Does overpopulation of students affect the teaching-learning process in the classroom?

Does overpopulation of students affect the teaching-learning process in the classroom?

Diego Ulloa Iglesias

Amardeep Dhillon

CCA0461-1

March 28, 2011

Does overpopulation of students affect the teaching-learning process in the classroom?

Plenty of colleges have been built up along all over Chile in order to generate equal

knowledge among student’s minds by achieving those elementary goals in the classroom.

The government, which is involved in this matter, has been interested in improving

different educational aspects such as infrastructure, updated books, technology, etc., but

there are some other features that are lacking consideration. One of those aspects is that

classrooms are being overpopulated by students more and more, and this issue makes

one wonder whether it affects teachers or not, does it have an effect on the English

teaching-learning process in the classroom?

According to University of Texas in Austin, most teachers around the world often

mention the importance of comfort in the classroom when asked to create their dream

classrooms. In this case, comfort is thought of in terms of creating an atmosphere that is

free of anxiety (to the degree that it is possible) and utterly conducive to active

participation; teachers and classroom sizes are recognized as an ongoing educational

problem in terms of comfort and effective teaching-learning process.

The main aim of teaching English—for instance, is “to use the language”, i.e. the

role of the teacher is to make students communicate each other in order to get involved

with the language, and here the inconvenient matter continues. At most of the colleges in

Chile, and even in other Latin-American countries, the quantity of students allowed per

Does overpopulation of students affect the teaching-learning process in the classroom?

class has increased over the years, and this is reflected in the facts that Chile heads the

last Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development’s survey (OECO) with thirty

students per class among thirty one countries, and even more in some establishments.

According to Dowling (2006), one hundred and four classrooms are full on Saturdays with

students in the North American Institute, over 90% of whom are young people sent by

their parents. “It’s good business for us but we need more classrooms there’s not enough

space”.

It is understood that there are actually many people who want to study, thus

colleges find the necessity to increase the quantity of classrooms and make some changes

in establishments in order to keep as much students inside the classroom as they can.

Nevertheless, LoCastro (1989), argued that the less students there are in a classroom the

better a teacher will be able to take control of the learning process. Some surveys, as in

the case of The Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates (ICAS) (nd), resolve the

problem of what number of students should be allowed per classroom, which states that

“given the intensive interactions demanded by second language learning, institutions

should maintain a normal foreign language class size of no more than twenty five

students.”, so the ideal class size would be 10-20 students per class. They also refer to this

issue that is not a matter of “the less students the best they learn” because on one hand

there are lessons that require just few students, but on the other, there are some other

activities that are thought to be released in teamwork in which more people are needed

to carry out tasks.

Does overpopulation of students affect the teaching-learning process in the classroom?

To sum up, it is very important to know that class size actually has an effect on the

learning-teaching process. People should know that both time and comfort are significant

aspects which should be positively present in the classroom; i.e. teachers and students

might feel comfortable during the whole lessons given in every single class, and time

might be properly invested as in those individual activities as in those ones in groups.

Classrooms cannot have more than twenty five students inside; otherwise, it would be

very difficult to get involved properly in the class either for students or teachers.

Does overpopulation of students affect the teaching-learning process in the classroom?

References

Locastro, V. (1989). Large Size Classes: The Situation in Japan. rEFLection, KMUTT

Journal of Language Education (2006). Department of Language Studies,

King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi. Vol. 9 p.01-03.

Dowling, J. (2007). English Teaching in Chile: A Failing Grade. Retrieved March 13,

2011, from http://tinyurl.com/72q7txd.

OECD (2009). Class Size and Student-Teacher Ratio. Education at a Glance, Paris.

Retrieved March 12, 2011, from http://tinyurl.com/73y5wv5.

Raizen, E. (n.d.) Classroom Management: Lesson 2; the physical classroom. Foreign

Language Teaching Methods. Retrieved March 13, 2011, from

http://tinyurl.com/7lwzkoq