „cover story” and move on to the heart of the matter. People need to feel that they have been heard and understood, before a satisfactory resolution can be arrived at.

This all sounds very sensible, but of course in reality nothing is simple! Knowing in theory what the best response or reaction might be doesn’t really help you in the heat of the moment. Ideally, we should receive training in this area, but if this hasn’t happened with you it’s quite possible to train yourself! Find a willing volunteer and practise together, the situation being safe for experimentation and thinking time being available. Notice what happens in your and others’ lessons and reflect on how things went, just the same as any teaching skill you’d like to improve. 

If you’ve never attempted to intervene in a conflict situation, perhaps it’s time to feel that fear and then do it anyway! It’s actually not such a terrible thing as it first appears. As children, at least in Britain, much emphasis can be placed on being ”nice” and not expressing „bad” emotions or thoughts, and as adults we can be quite afraid of doing so, or of dealing with those who do, as if such open expression would do permanent damage to the relationships involved. Of course this can happen, but by attempting to control the situation, as I have mentioned, the risk of such escalation and deliberate malice is reduced, because the teacher is nudging the students to focus on the identification and subsequent solving of a problem. 

I don’t suggest that every problem needs to be confronted, as quite clearly some are too sensitive to be touched at all. Equally, an issue can be blown out of all proportion if the teacher draws an undue amount of attention to it. But if as a general rule you avoid acknowledging and confronting a problem it might be worthwhile thinking a bit more about what could be achieved by doing so, and about the consequences for the group of ignoring it.