Grade: 5/4/3/2/1

Comments (5 being the highest grade and 1 the lowest)

                   5

This title provides a thorough examination of a remarkable range of aspects of classroom management.  It also manages to cover a wide variety of teaching and learning contexts.  The introduction highlights how the implementation of just a few techniques can greatly improve your classroom management.  This thankfully provides comfort to the reader, given the volume of techniques in the text. 

Each unit deals with a specific aspect of classroom management.  A brief introduction is provided for each unit followed by multiple techniques on each sub-section.  The techniques are succinct and highly practical.  At the end of the chapter, there are useful questions for the practitioner to reflect upon.  These provide thought-provoking ideas for the teacher and promote continual professional development. 

The book is extremely easy to navigate.  A comprehensive contents page means the teacher can pick up the text for a specific area of classroom management.  Whole units can also be used to develop areas of weakness by an individual or be the basis for training sessions.    A useful feature of the text is the cross-referencing between different units.  It provides a very thorough examination of the topics and gives the teacher a wide range of options.  They can then choose the technique which would suit them, their learners and their teaching context.

This text is great for dipping into but is also an excellent framework for teacher trainers.  For those observing, I would recommend taking this in when giving feedback and establishing objectives for teachers to work towards.  Highlighting the fact that there are a variety of techniques to achieve the same aim can be useful for teachers.  It encourages experimentation, self-development and reflection.

Overall, this is an excellent text and should be in every staffroom.  Particularly impressive is the range of aspects of classroom management that are covered and how comprehensively they are cross-referenced.  Common areas of weakness such as high, teacher-talking time (TTT), dealing with mixed-level classes and teacher interventions.  The latter includes an excellent section on eliciting which all teachers should read.