Behavior in Someone
Else's Classroom

Nearly all the advice you will find about managing a class assumes the class is yours. Yours is not. You are not the homeroom teacher, you see these children for forty minutes a week, you do not share a first language with them, and the adult who actually has the relationship is standing three meters away. That is a different job, and it needs different advice.

你能找到的班級經營建議，幾乎全都預設這個班是你的。你的不是。 你不是導師、一週只見這些孩子四十分鐘、跟他們沒有共同母語， 而真正跟他們有關係的那個大人，就站在三公尺外。這是一份不同的工作，需要不同的建議。

Section 01What you actually have, and what you do not

Read those two columns together and the strategy writes itself: your leverage is not authority. It is design, and it is your co-teacher. Every approach that depends on being the person who can impose consequences is going to fail, slowly, and take your energy with it.

把兩欄並排看，策略就自己寫出來了：你的施力點不是權威，是「設計」和「你的協同老師」。 任何倚賴「我是那個能施加後果的人」的做法，都會慢慢失敗，而且把你的力氣一起帶走。

Section 02Most of it is a design symptom

Before you treat behavior as behavior, check whether you built it. In a language class the three reliable manufacturers of misbehavior are:

在把秩序問題當成秩序問題處理之前，先確認那不是你自己蓋出來的。語言課裡，三個穩定製造秩序問題的來源是：

• They cannot start. The instruction did not land — that is chapter 2, and it shows up as noise within ninety seconds. 他們開始不了。指令沒到位——那是第二章的內容，它會在九十秒內以吵鬧的形式出現。
• They finished three minutes ago. No extension task, so they invent one. Usually it involves their neighbor. 他們三分鐘前就寫完了。沒有加深任務，所以他們自己發明一個，而且通常跟隔壁同學有關。
• The task does not need them. One student in the group is doing everything — that is chapter 1, and the other three are not being naughty, they are being unemployed. 任務不需要他們。一個學生全做完——那是第一章的內容，另外三個不是在調皮，是在失業。

Fixing any of those three removes more disruption than any amount of standing over people. It is also the only part of this that is entirely within your control.

修好這三項中的任何一項，消除的干擾都比你走過去站在誰旁邊要多。而且這也是整件事裡唯一完全由你掌控的部分。

Section 03Draw the line before you need it

The single most valuable conversation in this chapter takes five minutes and almost nobody has it. Ask your co-teacher, in advance, in the corridor: "When a student will not stop, do you want me to handle it, or hand it to you?"

本章最有價值的一場對話只要五分鐘，而幾乎沒有人談過。事先在走廊上問協同老師： 「學生一直不停的時候，你希望我自己處理，還是交給你？」

Ask it once, at the start of a semester, and you will never again have the worst version of this — the version where you both step in at the same moment and contradict each other in front of the class, or where you both wait and nobody does anything. A rough division that works in most Changhua classrooms:

學期一開始問一次，你就永遠不會再遇到最糟的版本——兩個人同時介入、當著全班的面互相矛盾， 或者兩個人都在等、結果誰也沒動。在多數彰化的教室裡行得通的大致分工是：

1. Yours: pace, clarity, who sits with whom during your activity, low-level off-task chat, and all of the praise. 你的：節奏、指令清楚、你的活動中誰跟誰坐、輕微的分心聊天，以及所有的讚美。
2. Shared: repeated disruption, a conflict between two students, a child who is having a bad day. 共同的：重複性的干擾、兩個學生之間的衝突、某個孩子今天狀況不好。
3. Theirs: anything that touches school policy, a record, a consequence, or a parent. 他的：任何牽涉到校規、紀錄、處分或家長的事。
4. Never yours alone: anything involving a child's safety, bullying, or harm. That is not a judgment call and it is not yours to manage — report it to your co-teacher and the school immediately, the same day. The regulations reference in School Culture is there for exactly this. 絕對不是你一個人的：任何涉及孩子安全、霸凌或傷害的事。那不是你要判斷的，也不是你要處理的——當天就通報協同老師與學校。校園文化裡的法規速查就是為這件事準備的。

Section 04Escalate slowly, and quietly

The ladder below works because each rung is cheaper than the one after it, and because the first three cost the student nothing in front of their classmates. Go up one rung at a time.

下面這個階梯之所以有效，是因為每一階都比下一階便宜，而且前三階對學生來說在同學面前是零代價。一次只上一階。

1. Move. Walk over and stand near them, still teaching. This alone ends most of it, and nobody else notices. 走過去。走到他旁邊站著，繼續上你的課。多數狀況到這一步就結束了，而且沒有別人注意到。
2. Pause. Stop talking. A room notices silence faster than it notices volume. 停下來。不要講話。教室對「安靜」的反應比對「音量」快得多。
3. Look, then name the behavior, not the child. "English, please" beats "Ming, stop talking" — one is a redirection, the other is a public label. 看他，然後指出行為而不是指出人。「English, please」勝過「小明，不要講話」——前者是導正，後者是公開貼標籤。
4. Speak to them privately while the class is working, at their desk, quietly. 私下講。趁全班在做事的時候，走到他座位旁邊小聲說。
5. Hand it over, in the way the two of you agreed in section 3. 交出去，用你們在第三節談好的方式。

Section 05The part nobody tells you

Being the foreign teacher means the class is a little different when you walk in — livelier, louder, more excited. Some of what reads as bad behavior in your lesson is simply that. It is worth checking with your co-teacher whether the class you find difficult is a difficult class, or a normal class being unusually awake.

身為外師，你走進教室的那一刻，班級本來就會有點不一樣——比較活潑、比較吵、比較興奮。 你課堂上看起來像「秩序不好」的一部分，其實就只是這個。 值得跟協同老師確認一下：你覺得難帶的那個班，是真的難帶，還是一個「今天特別清醒」的正常班級。

And the reverse is also worth knowing: a class that is completely silent for you is not necessarily a well-behaved class. In a language lesson it may be a class that has learned not to risk speaking. That is a harder problem than noise, and it does not belong in this chapter — it belongs in chapter 1.

反過來也值得知道：一個在你面前完全安靜的班，不一定就是秩序良好的班。 在語言課裡，那可能是一個已經學會「不要冒險開口」的班。那是比吵鬧更難的問題， 而且不屬於這一章——它屬於第一章。

Section 06Three sentences to take into next week

1. Your leverage is design and your co-teacher, not authority. Anything that depends on imposing consequences will fail slowly. 你的施力點是設計和協同老師，不是權威。任何倚賴「施加後果」的做法都會慢慢失敗。
2. Ask the five-minute question this week: handle it, or hand it to you? 這週就去問那個五分鐘的問題：我自己處理，還是交給你？
3. Correct privately, praise publicly, and never contradict your co-teacher in front of the class. 私下糾正、公開讚美，而且絕不在全班面前反駁協同老師。