Classroom Management Techniques

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CHAPTER 1. APPROACHES TO CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Several ways of defining Classroom Management

From the theory of situations of Guy Brousseau, one has considered the fundamental concepts in relation to class management: the didactic contract, the processes of devolution and institutionalization, and the pedagogical paradox known as the Topaz effect, these as indexes of didactic decisions of teachers, among others. With regard to the didactic contract, Brousseau (1998: 60) states: The didactic contract is the rule of the game and the strategy of the didactic situation (problem situation or predicted teaching situation); Is the means that the teacher has to put it on the scene. But the evolution of the Situation modifies the contract which in turn allows the obtaining of new situations (new tasks, new questions). In this way, knowledge is what is expressed through the rules of the situation and strategies. The evolution of these strategies requires production of knowledge that in turn allows the conception of new adidactic situations (situations problems or real school problems). The didactic contract depends closely on the knowledge at stake and is not a general pedagogical contract.

According to Brousseau (1986), teaching requires teachers to choose real problem situations, which must present characteristics that allow students to self-react, search for ways, communicate, test and control. In these situations, he calls them adidactic situations, which are associated with knowledge (new to students), and their management in classes is associated with the activities or tasks that students (in their own right) should perform. All governed by the didactic contract that the teacher is handling in the development of the situation, putting in play the process of return.

With regard to the return, Brousseau (1998, p.60) states, „The teacher seeks to return the student to an adidactic situation in a way that provokes the interaction, the most independent and the most fruitful possible. For this, he communicates or not, as the case may be, information, questions, learning methods, heuristics, etc. The teacher is then involved in a game between the student's system of interactions with the problem he has raised […].”

In other words, in the return process two types of interactions are involved, those of the student with the problem and those of the student with the teacher about the problem. The teacher, through questions related to the expected knowledge, takes the teaching process in a way that favours learning. In this way, the devolution process presents an absolute difference between the management of a teacher-led teaching and the management of a teaching centered on the activity of the student judiciously planned.

According to Emmer and Stough (2001) classroom management can be defined as "the set of actions carried out by teachers in order to facilitate the teaching-learning process: establishing order, attracting students' attention and favouring their cooperation" ( p.447). These actions can be of two types: preventive or palliative.

The preventive actions are aimed at creating conditions that facilitate the learning of the students:

That the learning contents are related to the previous knowledge of the student and are presented from less to greater difficulty.

That is practiced with the contents that have been presented.

The first loss of attention is detected and action is taken to avoid its increase.

That furniture and classroom materials remain organized.

The existence of a pleasant environment ( a good class climate)

Establish norms of coexistence.

Palliative actions are those that are put into operation once behaviours that alter the teaching and learning process have been initiated. They are aimed at restoring the optimal conditions for teaching and learning:

Teachers' performances when disruptive behaviour does not interrupt the course of the class. This situation involves intervening in an indirect way through strategies such as gestures, looks, standing near the student or student who had disruptive behaviour (non-verbal language), or simply call attention briefly, etc.

Teachers' performances when the disruptive behaviour causes the lack of continuous attention of the students. In this respect, it is necessary to intervene quickly so that the conflict does not go more and the rest of the students do not witness it. The form of action in these cases depends on a multitude of variables, especially those that have to do with the intention that the student has with his or her behaviour. In cases of serious conflicts, the situation must be derived from the school's mechanisms of action included in the school curriculum.

Kounin follows a psycho-ecological model centered on environmental characteristics and their influence on child behaviour. He identified a set of teacher behaviours and characteristics of classroom sessions that were related to a better student behaviour:

1) Be-in or involvement – high degree of attention to the classroom and personal processes. Always know what is happening.

2) Smooth or react appropriately when situations are critical, and ensure that class processes continue to flow.

4) Multi-role or ability to do many things at once change and observe the group to perceive when things are not going well, and be able to change and reorganize.

Kounin was also interested in studying whether these "classroom management" strategies – which worked with regular students – would have the same effect on students identified as "disruptive" (Kounin, 1970). The results were very positive, and indeed the students were stimulated and better managed by teachers with these characteristics.

These investigations and their results helped to change the focus of interest, and changed from the study of "reactive" management strategies to "preventive" control strategies; How to act to prevent problems. One also went from focusing studies on personality characteristics of teachers to showing the relevance of strategic and environmental control components and our abilities to influence them.

The classroom is a place where both students and teachers experience a high level of stress daily. According to Nordahl, teachers have to face four types of behaviours that influence the learning climate in the classroom (Nordahl, 1998):

Behaviours that affect the teaching process and the learning process of the students. It refers to distraction, talk (whispers), distracting others and teachers, etc. (from 30 to 60% of students participate in this kind of behaviour sometimes or regularly)

Social isolation, which includes loneliness, withdrawal, depression and lack of relationships (10 to 30%)

Impulsive behaviour, conflict generation, aggression, opposition, defiance of rules and classroom rules (12-30%)

Breaking rules and criminal behaviour consisting of severe forms of peer bullying, robbery, violence, class flight, etc. (1 to 2%)

A large number of teachers experience daily strong pressure related to these types of problem behaviours in the classroom, which affect their personal feelings and their teaching work.

It is understandable that teachers are disturbed by these behaviours in the classroom, but there are also strategies to deal with them better. The reasons that the researchers argue to explain the increase of stress, is the particular attribution that each makes of the event and frequently the faculty attributes some of these reasons. One is that you test your leadership ability in front of the class. Another reason is that they feel it as a lack of competence and control over the exercise of their profession in general. The third reason is that often the problem of behaviour is felt as a personal attack on its integrity and values.

Controlling the stress generated by a classroom, with these behaviours, is a matter of mental health and educational quality. Roland, from the University of Stavanger in Norway, pays close attention to teacher processes, and how they deal with difficult classroom situations. In his research he points out five essential factors that are common to teachers who feel stressed:

1. They have difficulty coping with clutter and conflict situations

2. They have difficulties confronting normal students

3. They have difficulty seeing from the perspective of students

4. They have a lack of skills organizing activities in the classroom, and planning a good educational session.

5. They are not spontaneous and use very little of their sense of humour.

In contrast, Roland finds that teachers with classroom management skills often have processes in their high-quality classes and there are three important characteristics shared by those who do not have problems:

1. Be predictable and clear.

2. Manage conflict situations

3. Be able to reflect on his own strategies and reactions and be able to modify them.

In this manner, one has to manage the classroom are not only strategies and techniques to put into action in the classroom, but also involves another important area, the attitudes of teachers. Teachers’ beliefs and interpretations of situations will affect their stress level, which will their affect skills and abilities to manage better the classroom, and problems will increase.

How do we understand leadership in the classroom?

Teachers have different perspectives on how to exercise their leadership in the classroom, as main dimensions are usually classified in "strategist" and "communicant." A teacher can be "strategic" which means that the most important thing is to comply with what is planned for the session; The students' own questions and experiences are not relevant enough to change the established order. The other dimension is the "communicator" who is especially interested in dialoguing with students, understanding and involving them. Both dimensions combine, in a single teacher, to a greater or lesser extent.

Centered on these dimensions other classifications have been made, one especially used is the one that discriminates between a classroom management – "student-centered" one- versus "teacher-centered management".

Teachers who base their management on dialogue and relationships in the classroom can be called a "student-oriented class leader." Interaction with students and between students is essential and facilitating the construction of reflective citizens is their main objective. This type of faculty uses a large amount of group work and cooperation activities. Student attitudes and values ​​as well as class climate are important aspects of the classroom.

At the opposite pole, one may identify teachers who base their leadership on regulations and routines, control, monitor and emphasize the fulfilment of the student's role in the classroom, understanding that the student is silent, listening to teachers and following their orientations or guidelines. The teaching staff is active, the students are passive. They are then called "teacher-oriented class leader". The teacher introduces new contents to the class, then asks questions to see if it has been understood and finally the students solve individual tasks.

It is interesting to think about the great difference between what teachers do and what others understand from their behaviour. Teachers are very sure to be transmitting a message orally, often transmit another with their way of acting. The teacher-oriented, tends to raise his voice, shouts and often makes ultimatum by stating his status or power, having much to say for what others should listen.

The student-oriented teacher is a teacher who is systematically working with misconduct at an individual level, who addresses problems in a communicative (relational) way that has no solutions, but shares what he knows and is validated and understood by the students. Everyone understands why and the strategies used are appropriate.

In addition to how important teachers understand leadership in the classroom, in order to implement a whole set of management strategies or others, it is equally important to exercise control over the situation. In this sense, several authors point to different classifications but all agree to establish a continuum between the attitude of non-control, to the super controller.

The absence of control is described as weak leadership and does not confront students with non-standard behaviour. The reason for this can be their own insecurity, low competition or perhaps the desire to be "popular" with students the way of not confronting them. Under such leadership weakness the more visible students will play a more important role and the classroom will dominate the classroom setting.

The opposite attitude is the super-controller teacher who is monitoring everything at every moment. Every detail becomes important and pays attention to all "bad behaviour". This type of teacher usually generates a lot of negative stress and confusion in the classroom. An extreme attitude would be "paranoia", where the teacher considers all bad behaviour as an intentional attack on his person, the control of the class or the teaching process. He often "loses his temper" and seeks "scapegoats" among students.
In the middle of the continuum is the control attitude, a safe teacher who uses clear strategies and is able to generate a positive environment (environment) of learning, with positive relationships and feelings towards the class and equally individually.
In the same line of research Lewis shows another classification of attitudes within three theoretical models called "interventionist", "interactionist" and "non-interventionist" (Lewis, 1998). The former reflects control and surveillance; This view presupposes that students are not able to control themselves. The other two approaches provide opportunities to "have a voice" for students.

Over the years, the teaching profession has been shrouded in continuous changes, as a result of the accelerated transformations that occurred in the economic, political and social spheres that inevitably affected the educational system and the teaching work (Borich, 2016, p.71). Despite pedagogical efforts to promote a major qualitative change, the observation of teaching practice shows that there is still a long way to go. In schools, curricula and knowledge continue to dominate the transmission of values. On the other hand, it is the teachers themselves who show some discomfort in their educational function, since as Jaap Scheerens (1992, p. 13) points out, "we have some knowledge about what works in education, but still we have little consistency. " All these efforts for pedagogical change and the improvement of educational quality go back to the 1980s, when the concept of effective schools began to take on importance and the first research emerged, with the intention of building theoretical models to support the teaching praxis. But what is meant by an effective school? It is one that promotes that each student reaches, in a lasting way, the highest possible level in all aspects of their performance and integral development, beyond what would be foreseeable in Account their initial performance and their social, cultural and economic situation (Lizasoain et al., 2016, p.36). There are different theoretical models that propose different factors that characterize an effective school in order to promote change (Kelly, 2016, p.47).

In this respect, effective schools aim to increase and guarantee the quality of teaching-learning processes and institutions through teamwork and collaborative, leadership culture, the creation of a school climate in the That values ​​of democratic citizenship, of cooperation between family and school, among other aspects, taking into account variables such as: the level of expectations of the school community, teacher training, project management, establishment of clear objectives And insightful, etc. (Fullan, 1996, Beltran, 2007, Lavin, 2007, Castro, 2012). In order to know the extent to which schools are effective, systems have been designed to measure the quality and performance of students, which tend to manifest low and uneven quality of education (Conn, 2014, p.65). Similarly, the results of the PISA report (2012) show that a certain category of students have lower levels of reading, math and science performance than the European average. This preoccupation with the quality of education is not something new, as in the 1990s, the study shows the importance of ensuring the quality of education as one of the challenges of education, and evaluation as one of the Pillars of it. But one agrees with Jacobson, Duff and Monroe (2015), on the need for a broader vision of the concepts of quality and management, which emphasizes a more dynamic and active role teachers in schools. In short, it is a matter of considering the quality of the teaching activity as one of the ways to improve the general educational quality.

Classroom Management – Goals

Coexistence and learning are part of the same common core: comprehensive training that includes the development of cognitive abilities but also social-emotional abilities, since academic results only occur if they are based on the development of personal and social skills such as strength of will or ability to overcome adversities and these are learned through education. It is necessary to keep in mind that in order to learn it requires both will and power while getting them to want and that they can be the two great requirements to teach. (Brkley, Cross, Major, 2014)

Working the positive attitudes of all involved

Is it possible to change the attitude of students? Yes, it is, because attitudes are educated and therefore can be learned in the school environment. Posing as a class objective to change negative attitudes towards tasks, peers and teachers is possible, working on certain aspects that change daily. First of all, observing it because no class is the same as another, although in practically all of them one can find three areas depending on their attitude towards work and coexistence, as following:

Groups that works and strives and coexists harmoniously to which it is necessary to continue motivating and valuing its achievements with the corresponding attention.

An intermediate attitude where most are installed and moving from one attitude area to another depending largely on the ability of teachers to control and motivate the classroom. It is the group that marks the general climate of the classroom for what it requires of empathy to bring it closer to the more positive pole.

Students who are reluctant to do school work and with obstructionist attitudes, who must win for the intermediate zone with a personal and affective approach, but also clearly setting standards. When their number is very high in the class, it is necessary to arbitrate mechanisms of collective action of the center as well as to rethink the criteria of groupings.

The class is therefore available, as a rocker in which it is necessary to attract towards the positive pole the group of the intermediate zone by forcing motivation, control and relations of empathy, valuing the effort of the positive group to increase their self-esteem. It is necessary to introduce daily evaluation messages towards the effort and the well done task, devoting more class time to this task than to repressing the group that does not do it.

Second, provoking interest in the task through a functional curriculum that gives value to other learning that is acquired in other contexts and that gives the students a leading role in acquiring them. Third, with a varied and motivating methodology that contemplates from the individual work, in pairs, in collaborative groups, interactive groups, assistant students, and a wide range of possibilities. Teachers should know from experience that if the students find usefulness and interest in what is proposed and profitability in the effort made, their attitude will change significantly. In accordance with the above, teachers must introduce diversified evaluation elements ranging from individual to collective work (class notebooks, portfolios, group work, journal, observation, projects, exhibitions).

Adopt from the teaching staff a positive attitude that contemplates students with a negative attitude as a professional challenge to overcome more than as a conflict.

Each teacher has a way to confront their role in the classroom, which marks their style. Put simply, although there are no "pure" types, we can say: teachers reflect on their personal characteristics to lead the class and their degree of involvement, but they also plan classes and collaborates with the team, while pupils adapt to diversity and responds to all. (Gregory, Thorley, 2013)

Know the roles of students and encourage them to contribute to the coexistence and not disturb it, redirecting their attitude when necessary.

The classroom is a scenario in which everyone plays a role to their measure, academic or alternative roles that sometimes interfere in the classroom. (Ibrahim, Aulls, Shore, 2013) A table of observation of roles or sociogram can be a suitable instrument to have a analysis of the classroom but it is necessary to contrast the observed data with another teacher of the classroom, which will allow teachers to have a group information of the structure of the class ( leaders, rejections, groups) for:

Preventing their formation when they have knowledge, either separating their components or offering them the possibility of permanence, linked to the commitment of change of the group.

Making them see the importance of the collective interests of the class over those of the disturbing group.

Covenanting with leaders or those acting on satellites to interrupt reinforcements to the negative leader.

Requesting solutions to the subgroup.

The attention and control of the class

The attention has a considerable influence in the improvement of the climate so that, if this one is improved, the conflict diminishes significantly. Vaello considers that in the classroom there are two types of attention:

1. The attention of the students that should be concentrated around the task or the teacher.

2. The distributed attention of the teaching staff to all students equally. However, often the opposite happens: teachers have concentrated on a few of their students while their students disperse them to different distracting elements. Attention can be stimulated from two strategies (Herrell,  Jordan, 2015)

Strategies for attracting attention

Strategies to maintain attention

Strategies to capture attention

Prompt and fast start of the class without slowing it down with other tasks

Ensure the care of everyone without exception and do not start until it is not guaranteed

Individual warning to students distracted by their name and not in a general way

Detect and neutralize the effect of distracting elements

Begin the class with activities that favour it: brief questions about what was dealt with in the previous class, short-term practical activities, questions or questions that arouse curiosity

Take care of the location: bring the students with lower performance

Meet and enforce standards: punctuality, material … to make them internalized

Alternate different forms of presentation of the contents: readings, projections, videos.

Strategies to maintain attention

Improve the attention level of the class

Maintaining care is not uniform and can not be maintained equally. It is necessary to assume as normal the ups and downs during the school day, but these can be attenuated taking into account some aspects like: type of the task, methodology used by the teaching staff, type of students, class location, etc. The analysis of these elements can be used to plan the type of weekly activities and to locate them according to the level of attention that is required in them.

Detect what type of activities are given higher attention levels. Applying the table above to some usual class activities can determine the attentional level of the class and, depending on it, plan the activities. For example: place a high-level attention activity in last-minute class, where they are more tired.

Other goals regarding classroom management may be considered the following ones:

Diversify attentional elements.

A single stream of attention to teachers or homework is monotonous and causes fatigue and distraction; therefore, one way of improving it is to plan different lines of attention in the classroom, not only towards the teacher or the task, but also towards the colleagues in the group. The diversity of activity, methodology and spatial distribution of the classroom contribute to refresh the attention and therefore to prevent or alleviate disruptive problems in the classroom. (Jones, Jones, 2015, p.28)

Increase positive attention versus negative.

As one considered, it is a question of reinforcing positive behaviour and not focusing on negativity as it helps to reinforce it. The protagonism should be given to positive behaviours, not to disturbing behaviours, paying more attention to them. (Arends, 2014, p. 100)

Maintain a high level of student activity with a variety of tasks.

A variety of functional tasks avoid monotony. (Cangelosi, 2013, p.86) It is proposed to perform an analysis of the distribution of the times and tasks of the class that we have today to propose to improve its distribution.

If signs of generalized fatigue are perceived, it is advisable to pause with more informal actions. With these pauses recovery is gained to start another activity of greater demand for care.

Trying to give a special attention to those students who interfere ostensibly in the classroom.

Calibrate when intervening.

This depends on teachers good judgment, but as a general rule, they should ask "what would happen if we did not intervene." If the anomalous behaviour persists despite avoiding it, it is advisable to make a personal warning in class (firm, brief, private, relaxed, positive, without discussing). When class warning is ineffective and disruption continues, private personal warning should be avoided by avoiding classroom context gratification. In order to do so, the reasons for not tolerating such behaviour, request for commitment, responsibility for noncompliance with the commitment must be argued. Also, recognition of the effort should be made by these students, if modified, before their family and the group.

Placement changes in classroom

The change opens expectation about the novelty, therefore the changes in the structure of the class in function of different activity suppose a substantial improvement in the level of attention. Changes in the location of a student closest to the teacher or nearer or farther to another classmate, changes in subgroup placement in the class, gaining the site (performance commitment or behaviour), suggesting that you change location.

In order to foster appropriate classroom relationships, it is important to have the commitment of a teacher who accepts students as valuable and full members and is willing to discover all the differences in the classroom, in order to generate a climate of respect and appreciation, one should consider the following goals (Burden, 2016):

Discover racial differences: Use the direct experiences of students to talk about specific cases of prejudice, discrimination and injustice related to cultural or social differences.

Discover aspects of cultural differences: Address dialogues about the different origins, cultures and experiences of the students, their names, among others.

Discover family differences: Check with students different types of families. Some live with only one parent, others with extended families, with cousins, uncles in the same house; others in mixed families with adoptive parents or foster families.

Discovering gender differences: the goal should be to focus on children and girls recognizing and accepting gender differences.

Discover religious differences and different festivities: Learn about religious differences and strategies so that this does not become a limitation within the class.

Discover skills and ability differences: Develop activities through which the strengths and weaknesses of all are discovered.

Discover how to oppose stereotypes and discrimination: in order to create and maintain authentic schools and communities, students and teachers should consider themselves as agents of change, willing to confront and oppose stereotypes and oppressive and discriminator behaviours.

Most students have grown up in a system where standardization is favoured, so they need an explicit teaching process through which they are led to understand that equity does not mean giving everyone the same, teachers need to develop their potential. In addition to ensuring that diversity is valued as an opportunity for the improvement and enrichment of teaching and learning processes. Teachers who care about welcoming all students and who have high expectations for everyone, are an excellent model for valuing diversity in the classroom. Students who learn that a partner has a non-verbal communication system and this does not limit their learning, can quickly understand that the teacher can assign tasks with different levels of difficulty with the same topic of work. Milicic (2001) found that students' perceptions regarding school climate have to do with self-esteem and the ability of the school system to retain students. A study by Hoger Smit and Hanson (1990) on aspects of school life Which are related to self-esteem, indicated that in addition to performance, the most related factor is the positive perception of the school climate by the students. The findings showed that school climates that encourage creativity and free choice of students They improve their self-esteem. Therefore, special importance should be attached to the creation of a favourable emotional climate in the classroom.

Some aspects to consider regarding the goals in classroom management are:

Strengthen positive relationships between teachers and students, for which it is necessary. In this respect, teachers should:

Appreciate each student as a unique person.

Identify their strengths and weaknesses as key elements to support their educational process.

Give yourself time to listen to students, not just approach them to address academic issues.

Develop ways of engaging all students and expressing their strengths.

Establish limits and expectations of student behaviour and behaviour in the different moments and spaces of the educational community

Having and expressing high expectations and giving positive feedback: Milicic (2001), points out that self-esteem is important, because if people do not love themselves, they can hardly be happy and make others happy. When excessive criticism lowers self-esteem, you do not trust yourself or your ability to set goals and achieve them. Everson and his colleagues (1984-93) wrote a manual summarizing management principles and guidelines to begin the school year. The manual is organized around the following guidelines:

Organize the classroom: Make this a nice and orderly place.

Plan the rules and procedures: Think about the procedures students should follow to function effectively in the school environment. To do this they must decide which behaviours are acceptable and develop the procedures and rules to achieve them. Good procedures allow learning to be addressed in a more meaningful and constructive way. These actions are intended to create a climate of respect, recognition and understanding of reciprocal needs.

Establish consequences: Decide by anticipating the consequences of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in the classroom, build them with them or communicate them to students. Comply with them consistently.

Teach rules or procedures: Teach students rules and procedures in a systematic way, include explicit teaching spaces about school rules and behaviours to be stimulated. Include in the planning of rules or behaviours to teach, when, how they will be taught, how will be followed up and evaluated.

Establish a group approach: Develop at the beginning of the school year, activities that involve all students, to encourage interaction among all, establish and always maintain a complete group approach.

Predict strategies for potential problems: Plan strategies to address potential problems that may disrupt classroom organization and management.

Supervise Continuous monitoring of students' behaviours.

Stop inappropriate behaviour: Manage inappropriate and disruptive behaviour immediately and consistently.

Organize instruction: Organize instruction to provide learning activities at appropriate levels for all students. Too often, behavioural problems stem from the imbalance between the academic demands and the abilities of the students.

Encourage student responsibility: Develop procedures that hold students accountable for the job.

Ensure clarity in instruction: Be clear when presenting information and instructing students.

To evaluate the usefulness of these practices and strategies, one may propose to take into account several criteria such as (Burden, Byrd, 2015) :

The quantity and quality of students' learning, considering their global education (not only cognitive skills, but also cultural knowledge, social and relational skills, moral development, autonomy and self-concept development, citizenship development , etc.).

The sociability and participation of students in the context of the classroom, in particular, as well as the center, in general.

The motivation of students towards active learning.

The level of satisfaction of all people involved in educational practices.

The opportunity to apply and transfer this experience to new situations.

Success factors for efficient educational practices in the context of an efficient classroom management

Taking into account the report of the European Agency for Development in Education (2003) produced on the basis of extensive research, the following groups of factors can be identified as determinants of efficient practices:

Cooperative teaching

Cooperative learning

Collaborative problem solving

Heterogeneous groupings

Effective teaching

Cooperative teaching, also known as coeducation, is an essential success factor for teachers to need the support of a number of peers and professionals from inside and outside the center, and also be able to cooperate in them. Co-education is usually interpreted as two education professionals working together to serve a group of heterogeneous learners and share responsibilities for specific objectives (Cook and Friend 1995, Friend and Resing, 1993).

Wood (2009: 17) describes the co-education as follows: "The co-education is like having two cooks in a kitchen, each measuring, observing, adapting, sharing ideas, taking turns and sometimes working individually." The most common teams of educators who engage in co-education relationships are general and special educators, a paraprofessional and a special or general educator, two general education teachers, speech therapists and a special or general educator, a social worker and an educator Special or general, other support staff and a special or general educator and specialized teachers (music, art, computer science, foreign languages, etc.) and a special or general educator (Diek, 2009). Wood (2009: 19) presents eight components of the co-education that contribute to a satisfying and collaborative learning environment. All the components are developed in three stages: from the initial stage to a stage of commitment to finish in the collaborative stage.

The attributes of each component of the collaborative stage (the ideal stage for the success of the co-education) are the following:

1. Interpersonal communication: non-verbal communication is used more among educators.

2. The physical organization: teachers and education professionals share space and material and do more lessons with the whole group.

3. Familiarity with the curriculum: both educators appreciate the competencies that contribute to the content.

4. Objectives and modifications of the curriculum: both educators begin to see the "great idea" of concepts taught.

5. Didactic planning: continuous planning in and out of the classroom begins to transpire.

6. Didactic presentation: both teachers present the didactic instructions and structure the learning activities.

7. Classroom management: Both educators are involved in the development and implementation of classroom rules and routines.

8. Assessment: Both teachers explore a variety of assessment plans.

Cooperative work among professionals is crucial in planning the best coping strategies. It is also essential for each teacher to develop flexibility, the ability to adapt their teaching methods and seek alternative strategies.

Cooperative learning, also known as peer tutoring, is an effective strategy in the cognitive and socio-emotional areas of student learning and development. Some researches (eg, Bond and Castagnera, 2006; Eadsen, 2003; Terpstra and Tamura, 2008) emphasize that cooperative learning has many educational potentialities, such as motivation to learn, commitment to learning tasks, Performance in problem solving, satisfaction with the center, self-esteem, causal attributions to success based on effort and commitment, social relations, attitudes towards difference and a sense of group / community. Students who help each other especially in a flexible and well-considered student grouping system benefit from learning together.

Collaborative problem solving is another relevant strategy especially for behaviour problems. It has been demonstrated that the establishment of clear rules in class along with a series of limits, with the agreement of all students is an effective method (EADSNE, 2003). Teachers must develop relational skills that allow them to negotiate and create the conditions for the participatory definition of rules agreed between all. The collaborative problem solving model proposed by Windle and Warren (2009) contains the following steps:

Sharing perspectives (through communicative skills to understand the perception of the situation by others, their needs and desires).

Define the themes (clarify the topics under discussion).

Identify interests (go beyond the positions or solutions exposed to intuit what the parties really need to be satisfied to reach an agreement and seek a common basis between all parties).

Generate options (brainstorm and generate them, looking at the problem from all angles and considering as many different ideas as possible).

Develop fair standard or objective criteria to decide (using previously agreed criteria, combining and reducing options and creating agreements for mutual benefit).

Heterogeneous grouping and a pedagogical approach based on differentiation are necessary to manage and take advantage of diversity in the classroom. Designated goals, alternative learning pathways, flexible teaching, abundance of homogeneous forms of grouping, enhance education (EADSNE, 2003). Heterogeneity can be considered in terms of various criteria, according to the educational objectives to be achieved: gender, race, age, social group, school performance, relational skills, personality, motivation, or attitude towards these topics, etc. One does not want to point out that heterogeneity is always the best option, but diversity is essential for creating a developed community. Students should have the opportunity to learn to live in community, and to foster a sense of belonging, friendship, solidarity and cooperation.

Finally, effective teaching should be based on assessment and programming, high expectations, direct teaching and feedback. With systematic supervision, evaluation, programming and evaluation of work, all students improve.

The desired quality in education, and therefore the improvement in learning outcomes, requires:

to generate public policies in order to improve the management of human and material resources, with a state guarantee, that promotes and increases the development of educational policies in favour of improving the working conditions of teachers.

to promote the professional development of teachers, recognizing the professional capacities and performances, inciting the initial and continuous formation, and generating new forms of improvement according to the contextual and thematic reality.

to improve the working conditions of the teacher with a decent floor, work stability, favourable working conditions and a social security system that assures their quality of life.

to develop quality pedagogical processes in favour of student learning, considering the incorporation of new technologies and tools to generate effective learning conditions.

to promote the increase of family culture capital.

to consider the school as a learning institution, improving access, concentrating resources, generating knowledge from the immediate contexts and providing technical support.

to claim the professional status of teachers as social actors and educational professionals.

to promote the quality of establishments and collective professionalism through management and innovation teams.

to generate internal and external control (evaluation) mechanisms according to current competencies. Hence, the need to review, correct and improve the system of measurement of the quality of education.

Changing the social view of teachers is usually associated with greater demands and obligations, forgetting the enchantment of the profession. Requirements such as greater mastery of curricular content, continuous training, social and family obligations, often outside their duties, and a series of demands in line with the new challenges of the knowledge society, undoubtedly show the concern about a education lacking vocation and willingness to change. Providing teachers with new tools and considering them as educational professionals, with an adequate salary, with purchasing power and stimuli for the improvement, will promote the social valuation both towards teachers and education. Hence, governments must support the constant training of teachers in favour of their professional development. In order to look favourably at the teaching staff, qualified teachers with a strong theoretical and practical combination are needed and, above all, committed to education.

When a teacher takes over a degree or course, he is assaulted by a number of criteria and if he is newly hired is professional or not, more. The first thing you will find is a curriculum loaded with content that plunges you into the next question, how will I fulfill all this? If to this is added that the students in the classroom are numerous, ends up thinking how to transmit the knowledge so that the student assimilates it in the easiest way. Several authors, including Zubiria (1994 and 1998), Blanco (1999), Silvestre and Zilberstein (2000), Olmedo (2000) and Soubal (2003) have raised the limitations that still exist in teacher praxis and as a consequence in students' learning:

Insufficient analysis and interpretation.

Insufficient information search

Poor determination of relationships between things.

Reproductive performance trends.

Few procedures for learning to learn.

Insufficient development of generalization and reflection.

Poor communication.

Deficient skills in planning study and homework.

The tendency of the students is to the reproduction of knowledge and not to its construction, reason why the own limitations in the development of the students are centered in the educational system and in the teachers who do not manage the learning effectively in correspondence with the modern tendencies. "It can no longer be admitted that the teacher continues to be the sage by profession regarding the ignorant young man by definition, the reporter teacher and the student listener will have to be replaced by the animator teacher and by the student researcher."

School should be a different place in which learning management should lead to meaningful learning, a place where students should be cleared of mental pollution, better yet, where they are prepared with valuable resources, in full, to cope with levels Of mental pollution that you will encounter throughout your life. That is why it has gained strength in training, a concept that fully reveals the different facets in which the human must be prepared, that propitiates behaviours to face the challenges that the process of life at the qualitatively higher levels. This concept is the one of competences, that although appeared like a necessity in the level of the productive activity, it is not ruled out by its amplitude that can be used in the general formation. This term is seen as the integration of knowledge, skills, skills, attitudes, emotions and feelings, as well as values, and should be started from the earliest grades until later they can be more specific and related to the future work professional. It is important to know that from the first grades there are generic competences of personal development that are necessary to strengthen and support in their configuration, because it is the basis for the behaviours of the students themselves and the professional future.

These are: understanding, communication, finding information, solving problems and using time. This is why the class must change; that serves to discover the human potentialities and to unleash them, to move from the teaching of theories to the teaching of learning that is the true identity of education. So much information exists that it is required that the student knows the basics of events, and not so many theories that would require an endless school. What if there is no doubt is that the school should be strengthened in life and that will require humans who are prepared to learn by themselves in the social context. The answer to this is that man first needs to understand his life space more, to understand more, to know how far he can go, and what his limitations are so that in the end he can do it freely. Although there are brilliant teachers who manage the process intuitively and empirically, one may think that the new role will lead him to re-conceptualize and clarify his educational practices in a dimension that points to the integration of the scientific with the empirical. Educational practices should change from model classes to model models.

And what model of classes is the one that must excel in the management of the learning of the educational managers to contribute to the change in the meaning of the experience in the educational work of the school management? In correspondence with the need to retake the true identity of education and give directionality to the management of learning, with the role of the teacher as a mediator in the classroom, it is necessary to adopt a didactic model that serves as a support, based on the concept of human development in its broad meaning, the relevance of the investigative procedure and its theoretical framework, as well as the corresponding methodology.

The Importance of Classroom Management

What are classroom strategies? Exactly the classroom strategies are understood as the set of educational strategies, methods, tasks, etc., that the teacher uses daily in the classroom to explain, to understand, to motivate, to stimulate, to improve the teaching-learning processes, etc. In our literature it is relatively easy to find documentation regarding the so-called learning strategies, or learning techniques, but really about classroom strategies, as such, there is very little bibliography. In order to properly develop an educational intervention, many things are needed, including a wide range of strategies that facilitate our teaching. Often the novice teacher encounters such difficulties, does not know exactly how to motivate his students, how to interact in the classroom, how to relate to his students, maintain a certain discipline or solve various conflicts. It is also possible to find professionals who, after many years of experience, have acquired habits that are not the most appropriate (despite being sometimes effective).

As Beltran (1993) and Cabanach (1994) point out, a new role of teacher is now being developed, based on quality teaching, with the following roles:

Manager: manager of the class group, performs and maintains the records of the students, and attends to the problems that arise within the class.

Executive: makes decisions about fundamental school problems.

Advisor: acts as a specialist in the presentation of instructional content, provides activities, feedback and questions adjusted to the level of students.

Strategist: acts as a true thinker, a specialist in decision making, anticipating difficulties, knowing the structures of knowledge.

Expert: has a rich knowledge base that will allow you to decide in each case what is most relevant within the various subjects.

Person of support: it must provide aid and support to the students for the accomplishment of the tasks.

This is the cornerstone of a quality education, the key is the professionalism of the teacher, and to achieve that professionalism the teacher needs some strategies on which to support his intervention.

These strategies can be classified based on the following areas:

Learning strategies.

Learning styles.

Teaching styles.

Motivation.

Interaction in the classroom.

Discipline.

Conflict resolution.

Considering this classification, there will be presented different strategies and ways of acting considered to be appropriate.

The importance of learning strategies in classroom management

Learning strategies according to Nisbet and Shuckersimith (1987, p.58) are executive processes by which skills are chosen, coordinated and applied. They are linked to meaningful learning and to "learning to learn."

Bernard (1990) points out that teachers 'understanding of their students' mental grammar derives from previous knowledge and from the set of strategies, scripts or plans used by the subjects in the execution of Tasks.

Within the broad framework of learning strategies one can establish the following typology:

• Dispositional and support strategies: These are the ones that set the stage for the process and help sustain the effort. There are two types in this respect:

– Emotional-emotional strategies and self-management: integrate motivational processes, appropriate attitudes, self-concept and self-esteem, feeling of competence, etc.

– Context control strategies: they refer to the creation of adequate environmental conditions, control of space, time, material, etc.

• Search, collect and select information strategies: they integrate everything related to the location, collection and selection of information. The subject must learn, to be strategic learner, what the sources of information are and how to access them, criteria for selecting information, etc.

• Strategies for processing and use of information acquired:

– Attention-focused strategies: aimed at the control of care.

– Strategies of codification, elaboration and organization of information: control the processes of restructuring and personalization of information through tactics such as underline, epigraphy, abstract, outline, concept maps, synoptic tables, etc.

– Strategies of repetition and storage: control the processes of retention and memory in the short and long term through tactics such as copying, repetition, memo technical resources, establishments of significant connections, etc.

– Strategies of personalization and creativity: include critical thinking, re-elaboration of information, creative personal proposals, etc.

– Strategies of information retrieval: control the processes of recall and recovery, through tactics such as recall exercises, retrieval of information following the path of related concepts, etc.

– Strategies of communication and use of acquired information, allow the effective use of information acquired for academic tasks and daily life through tactics such as reporting, synthesis of learning, simulation of exams, self-examination, Implementation and transfer exercises, etc.

• Metacognitive, regulatory and control strategies: they refer to the knowledge, evaluation and control of the different strategies and cognitive processes, according to the objectives of the task and according to the context. In this respect, one may consider:

– Knowledge: of the person himself, the strategies available, the skills and limitations, the objectives of the task and the context of application.

– Control by:

Planning strategies: work, study, exams, etc.

Evaluation, control and regulation strategies: they involve verification and evaluation of one's own performance, task control, correction of errors and distractions, re-training, corrections, self-reinforcement, self-efficacy, etc.

Here, one may outline the strategies of learning that could be carried out to facilitate the assimilation of new knowledge in our students, as well as various tactics to do so.

Interaction in the classroom

In a large group as the classroom is, the interaction schemes are very complex, but it is relatively easy to appreciate the existing quantity of the same. McDonald (2013)  agrees that it is as large as possible, because with an increase in interaction there is an increase in the mutual sympathy of the students and their agreement in activities and feelings.

The interaction is verified through communication, the barriers that prevent it can explain the difficulty of a class in solving their internal problems, in finding their rules of behaviour and in establishing due contact with the teacher. It is therefore appropriate to create a good communications network within the class.

In traditional schools there used to be one-way communication, that is, from the teacher to the learner, but not vice versa. This not only engendered apathy and fear in pupils, but deprived the teacher of information about the way his messages were captured by the receiving pupils. When there is feedback (possibility that the students in turn send information to the teacher), there are positive effects, such as an increase in attention in the students and their interest in the task that is proposed to them.

In the affective field the effects are even more remarkable. If the teacher adopts an attitude that is not pleasing to the students and they have the possibility to tell them, this communication is cathartic and, therefore, discharges the hostility of the students, who, by this same fact, will feel more tolerant with respect to the teacher. It will always be negative to deprive students of any possibility of expression.

The more numerous a class is, the less likely it is for students to intervene, thereby diminishing their taste not only for common discussions but also for the group itself. In these classes there are students who feel inhibited to express themselves, this decreases the cohesion of the group that is split into subgroups.

Interaction increases when students can see each other. Therefore, the classic seating arrangement in our schools favours individual work, but not teamwork or interaction. Shy students will express themselves more easily if they are in the front row. 

Discipline in the classroom 

Currently, discipline is one of the main problems that teachers find in our classrooms. There also can be differentiated different educational strategies to face these situations:

Strategies of behavioural nature:

Record of observations.

Determination of reinforcements and analysis of teacher reactions.

Modification of unwanted behaviours.

Types of rewards in class: immaterial, materials, chip economy, contingency contracts, etc.

Types of punishment in class: time-out, cost of response, law of natural consequences.

The negative reinforcement (withdrawal of punishment).

Strategies of cognitive nature:

Motivation, interest and vital objectives.

Locus of control and auto direction (system of attributions).

The demon effect and self-fulfilling prophecy.

Self presentation.

Other cognitive factors, etc.

Strategies and techniques of classroom management:

Standards for the teacher: punctuality, good preparation, get down to work quickly, insist on the collaboration of the whole class, effective use of the word, keep alert to the incidences of the class, analyze what is happening in class, clear and well understood strategies to deal with crisis situations, fair and equitable distribution of teacher's attention, avoid comparisons, keep notes up to date, keep promises, make good use of questions, etc …

Lesson planning: qualified teaching.

Structures of authority and support within the school: advice and guidance network.

School management, such as classroom management, is a pedagogical approach and is closely related to the improvement in results.

Classroom management is developed between the interactions that the subject that teaches and the subject that learns in a micro society that is the classroom or the place where these interactions take place. Within this, it plays a preponderant role the construction of meanings and new knowledge from the effective transfer of the official curricular proposals to the practice.

The decision making and interpretations that the teacher makes when developing his pedagogical work, should focus on learning and pedagogical strategies. Therefore, the pedagogical experiences, rich in the creation of knowledge, are fundamental in the management of school learning. To consider the student as the main factor of his own education, with a teacher who facilitates the learning process, is to be realistic. Therefore, it is essential to motivate and encourage students to curiosity and interest, characteristics of the human being since discovering his world and total naturalness.

Promoting the development of the intellect, challenging intelligence, forming attitudes and values ​​for life, is the pending quota of education today. However, until now teachers have raised partial aspects of a pedagogical totality, they propose objectives, contents, didactic strategies and evaluation (Maritain, 1991) related to a rather technical profile of the role of teachers, giving only a brushstroke in subjective ideas, but fundamental in the management within the classroom to achieve better teaching and learning. The methodology used by the teacher to teach, as noted above, should promote the development of thinking, ranging from simple approximation or demonstration to the most complex learning situation. To begin at the bottom, slowly but surely, recognizing the developing mental structures of the student, their interests, efforts and emotions – once again, teaching and learning are not an easy task, because a teacher can affect positively or negatively his students, at an intellectual level as in their personal development. A future-oriented teacher focuses on knowledge management within his classroom, in search of the generation of the same, his mission is not the transfer of content and knowledge but rather, give his students the skills to progress and order what has been learned: learn to learn. Achieve interest in life education in the full autonomy of its actions and in understanding its importance, creating learning situations in line with current changes in society. The teacher for the new millennium must reinvent itself and have the enthusiasm to teach actively and comprehensively.

To teach for life from life, with sufficient knowledge (contextual, procedural and attitudinal knowledge) to be prepared to face their class with course and temperament management, because it is essential and necessary to be respected by their students. Professional experts, who master the knowledge of the personal and familiar characteristics of students, who use this knowledge to achieve the learning of all their students, but a learning of quality, because learning does not serve if it is forgotten.

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CHAPTER II. CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES – ACTORS AND STRATEGIES

2.1. Teacher`s roles

The profile and competences of the teacher in a time of uncertainty and change. New challenges of the teaching function.

In order to be able to understand in depth the changes that the teaching function in the school is currently experiencing, it is essential to place itself in a more general socioeconomic and cultural co-ordinates in which new uncertainties with respect to the teaching profession stand out (Stoll and Fink, 2004: 99-105).

One may consider it essential to situate the professional activity of a teacher within a broad social context where education is developed when it is subjected to processes such as Globalization, the Knowledge Society, and the paradoxes to which we are subjected by a society that has been defined as postmodern. The knowledge society presents a scenario for the treatment of knowledge with broad repercussions on the roles and relationships between people, both inside and outside the various institutions that fulfill a social function: information is processed more quickly, Access and dissemination that new technologies are able to offer to a world population connected to different networks that facilitate instant communication. Globalization can be understood as the set of economic, technological and social processes that define the new world order and determine the growing awareness of these processes as a whole (Allen, 1986). Globalization involves, among other things, a reconversion of the school (roles and relations), and therefore a redefinition of the teaching profession. Relationships in the school can not be understood from parameters of isolation and professional solitude but in the development of abilities to work in group, to coordinate, to contribute to the development of learning communities.

Recently, Stoll and Fink (2004) have made a very interesting proposal to place the content of teachers' learning to educate students in the 21st century. They argue that there are seven basic learnings:

1. Understand learning. It means connecting with the knowledge that is constantly being generated about student learning.

2. Knowledge of contents. It implies the task of updating and updating in relation to the specific contents of the discipline.

3. Teaching comprehension. It has to do with linking students' understanding of learning with content knowledge to develop effective teaching.

4. Understanding of emotions. It involves recognizing that learning is an emotional task and therefore teachers have to learn to know the emotional responses of students, and to create emotional commitments and bonds with and between students.

5. Know the basics of change. Teachers need to know what may happen in the future to locate their task, but they also have to be able to handle uncertainty and conflict.

6. New professionalism. From recognizing the enormous dependence of what happens in the centers with the environment, implies knowing how to create and be part of a responsible way of a community. But also be willing to maintain a professional approach oriented to research on work.

7. Meta-learning. It involves being willing and making a reflection on one's own learning routine

The main areas of teacher’s action

From a broad vision of the teaching profession at the service of quality education for all, there was established a framework to articulate the competencies of teachers around four axes or dimensions:

First- ideology, values, beliefs and commitments with an ethics of justice and criticism about education characterized by the imperative to pursue a good education for all, second- professional ethics. Teaching skills and abilities to facilitate the school success of all students, third- ethics of educational relationship based on respect, care, responsibility and love, 4th democratic community ethics for working with colleagues, school, families and community. Using as a reference this general framework we will operate the work of the teacher in three fields of action. As we will see, the four dimensions must be present in the educational action but surely the first will act in the back of the other guiding them and contributing to make sense of them.

Teachers constitute the "specialized" sector of the educational community and, as Salvador (1995) points out, acts in three areas within the structure of the educational system: executive, instructive and formative. This has been a second reference used by us to base and categorize the three levels in which we could group the performances of a teacher as a teaching professional.

Facilitator of learning. It places us in a vision of the teacher in which even taking the direction of the teaching processes aims to transfer the responsibility and the protagonism of the learning to the own student. It will be the teacher's responsibility to take responsibility for student learning through the planning and development of teaching activities.

Advisor and manager of the coexistence. Where the role of the teacher is highlighted. The task of a teacher acquires greater relevance and completes when he carries out tasks of orientation to the students, the purpose of which is to contribute to their integral development with the purpose of enabling him to autonomous learning and an active, critical and transformative participation in the society.

Member of an organization. The teacher is integrated within an organizational structure in which there are a series of rules and hierarchical relationships and, in addition, must assume legal and work responsibilities. Gairín (1989) calls this field management and assigns tasks of an administrative, managerial or representation type. We deliberately wanted to escape from the executive term used by Salvador (1995), since it is a term coined from a business environment, and the teaching function has its own characteristics that, as we have said, differentiate it from other types of organizations.

THE TEACHER AS A LEARNING FACILITATOR

The teacher as mediator and empowering the autonomy in student learning.

The new scenario of the teaching profession implies a change from the traditional role of teachers, since the emphasis is placed on paying more attention to student learning. It is about overcoming the model of teacher as an authorized transmitter of knowledge to become a tutor of learning, that is, a teacher capable of motivating students in the subject that teaches, raise questions, guide in the search for solutions and evaluate appropriately The learning. This approach includes the constructivist principles of learning (Ausubel 1976; Bruner 1988; Vygostky 1995) in which the teacher has a responsibility to provide students with opportunities to discuss, explain and build knowledge in a learning context. Teachers can not be considered content transmitters and performance qualifiers; His professional task consists of exercising a mediator role in learning, acting as a researcher who diagnoses the situation permanently and develops intervention strategies adapted to the context. When we refer to the teacher as a facilitator of learning in this book, we are placing the emphasis on the dimension that Escudero (2006) calls "professional ethics. Knowledge and teaching capacities facilitate the school success of all students".

Instructional function connected to the learning of the curricular areas

There are different competencies of a teacher who intends to carry out his task in this way. The teacher as well as a specialist in the subject should be a good planner and implementer of teaching in all areas: selection and organization of the culture intended to teach through the programs; Specialist in teaching methods; And in the evaluation more coherent with the model of work in the classroom that is intended to be done with the students.

Models and areas of work of the teacher in the classroom: Selection of culture and organization of the curriculum.

If there is a genuinely teaching decision is to answer the questions what to teach and how to organize and sequence what is going to be taught ?, that is to say with what order we are going to teach each content and what will be its specific development throughout a cycle or a stage.

A fundamental function of the teacher who intends to develop a curriculum in which all students have the opportunity to learn and to achieve success must unfailingly be to review the type of knowledge that is offered, and their level of formalization and abstraction, trying at least in the Compulsory levels of avoiding an elitist and selective curriculum. And on the contrary, enhancing a presentation of the contents in which the coherence, the importance and the functionality for the students prevails. In order to construct a curriculum of these characteristics it may be necessary to review decisions that are considered immutable, such as thinking that the only way to organize certain contents is to present them grouped in separate disciplines, when we already know that there are powerful arguments to defend higher levels of Integration of content, for example, through globalized models in children and primary or interdisciplinary in the secondary section. In addition, this integration can be done in some units of the agenda or in a complete program.

Methodology: Activities, Methodological principles, Teaching strategies, Teaching resources, Organization of the learning environment: grouping of students, organization of space and time, interactive relations between teacher and students

The teacher must be a specialist in methodological aspects. The teaching methodology of a teacher can be defined as an articulated set of actions that are developed in the classroom with the purpose of provoking learning in the students. The purpose of the methodology is precisely to facilitate student learning, the assimilation of curricular contents and the achievement of the proposed goals and objectives. Decisions in this sense involve the choice and combination of different methodological elements that are considered more adequate to develop the activity in the classroom, so that, being consistent with the assumptions that are held regarding the teaching-learning processes, help To put them into action and facilitate the achievement of those purposes that are desired. The activities and tasks are, the last space where the methodological models are concretized. As we will see next, the organization of classroom activities follows methodological principles and involves decisions that affect teaching strategies, means and resources, and the organization of the classroom learning environment.

The basic components of a methodological proposal must be derived from general methodological principles that orient the practice, in which an ideology always underlies how students learn. An example of a methodological principle can be: "Interaction between equals. We try to maximize co-operative group work activities that allow us to share experiences, develop and strengthen the learning of social skills and feel the support of our colleagues. "

These principles are transferred to the field of class activities which in turn can be decomposed for analysis in three basic dimensions: teaching strategies, teaching resources and resources, and the learning environment, the latter composed in turn of: Student groupings, spatial and temporal organization, and interactive relationships between teacher and students

1. Teaching strategies. It involves making decisions about the learning processes to be experienced by students. These can be classified into strategies by discovery or reception, which may also be called inquiry or expository. In the first, the students have a greater role in the construction of knowledge, compared to the expository strategies in which information is presented to them much more structured. No doubt the type of strategy that we use has to do with the content to be taught, it is more common to use strategies for inquiry or discovery in the field of social and natural sciences, while the formal and linguistic sciences are usually taught by more expository methods.

2. Didactic resources and resources. The didactic resources are the teaching support materials that the teacher has to carry out his work (textbooks, television, DVD, computer, videos, films, projector canyon). Obviously the selected materials must meet the requirement of relevance to represent and contain the essential features that define a perspective, educational situation, or position regarding the subject matter to which it relates, along with conceptual accessibility for students. Progress in teaching resources in recent years has been important. However, what really matters is the teacher's use of them, since technological advances do not guarantee the quality and usefulness of the resource alone, but the pedagogical application made by the teacher. The media encode reality and as they are used we will be developing a different cognitive ability in the students.

3. Organization of the learning environment.-The teacher has the possibility to organize a set of organizational variables that represent the context under which teaching learning activities are organized and developed, these variables being: time distribution, spatial organization , Groupings and interactive relationships between teacher and students. As we will see all these variables are related to each other and implicitly or explicitly respond to general methodological principles.

4. The grouping of students.- The way in which we group the students will be decisive in relation to the type and quality of learning to achieve and the social relations that we intend to develop. At the moment we find a repertoire of group and collaborative learning activities that allow to organize the teaching of a more varied and creative way: grouping in small group, large group, individual, pairs or trios. This variety of groupings are especially useful to make teaching more attractive and meaningful due to its playful and active component, enhancing the learning of theoretical concepts as well as attitudes and procedures.

5. The organization of space and time .- The environment of a classroom is determined both by a physical dimension (furniture, position of objects, luminosity) and functional that refers to the use of it. It is important that the teacher becomes aware that the distribution of space is transmitting and creating conditions for the development of activities and tasks – it is not the same isolated individual desks that an organization of those same desks in connection with those of other colleagues to work In a group, and this is also an own space for the development of the teaching task. In the same way, an analysis of the time dedicated to each activity in class can be made to know the type of learning that we are fomented. In the traditional classes, much of the time is dedicated to the presentation by the teacher and the individual work of the students, which is likely to result in a loss of positive peer interactions, which may influence motivation and, therefore, learning.

6. Interactive relations between teacher and students.- We can classify the styles of interaction that are developed in the classroom in cooperative, individualistic and competitive. It is important that the teacher is able to recognize the style that predominates in his class in order to become aware of the consequences that he has on the relationship and development of his students.

Evaluation of learning processes and results

Probably one of the most complex moments in teaching is evaluation (Nunan, 1999:58). This is due, among others, to the following factors: evaluation ends up being the instrument of selection par excellence; evaluating is judging the quality of something. Therefore, a teacher must delimit the object of the evaluation, establish quality criteria, develop instruments or procedures to collect information, collect information, understand and interpret the information collected and communicate the results of the evaluation. In the evaluation is perhaps where it is easier to fall into inconsistencies with the budgets that are held regarding knowledge and teaching, getting to strangle the processes that are intended to develop and, therefore, overriding the purposes.

During teaching, there is predominant a tendency that the assessment of student learning is an evaluation of products and not of processes. We must take into account that evaluation refers not only to the assessment of student progress but also to the teaching-learning processes, the purposes that guide them and the conditions in which they develop. It assumes the assessment of the whole process, and must be done at different times and through different strategies, so that it becomes an educational experience for teachers and students. We assume that the evaluation should follow the following classical principles:

Formative. It implies understanding that the evaluation fulfills a regulatory function, in a double sense: of the teaching process of the teacher, to the extent that it contributes data that allows to readjust the teaching, and the learning of the students, in the sense in which it can be used so that one is aware of his progress and difficulties.

Procesual. It implies assuming the continuous character of the evaluation, which as part of the educational process, just as it must be permanent to reach its full educational potential. Thus we propose an initial or diagnostic evaluation, in development and final.

Integral. It refers to a reflection on what to evaluate, or what is the same, is an attempt to include among the aspects to evaluate all types of content: theoretical, practical and value knowledge, and also, take a concern to follow up on How the students integrate this learning and this becomes part of their competencies.

Systematic. It involves accepting that evaluation, like education, is an intentional and systematic process, requiring careful planning, order and sequence.

Participatory. It implies taking into account the social process of evaluation and that it involves both teachers and students. It assumes that evaluation is a process of dialogue and self-regulation.

Summative. It focuses its attention on the results of the programming, once completed. It is about knowing if the objectives have been achieved in relation to the students and also with respect to the design and development of the programming itself.

THE TEACHER AS AN ADVISER AND MANAGER OF THE COEXISTENCE OF A GROUP

When we refer to the teacher as a counselor, we emphasize the dimension that Brekelmans, Levy and Rodríguez (1993:47-55) called "ethics of educational relationship based on respect, care, responsibility and love". It involves consolidating a type of relationship with the students that starts from the recognition and acceptance of the student as a person, beyond that our role is of teachers.

The teacher as manager of coexistence

The teacher is in an ideal position to assume the role of leader of the formal structure of the class group trying to foster a climate of respect and security within. The way in which such leadership is assumed is fundamental to the functioning of the group and the acquisition of the learning objectives. Recall that in the student teacher interaction there is an unequal distribution of power in favor of the teacher since he is an adult, is a teacher and is an expert in a subject or area of ​​knowledge.

At present it is not possible to place that leadership in the assumption that the position is the one that gives it power and authority. Like it or not, the reality that we live and probably the one that the future holds for us will be characterized as a society in which the authority will not only be held by a person who has a formal recognition. This situation is reproduced in educational centers in the exercise of educational functions and responsibilities, such as, among others, that of teacher, head of studies or director. More and more society will demand the exercise of these functions within a democratic approach, which implies the recognition that power, in fact, is very distributed and that we must enter into negotiation processes and the construction of authority in The framework of the daily relationship with students. The idea that the teacher by the fact of being, is an authority that can not be called into question, it takes time to stop being a reality. For some this will continue to cause discomfort and yearning, while for others it will be one more element of the changing landscape of the evolution of society. In addition, this situation occurs in a scenario in which multiculturalism and diversity will be increasing, and education professionals will need to resort permanently to communication techniques and procedures to foster linkage and integration, in order to transform Conflicts that may arise.

A formalist and authoritarian model of leadership exercise can lead to a confrontation that results in the student withdrawing from the interaction, missing class. It can also be psychologically removed from the interaction, "passing" of everything the teacher suggests or accommodating without learning ("being by"). It can lead to a confrontation with teachers who are perceived as authoritarian or threatening, thus gaining the prestige of their peers.

It is therefore appropriate to assert the authority that can be achieved by prestige, by adopting an ethical attitude towards the profession (Bruner, 1986: 20). The teacher who is the manager of the coexistence has to have some skills to manage the internal dynamics among the students in the class. This means paying attention in a balanced way both to the task (program) and to the affective life of the group (therefore to the people that compose it).

The way to exercise leadership is definitive to explain the ability of teachers to control discipline in the classroom. Based on studies of the interaction styles of teachers with their students (Brekelman, Levy and Rodríguez, 1993:52), an attempt has been made to analyze teacher behaviors by classifying them according to two parameters; The proximity between teacher and student, and the management of influence in teaching. Proximity is based on the degree of cooperation and interpersonal relationship that teachers establish with students, and the influence reflects who and how controls communication in the classroom.

As discussed by Slavin (1995: 4), students understood that their "best teachers" were strong leaders, friendly, understanding and less insecure and unsatisfied, using very little written admonitions. Usually they were given more responsibility and freedom. On the contrary, the "worst teachers" were perceived as less cooperative and placed in positions of opposition or opposition. In general, students respond better to friendly and understanding behaviors than to strict leadership behaviors that focus exclusively on authority.

We could distinguish several models of confrontation of the discipline by the teacher (Oxford, 2016:98-113):

Aggressive / Dominant.- The teacher perceives the indiscipline as a personal aggression and reacts aggressively. The goal is control and order, "this is done because I say it", the consequence being the damage to the relationship and escalation of the conflict. To overcome this situation it is necessary to win in respect, cordiality, and trust with the students.

Passive / Permissive.- This is the case of the behavior of those teachers who, by economy of effort and / or impotence, decide not to pay attention or try to stay out when disruptive behavior occurs. Sometimes the roles are confused being the goal to win the friendship. This posture ends up producing distancing between people regarding the conflicts. Chaos, disorder, irritation and tiredness can reign. To overcome this situation it may be useful to set limits and gain in firmness and order.

Assertive / Democratic.- In this case the teacher is attentive to the needs of the students and can get to consult them and make them participate. The teacher confronts indiscipline with determination and temperament, applying the rules agreed upon in this regard. The goal is to train the student in the resolution of conflicts, while fostering justice and respect for the dignity of all people. This style seeks to resolve the conflict by considering the needs and interests of all the people involved and seeking mutual gain and satisfaction. This teacher usually uses praise (Ainscow, 2001), tries to be varied in class. This last model has been called as an integrated model in the exercise of the profession (Kremer, 2016: 805-819). The central idea is to assume that we need authority to educate, but also that the most consistent authority is not coercive but that which is socially constructed and based on democratic approaches.

This integrated model is built in practice through the integration of three fundamental axes: the democratic elaboration of norms, the strengthening of dialogue systems for the treatment of conflicts and the democratic management of the curriculum and the organization of the classroom and center. The educational strength of this model would be based on the sharing of power, since in opening the relations to the dialogue, by promoting a non-egalitarian relationship, its authority is enhanced, dignified and humanized. It is what Freire called "power with" instead of "power over."

Some principles of this management approach to coexistence are: "authority is not authoritarianism" and "authority is not friendship". In short, as Linda Kavelin (1998) said "we should stop being a friend who sometimes educates to become an educator who is sometimes a friend."

The teacher as an enhancer of the functioning of the groups

Due to the social and relational nature of teaching, it is essential that the teacher master the relational dynamics that occur within a group. The need to create a group in the centers is fully justified (Johnson & Johnson, 1999; Slavin, 1995). As Jares (2001:89) points out, not only for ethical or moral reasons but also because school work in this context is more enjoyable for all, it usually produces better academic results and conflicts are more likely to be solved in a positive way. This need is more pressing, imperative and urgent in a society as the current increasingly plural and diverse, both ethnically (emigration of people from the third world to developed countries, higher birth rate in ethnic minorities within advanced countries, etc. .), As ideologically, religiously and culturally.

Of course there are no formulas and technical procedures that ensure the proper functioning of groups in school contexts, but it is also true that knowing the dimensions of which a group is composed and the stages of life by which they usually pass, surely contribute proposals of interest in understanding its operation and contributing to its improvement.

In this sense, the teacher can contribute to the processes that will allow a class group to move from being a group to a group. This can be realized through initiatives that contribute to creating and maintaining a task-focused group. This is achieved through the following procedural principles.

1. Promote relationships of affection, esteem and security within the group: The group should provide each person with feelings of security, support, recognition of their worth and feeling of being supported in a climate of solidarity. Otherwise, a group of individuals would never constitute a group or disintegrate when it ceased to be a satisfactory experience for them. The group is formed and maintained in that it is rewarding for its members or for the positive results of the interaction (Thibaut and Kelley, 1986).

2. Contribute to establish group goals known and shared: To the extent that the learning objectives themselves are shared we will have a greater chance of the group being centered on the same. As Kremer (2016: 814) points out, “a successful group has clear, specific, verifiable and short objectives, and its participants have similar or compatible personal goals with the group.” The teacher's task is to create and maintain a learning-focused group, and this involves the development of a set of initiatives:

Helping the structuring of roles: Each participant in a group is assigned by the group a role, a behavior that is desired, determined, accepted or tolerated by the group in relation to the position it occupies. "Many of the personal conflicts that appear in the groups have their origin in that people are 'forced' to play a role with which they disagree." (Gibson, Myron, 1984: 569; 1991: 75). In the end we may be interested in the production of roles focused on the task, the maintenance of the positive climate, solidarity, etc. But also trying to redirect those other dysfunctional roles assigned to the people in the groups.

Encourage the creation of own rules within the group. Standards are patterns or patterns of behavior shared by members of a group, and indicate appropriate behavior in each situation and result in the compliance of the members of a group. Norms are the signs of identity, the "style" of a group, and serve to avoid conflicts and promote group cohesion. To the extent that the teacher contributes to the rules being known, agreed and accepted by a group will be exerting a positive influence, contributing to increase cohesion, a sense of cooperation and a desire to work together.

Promote quality communication. The existence of communication is another of the most determining characteristics of the good functioning of the groups. Communication within the group is a basic component to feel connected to a group. Sometimes this is not due to lack of an appropriate communication procedure in the group, or due to uncooperative attitudes of the interlocutors.

Promote the sense of belonging. The members of a group, as a consequence of belonging to it, develop a collective consciousness of themselves as a differentiated social entity. This is what social psychologists call group identity. They tend to be perceived and defined as a group, that is, they build and share a common identity. It is the feeling of group "we". In this sense, it will be fundamental the role of the teacher to generate a cohesive environment that makes possible this sense of belonging.

Care for the life processes of groups. The studies on the groups present multiple theoretical models that try to define the phases or stages through which they pass through their existence. It is fundamental that a teacher knows that the groups evolve at different stages and in each of these stages it will be advisable to perform some actions and not others. For example, when a group is being created the teacher will have to promote actions that favor the reception, and just as every group will go through phases of conflict and it will be imperative that they have knowledge on how to solve them in a peaceful and dialogical way.

THE TEACHER AND THE STRATEGIES OF PEACEFUL CONFLICTS RESOLUTION.

Education occurs in a social context in which there are continual conflicts between members of the educational community, and therefore it is important that teachers have the skills to deal with them properly. It is usual that in the school context arise clashes, rumors, misunderstandings, misunderstandings, insults, insults, complaints, disputes, fights, broken friendships, threats, unpleasant or unjust situations, etc. Their presence indicates that people have different goals, interests, feelings, beliefs and perceptions, and that they participate in relationships they value and are alive. Failure to respond to these conflicts can lead to a deterioration of the classroom and center climate, with consequences for academic performance. Conflict, in addition to being something natural and inevitable, has a number of positive potentialities. It is not by eliminating conflicts as schools become orderly and peaceful places where a good education can be imparted, but by handling them constructively and by learning how to deal with them. Conflicts do not necessarily have to be confronted in a violent way, since the human being has the capacity to approach them in a more cooperative and empathic way.

When conflicts are handled constructively, people are satisfied, relationships are strengthened and improved, and the ability to constructively resolve future conflicts increases.

What determines that conflicts produce all these positive consequences is the training of students and teachers to use appropriate resolution or transformation procedures. It is not unusual that when dealing with conflicts, respond immediately and unthinkingly by applying an action-reaction scheme. We often lack resources to be able to interpret conflicts, and therefore, to confront them in a different way that does not involve the use of violence. Learning to stop, analyze conflicts in detail and respond constructively should be one of the main educational tasks of teachers. (Willis, Willis, 2008: 89-113) This task would be to promote learning by all members of the educational community of adequate procedures for conflicts to become opportunities for personal growth and improved relationships. Nowadays, it is fundamental that teachers are aware of and understand the strategies and programs of school mediation, student assistant systems, which is capable of enhancing the learning of negotiation strategies among students, and of managing the student assembly for the resolution of class conflicts, knowing and using the technique of circles of friends, or the “Pikas method” for intervention in the phenomenon of school abuse, etc.

PROFESSOR AS A MEMBER OF AN ORGANIZATION

The teacher in a shared space of responsibility within an educational community and in relation to other social agents.

The teacher performs his task in an organization and within it is a member of an educational team. We know that one of the fundamental processes that occur in organizations is group work and it is fundamental that it be carried out in a coordinated and coherent way in relation to the core of its task, which is none other than the development of the Teaching – learning processes.

Consequently it must be assumed that the professional development of the teacher should be linked to a collective approach aimed at improving the institution and not only his work within the classroom or his personal promotion. This means participating actively in collegiate and unipersonal bodies of educational direction and coordination. In pointing to the facet of the teacher as a member of an organization, we are placing the emphasis on the dimension that Jorgensen, Schuh, Nisbet (2005) called "democratic community ethics for working with colleagues, school, families and the community".

Deepening this social vision of the task of teachers within a school, Lunenberg, Korthagen and Anja Swennen (2007: 586-601) tell us what is meant by organization. "When we talk about organization, we are referring to a group of people grouped around Common objectives, which carry out a series of activities, structuring the work according to a set of rules and procedures, to achieve specific purposes. In this way, the need to articulate the action collectively allows to achieve what individually would cost a huge effort or would be practically impossible to realize. In this same work the authors very correctly recalls that the organizational has no meaning in itself but in function of which serves a pedagogical project "To recover, then, the organizational dimension, to claim its importance does not mean an exercise, a Simple listing or enumeration of variables; Represents an effort to continue to maintain the convenience of using the didactic and organizational as two sides of the same coin. We can no longer support the separation between the organizational and the pedagogical or, more specifically, the didactic. Each didactic situation unfolds in a given context. It is a process that affects the whole school institution. Freire said that we have to "negotiate the institution" because within it we have to carry out our struggles in favor of change. "As we know, teachers are integrated in different structures and this puts a greater difficulty to their task, and In addition, each center making use of its organizational autonomy can determine the composition and development of the structures that best contribute to respond to its educational needs.

We can place the levels of responsibility of teachers within the organization of a center in four different structures or organs: bodies of teaching achievement; management and governance bodies of the institution; coordination structures, and study and advisory bodies.

A.- Teaching bodies and student orientation: The idea is that the main function of teachers is the teaching and orientation of student learning. The corresponding bodies would be: Teaching staff, teacher of curricular area, special teacher, teacher of cycle.

B.- Management and governing bodies of the institution: Management Team, School Board, Faculty,

C.- Organs of coordination: Here we could frame Departments, cycles, Seminars or Divisions. Within the coordination tasks is the tutorial action developed by teachers within an organization. It is a coordinating function in the sense that it should not be bureaucratically attributed to a teacher, but rather – it is a quality educational task that belongs to an educational team. Due to its complexity, this will imply that it can only be carried out from a conception of a tutorial action as a shared task between all the members of the educational team and in clear connection with the families of study and advisory bodies: These are dedicated structures Mainly to provide some kind of internal and external support and support to the centers: teacher training centers, consultants to teacher training centers and administration, universities, consultancies, etc.

The desired quality in education, and therefore the improvement in learning outcomes, requires to:

A) generate public policies in order to improve the management of human and material resources, with a state guarantee, that promotes and increases the development of educational policies in favor of improving the working conditions of teachers.

 B) promote the professional development of teachers, recognizing the professional capacities and performances, inciting the initial and continuous formation, and generating new forms of improvement according to the contextual and thematic reality.

C) improve the working conditions of the teacher with a decent floor, work stability, favorable working conditions and a social security system that assures their quality of life.

D) develop quality pedagogical processes in favor of student learning, considering the incorporation of new technologies and tools to generate effective learning conditions.

E) Promote the increase of family culture capital.

F) Consider the school as a learning institution, improving access, concentrating resources, generating knowledge from the immediate contexts and providing technical support.

G) claim the professional status of teachers as social actors and educational professionals.

H) promote the quality of establishments and collective professionalism through management and innovation teams.

I) generate internal and external control (evaluation) mechanisms according to current competencies. Hence, the need to revise, correct and improve the system of measuring the quality of education

2.2. Grouping patterns. Advantages and disadvantages of individual/pair/group and whole class work

The present educational model proposes a competency-based learning that seeks to put aside more conservative tendencies – which place the teacher as the leader of the classroom and the student as a passive subject – and incorporate tasks and exercises aimed not only at training competent professionals but also at people, who are able to respond to the needs and demands of our current society (Gil et al., 2007a). In this model of competences, where the educational system converges (theoretical knowledge) and the productive system (capacity development and practical skills), students are expected to learn both theoretical knowledge and values ​​and attitudes. In this way and more and more often, tasks and exercises are added to the university classroom to promote self-study and critical and self-critical skills, but also strategies and techniques that favor the ability to communicate effectively or to work as a team, motivating To the student and bringing it closer to a more real context. It is a question of the teacher leaving the rigid and authoritarian figure of yesteryear to become a guide, a kind of guide that through the incorporation of concrete activities in their subjects, stimulate the skills and abilities necessary to get their students reach tomorrow's professional success.

Cooperative work stands as one of the professional skills required as necessary to achieve this goal, which is why more and more teachers incorporate it into their classes, providing the necessary techniques and strategies for students to learn through Of teamwork. This methodology becomes especially interesting in the translation classroom which, as a group activity, can find in cooperative learning the ideal tool to acquire these competences, whether general, transversal or specific. However, despite the proliferation of studies and projects of educational innovation that in recent years have tried to incorporate cooperative learning into the translation classroom, it has not yet been possible to unravel the real benefits that this type of methodology can have for students.

COOPERATIVE WORK AND TEAM WORK IN THE CLASSROOM

Cooperative learning, in which students work in groups to achieve common goals, is seen as the ideal medium for developing the competency-based education system of the European Higher Education Area, as the latest studies on (Johnson, Johnson, 1994). Defined as "the didactic use of small groups in which students work collaboratively to maximize their own learning and that of others" (Johnson, Johnson, Holuec, 1999: 14), they must, according to these authors, accomplish essential criteria:

positive interdependence: success can not be achieved without the effort of all the members of the group;

individual responsibility: all members must fulfill their part of the work;

interaction: group members work side by side in the same task, helping and supporting each other;

interpersonal and group skills: all members must acquire and put into practice teamwork skills such as decision making, leadership, or conflict resolution; And

evaluation: each member should build self-assessment capacity to detect deficiencies and seek improvements in teamwork. On the basis of these five criteria, we will avoid the risk of turning a specific task into a simple work with several participants, where the members work separately – and not in a collaborative way – to reach the same goal. And while cooperative work requires group work, group work does not necessarily involve cooperative work. In the first case, the same objective is pursued, but the members of the group work separately; While in the second case the members of the group work together to achieve that same goal.

Set (2002: 25) goes further with a proposal for a Decalogue with which one ensures not only that cooperative work is given within the group but that it achieves the expected success. To achieve this, the team must adhere to the following rules:

Encourage a smooth communication among its members.

Make a clear and concrete presentation of the ideas, principles, and actions of the team.

Justify the contributions made, which all team members must deal with in a critical and constructive way.

Provide ideas and arguments.

Facilitate access to all information.

Consensus of all the activities carried out so that the final result of the work is a product of cohesion and not the sum of the individual work of each team member.

Be clear about the resources needed to develop the work project and those it has; In this way to recreate a real context and practicality is given to work.

Develop an action plan

Know and accept the rules of operation.

Assuming an individual responsibility for the development of the project, which also implies assuming responsibility regarding the final product.

Establish positive relationships between team members.

On the other hand, other authors insist that for a collaborative and effective work to be carried out, a series of ethical norms must be followed which all members of the group will have to respect. Based on previous reflections (Little, 1982; Murphy, Hallinguer & Mesa, 1985), Sharan (1990: 129-130) emphasizes, among these ethical norms, individual initiative and effort, respect for ideas the development of strategies and techniques for communication, exchange and acceptance of ideas, positive interdependence among members or equal opportunities for intervention and leadership. Working collaboratively means that the members of the group work together, that they cooperate, that each one assumes a role within it and that all collaborate to achieve common goals but also that there is trust and respect among all members of the group. According to Bruffee (1999), in the cooperative work, individualism and isolation are abandoned; its members share common goals, successes and failures, establish tasks for each of its members, make collective decisions and perform different functions according to their individual knowledge and characteristics. In this way, not only better final results will be obtained, but will foster this type of skills and practical skills that demand both the university and society today. It is for this reason that today there are many studies and projects that advocate the adoption of these dynamic methodologies that encourage and stimulate group work in the classroom.

This is what happens in the translation classroom, where this methodology becomes especially interesting since in addition to allowing the teacher to achieve the specific objectives of his subject, brings the student to the real context where success will depend not so much on theoretical contents as on Their practical skills, their ability to work as a team and to communicate effectively with members of this. We must not forget that translation is often a group activity that requires the participation of different agents: either a translation project for a large company whose workload requires the collaboration of several terminologists, translators, reviewers and coordinators; or an editorial project in which the same text passes through the hands of the translator, but also those of a reviewer of style, an ortho-typographical corrector and even those of the editor. Practical skills are essential not only for this team work, but for the work to be effective; and this is what teachers intend to recreate in the classroom through cooperative learning.

Over the last few years, there have been numerous studies that attempt to explore the impact of dynamic methodologies in the translation classroom by evaluating students' responses to strategies based on cooperative learning (Slavin, Hurley, Chamberlain, 2003:29). It has been shown, for example, that students welcome and value this methodology, which they emphasize as beneficial and very motivating. However, students are also able to appreciate the drawbacks of this type of methodologies – the lack of interest, the inability to take on a role change, the lack of trust in the partner – which makes some teachers reluctant to Apply them to your classes. For these, however, the difficulties are to be found in the lack of time, the difficulty of working with large groups, ignorance of the different techniques of application or the lack of strategies to evaluate the evolution of the student as an individual and not as part Of a group. And it is that the effort demanded by this type of tasks of the teacher is important; It is a change of mentality that also requires a change of methodology, which requires much planning and effort on the part of the teacher, another reason that leads many teachers not to incorporate it into their classes. Finally, another of the challenges posed by this methodology for translation teachers is their own teamwork with other teachers. The number of students of many of the subjects of the Degree of Translation and Interpretation, as the subject in which this study is carried out, also requires the group work of the teaching team which, according to Hertz-Lazarowitz and Miller (1995: 90): "one allows analyzing common problems that are common, with higher and better criteria. It provides our students with the quality education they undoubtedly deserve requires that among the people we educate them there are certain common approaches and also sufficiently coherent criteria and principles of action. These requirements are not possible without the proper co-ordination provided by collaboration through teamwork. "

The advantages of cooperative work, however, mean that more and more teachers are encouraged to incorporate it into their classes in the Degree of Interpretation Translation, a fundamentally practical degree where the most traditional models have no place and in Nothing resembles or recreates the real context of the translator's profession. And it is one of the multiple advantages of cooperative learning is undoubtedly its versatility in terms of application in the classroom. There are numerous teaching techniques and activities that each teacher can adapt according to the objectives and specific needs of his subject and also his students. Thanks to the variety of techniques available, the teacher can get to know his students and thus design specific activities that arouse his interest and attention. Increased motivation will inevitably lead to better results, and to achieve those goals we talked about earlier: learning both theoretical concepts and values ​​and attitudes. At the same time and perhaps this is the greatest advantage in the translation classroom, using a methodology based on cooperative learning allows the teacher to bring the student to the professional world through tasks or projects that emulate a real context and that will make The student has acquired the resources and strategies necessary to achieve success when the time comes.

Advantages of group work may be considered the following ones:

students have different points of view before making decisions, so that they can be better understood.

It allows to identify more easily the qualities and / or individual aptitudes of the members of the group.

Responsibility for results is shared (Hidalgo, 2008).

It is a way of working more productive and efficient in the work because in the group personal qualities are enhanced (Burd et al., 2003).

Social skills development (Burd et al., 2003)

Greater involvement between the student and the teacher in the teaching and learning process (Burd et al., 2003)

Disadvantages of group work

Existence of internal divisions. Almost always linked more to personal matters than to objective questions.

The lack of commitment to the group causes delay with timelines, misgivings, disbelief or restlessness, among others (Burd et al., 2003).

As responsibility is shared, goal setting and personal identification with work may be lacking (Guitert et al., 2007).

Hostile attitudes that may incur disrespect towards some members of the group.

Extra teaching load on the teacher by increasing interaction with students and their cooperation in learning (Burd et al., 2003)

After the students' identification of the competences that they felt should be improved, it was noticed that, above group work, it was the ability to speak in public the one that needed the most attention. However, based on the results, it was possible to see how the work enabled the students to improve in all the skills they were asked about, including the ability to work in groups. Nevertheless, in relation to this competence, internal problems could be noticed in some of these, almost always related to the lack of planning of the tasks and the management of the time. In this sense, and as a result of the work in the network and the results of the survey, three very important reflections for the training of students and the acquisition of competences were highlighted:

As an object of evaluation, the oral presentation of the results of group work.

Greater commitment of the students with the planning and the management of the time is necessary.

Work has contributed to the ability of students to investigate and analyze data, which favors autonomous learning and knowledge acquisition.

Understanding cooperative learning requires differentiating it from competitive and individual learning and understanding what are the basic elements that enable cooperation to work. Any activity in any subject, in any type of curriculum, can be structured competitively or individually, or cooperatively (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991). When students are asked to compete with each other for a grade, they work against others to reach a goal that only one or a few students can access (Deutsch, 1962, Johnson & Johnson, 1989).

Students are assessed on normative benchmarks that generally require them to work faster and more accurately than their peers. The teacher directs the class and expects students to listen and take notes without talking to or interacting with peers. Learning is assessed through partial and / or final exams in which students are ranked according to the highest or lowest scores and evaluated according to this curve. When students are required to function individually, they work by themselves to achieve learning goals unrelated to their peers' goals (Deutsch, 1962, Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Individual objectives are assigned and each student's effort is assessed using benchmarks. Each student has their own set of materials and works at their own pace ignoring the other members of the class. Learning is assessed through final and partial exams in which each student's performance is compared to pre-established criteria. When students cooperate, they work together to achieve shared goals (Deutsch, 1962, Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Students work together in small groups, striving to maximize their learning and that of their peers. The assessments are continuous and the performance of each student is compared to pre-established criteria of excellence. If all members of the group meet the criteria, each participant receives a certain number of points as a bonus. In the classroom, the teacher can structure their classes so that the students work together to achieve common goals, or work individually or compete to achieve personal goals. Whatever your proposal, you need to know how to structure the learning objectives in a way that favors one or another method.

The members of a cooperative group are enthusiastic about each other, the students astonish themselves and astonish their instructors with the results they are able to achieve. Cooperative learning aims to make students learn by feeling committed to the learning of their peers. The success of each depends on the success of the group and this exchange of energy enhances individual actions, while influencing group responsibility. Understanding cooperative learning requires differentiating it from competitive and individual learning and understanding what are the basic elements that enable cooperation to work. Any activity in any subject, in any type of curriculum, can be structured competitively or individually, or cooperatively (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991). When students are asked to compete with each other for a grade, they work against others to reach a goal that only one or a few students can access (Deutsch, 1962, Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Students are assessed on normative benchmarks that generally require them to work faster and more accurately than their peers. The teacher directs the class and expects students to listen and take notes without talking to or interacting with peers. Learning is assessed through partial and / or final exams in which students are ranked according to the highest or lowest scores and evaluated according to this curve. When students are required to function individually, they work by themselves to achieve learning goals unrelated to their peers' goals (Deutsch, 1962, Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Individual objectives are assigned and each student's effort is assessed using benchmarks. Each student has their own set of materials and works at their own pace ignoring the other members of the class. Learning is assessed through final and partial exams in which each student's performance is compared to pre-established criteria. When students cooperate, they work together to achieve shared goals (Deutsch, 1962, Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Students work together in small groups, striving to maximize their learning and that of their peers. The assessments are continuous and the performance of each student is compared to pre-established criteria of excellence. If all members of the group meet the criteria, each participant receives a certain number of points as a bonus. In the classroom, the teacher can structure their classes so that the students work together to achieve common goals, or work individually or compete to achieve personal goals. Whatever your proposal, you need to know how to structure the learning objectives in a way that favors one or another method.

COOPERATIVE EFFORTS

Throughout the history of humanity, people have united to achieve things that nobody could have done alone and to share sorrows and joys. Cooperate means working together to achieve shared goals. In cooperative situations, people seek beneficial results for themselves and for the members of their groups. Cooperative learning is the use in education of small groups in which students work together to improve their own learning and that of others. The role of the teacher is to coordinate groups and establish criteria of improvement to be achieved by both the group and individually. The group is a platform of support and containment and the group's achievements are added to the personal to achieve success.

Johnson and Johnson (1999) summarize the highlights of the proposal in:

Objective: Class members form small, generally heterogeneous groups and are taught to: (a) learn the assigned materials; (B) ensure that all other members of the group do the same.

Levels of cooperation: cooperation can be limited to some groups or extended to the whole class (ensuring that all have learned the assigned material)

Interaction scheme: students stimulate the success of others. They discuss materials with others, explain how to complete the activity, listen to each other's explanations, encourage and strive, providing help and restraint. This pattern of interaction exists both within groups and within groups.

Evaluation of results: a system of study and evaluation based on criteria is used. The accent is usually placed on the learning and academic progress of the individual student, but may also include the whole group, or the whole class.

COMPETITIVE EFFORTS

The praise for competition goes back to ancient Greece. The language of business, politics, and even education are full of terminology related to success or defeat. You win a promotion, you beat the opposition, you beat a rival. Competing is a constant in interpersonal relationships in our society. In education, the competition consists of working to achieve a goal that can only be achieved by a student (or a few). In competitive situations, individuals seek results that are beneficial to themselves and harmful to others.

Competitive learning consists of concentrating the student's effort to perform better and more accurately than his peers. The following outline summarizes the aspects of competition (Johnson and Johnson, 1999):

Objectives: class members are instructed to perform faster and more accurately than their peers.

Levels of cooperation: the competition can focus on the group (be the best in the group) or on the class (be the best in the class). It can not be extended to intergroup competition without it becoming intra-group cooperation.

Interaction Scheme: Students obstruct the success of others. They work alone, hide their work from others, refuse to help them, and interfere with others' efforts to try to diminish their performance.

Evaluation of results: a standards-based evaluation system is used. The accent is placed on the classification of students' performance from best to worst.

THE INDIVIDUALIST EFFORTS

There are times when individual efforts are needed. The planning of an activity, the reflection on one's own successes, the memorization of a theme, the writing of an article, are activities that tend to be more fruitful when carried out in solitude. Individualist efforts consist of working alone to achieve goals unrelated to and independent of others. The fact that an individual fulfills his objective does not influence the fact that others reach theirs. Individualistic learning consists of working for oneself to reach a pre-established criterion, regardless of the efforts of other students. Summarizing the highlights of individualist efforts (Johnson and Johnson, 1999):

• Objective: class members are instructed to perform until they reach certain criteria, regardless of their peers.

• Levels of cooperation: individualistic efforts focus on the person's achievement of a pre-established criterion of performance.

• Interaction scheme: an evaluation system based on criteria is used. The emphasis is on determining whether a student's academic performance meets these criteria.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

To educate is to develop the human faculties, it is an external influence that provides the means to the individual for its own configuration, its own development. Learning is a series of operations, processes or modifications that can not be observed directly in the body, which occur through experiences and lead to behavioral changes, penetrates the personality, is permanent, not occasional; Forms part of the subject and becomes the source of his knowledge. Some people believe that talking about learning means acquiring content, where memory has a main function. But if we start from what we want to have as reference cooperative learning we will include other elements. Referring to cooperative learning does not mean merely acquiring concepts or attitudes. It is a game of concepts, attitudes, habits and above all the development of skills for this learning.

THE CONCEPTION OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING.

Before considering the topic of cooperative learning, it is appropriate to consider a definition of learning. From a purely behavioral point of view, "human action can be explained by the reflex of a stimulus response and man is reduced to a complex mechanism" (Suárez, 1991: 62), the human being is a being Able to overcome this limited condition. As Moreno (2000) explains it is an inner change, it is a process that produces in man a more or less permanent change. According to Delxlaux (1987: 141), learning is the "process by which a subject acquires practical skills or abilities, incorporates information content or adopts new strategies of knowledge and / or action" (p. It is not only the acquisition of knowledge at the cognitive level, it involves the cognitive, affective and motor. With these assumptions, school learning can be considered as an active action, improving every day because … "School learning is an active process from the student's point of view, in which the student constructs, modifies, enriches and diversifies his / her knowledge schemes With respect to the different school contents from the meaning and the meaning that can be attributed to those contents and to the very fact of learning them "(Coll et al, 1999, p. 101). Learning provides or equips the student with the necessary elements for their daily walk. Based on previous ideas about learning, the meaning of cooperative learning and its elements will be made explicit.

What is Cooperative Learning?

One of the tasks of teaching is to help learning, "If teaching should help the process of constructing meanings and senses that the student performs, the basic characteristic that must be fulfilled in order to actually carry out his function is to be In some way linked, synchronized, to that process of construction. If the aid offered does not "connect" with the student's knowledge schemes, if it is not capable of mobilizing and activating them, and at the same time forcing its restructuring, it will not be fulfilling its mission "(Coll et al., 1999, P 102). Teaching will fulfill its role by encouraging students to learn. To say cooperative learning requires: competence, individualism and cooperation. When students look at the competition, it is often their own interests that stand out: their efforts are to see the defeat of the partner as Johnson and Johnson (1999) express, when the students achieve their goals "my triumph implies your defeat," "Your failure facilitates my triumph" he who does not succeed in thinking "the more you win, the less I will get." When students are asked to work individually, there is no relationship with peers, they work at their own pace, ignoring others, "I can get a high grade" if my peers do not study, it does not affect me. Each partner is independent (Johnson and Johnson, 1999). Cooperating means "working together to achieve shared goals" (Johnson and Johnson, 1999, p.10). Johnson himself explains how students come to think, "Your success benefits me and my success benefits you," "we can not do it without you"; The positive interdependence of the students is achieved, seeking benefits for themselves and for the other members of the group, rescuing "the sum of the interacting parts is better than the sum of the parts alone" (Barnett L. et al., 2003, p. 93), Cooperative learning can be defined as a management strategy that favors the "organization of students in heterogeneous groups to carry out learning tasks and activities in the classroom" (Barnett et al., 2003). ). It is an activity that "allows students to work together for their own learning and that of others" (Johnson and Johnson, 1999 p.10). It is a group of teaching strategies that engage students to work collaboratively to achieve common goals (Eggen, 1999). It is an activity where the student learns, from the contribution of others, and from his; Interacting, in an organized way in the accomplishment of tasks or activities within the classroom. The objectives of cooperative learning from the contributions of Esteve J. (1997) are: To adequately distribute the success of providing the motivational level necessary to favor the active attitude of learning, to provide experiences of similar academic status to all students, to increase the sense of Responsibility, developing the capacity for cooperation and communication, improving the climate in the classroom, favoring the growth process of the student and the teacher. In a simple way, it is to train people capable of interpreting phenomena and events that occur around them in a cooperative way, learning.

FUNDAMENTALS COOPERATIVE LEARNING.

Cooperative learning has a theoretical-historical trajectory that is based on theories of social interdependence, cognitive development and behavioral development of learning. Participants need to be dynamic, so social interdependence determines the form of interaction in individuals. Positive interdependence promotes, encourages, and facilitates the efforts of others. If there is no interdependence there is no interaction, an important element for the development of cooperative learning. When the student works together with another in a common goal, he / she establishes a help of forces and rewards that help to be successful in the work or task in which they work.

Piaget argues that socio-cognitive conflict stimulates the ability to adopt points of view and develop cognitive intellect. That is to develop the intellect is needed of the social relationship. From Vigotsky's thought sustained in several of his works where he claims that knowledge is social "We must keep in mind mind. It arises and develops in the social process "(Rogoff B, 1993, p.37). Johnson explains it in this way "knowledge is something social and is built on cooperative efforts to learn, understand and solve problems" (1999, 24). The way to learn according to this theory is in a constructivist way, it is in relation to the others. Controversial theorists assert that when faced with opposing views, it creates insecurity and conflict. However the cognitive restructuring theorists that the student is able to cognitively restructure the material (Johnson 1999).

The impact is on the group's efforts, motivating students to learn based on the individual performance of group members, and there is the reward of working together. Slavin (1999) highlights the need to motivate people to learn in cooperative learning groups. The theoretical perspectives assume that the cooperative efforts are based on a motivation formed by interpersonal factors associated to the aspirations and the work together to reach objectives.

Characteristics of Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is not just about small groups. When mediating conditions are misplaced, it often falls into individualism. The basic conditions of cooperative learning are: According to Johnson (1999): clearly perceived positive interdependence; Considerable (face to face) promoter interaction; Personal and individual responsibility clearly perceived, to achieve group goals; Frequent use of interpersonal skills, small groups, for the achievement of success, they also affirm (Barnett, 2003; Eggen 1999). Positive interdependence plays an important role in cooperative learning. This characteristic properly refers to: "degree of emotional attachment between the members of the group that works cooperatively" (Huertas, 1991, p.127). Barnettt (2003) says that "Individual learning is not possible without the contribution of the rest of the group" (p. 93), the team gradually compacts itself as the activities and tasks to be done allow it . Individual responsibility requires that each member of the group demonstrate their skill (Eggen, 1999), because the efficacy of learning comes from a positive emotional relationship (Huertas, 1991). The student is rewarded for the achievements of the team and celebrate together what they have achieved. "There is interdependence when all students feel co-responsible for everyone's learning" (Pujolàs, 2001:76), and the positive interaction is: the student's responsibility for learning participation together with the team members. The face-to-face interaction facilitates the exchange of necessary resources and the processing of new efficient and active information, understood "as the encouragement given and the facilitation of mutual efforts to perform tasks in order to achieve the group's objectives" (Pujolàs, 2001: 77).

One of the purpose of cooperative learning is to make the person more solid in their rights. Individual commitment is key to strengthening "the goal is not only to achieve something among all but to learn to do it" (Pujolàs, 2001: 78). Put another way, "it is to prevent a member from working and relying on a person (Bernett L. et al., 2003: 94). Also each student can expect to be recognized for their personal efforts. Responsibility is individual and achievement is more than that, it is group. Success depends on the individual learning of all its members and be prepared to give a clear and concrete answer when the teacher can ask about the class or the subject "to ensure that all are prepared …" (Slavin, 2002: 36) . The teacher can ask the team to answer a question, and any of the students can respond. The formation of groups and change in them also has an important role to avoid getting stuck in them. "The formation of groups must learn to value individual differences" (Barnett, et al., 2003) One of the group objectives is to improve their future performance, the opportunity to take root in some behaviors and modify others, to be able to reflect on what they think, say or do (Pujolás, 2001). Another special feature of cooperative learning is its economy and its ease of use. "In its simplest form, all these methods require is for the teacher to form small teams of students, to give them material to study together, to evaluate the learning of The students and that give them some kind of recognition or reward based on the average scores of the team members "(Slavin, 2002: 11). At a given moment allows the economy in the teacher's lock, allowing him to use it to know the progress of the teams.

2.3. Classroom Arrangement

Space must be one more element of the teaching activity and, therefore, it is necessary to structure and organize it properly. We understand that the environment of the center and of the classroom is a very valuable instrument for learning, and that is why it has to be refl ected and planned for the teacher. It includes the architectural characteristics that should be at the service of the educational project of the center and its didactic models, although the reality is often the opposite, that is to say, it is the building that conditions the program and the activities, as well as the learning models . The team and teaching material are other important features in this area. Through the good use of these elements, it is possible to facilitate or hinder the attainment of the objectives, contents, attitudes, values that the centers propose (Gairín Sallán, 1995), making it an educational agent that invites certain Actions and conditions a certain type of social interaction (Laorden, C. 2001).

Understood from this perspective, space becomes a didactic factor since it helps us to define the teaching-learning situation and allows us to create a stimulating environment for the development of all the capacities of our students, as well as to promote autonomy and motivation Of the team of teachers. Any space in our school can be an educational space and, therefore, we must organize it consistently with respect to our projects and programs. Creativity can help to take advantage of common spaces such as corridors, corners, stairs, lobbies, patios or gardens which will allow us to establish spaces to exhibit, space for our things, to look, to discover corners of activities Different and workshops to experiment. In this way we multiply resources and expand their use. There is no reason why the classroom should always be the traditional fixed space. We can organize corners and educational spaces outside the classroom away from a boring, uniform, monotonous center, full of static spaces, the same year after year. We follow in the line of Gairín and Antúnez (1996) when they point out the adequate and positive that is to expose ideas, and works in the classroom and outside, since, they encourage their authors, they stimulate the rest of the students and teachers to put themselves in Activity and decorate the school by giving it a warmer, more personal atmosphere, considering aesthetics in all its educational value (Cela and Palau, 1997).

L. Casalrrey (2000) proposes three characteristics when organizing space: a) thought for children b) stimulating, accessible, fl exible and functional c) aesthetic, pleasant for the senses. On the other hand, Lledó and Cano (1994) indicate five principles for a new school environment in the classroom that are listed below:

1. The classroom should be a meeting place between one and the other.

2. They should suggest a lot of actions.

3. He must be open to the world around him.

4. It should be a cozy space.

5. Our class has to be a living place, a different place, with its own personality.

Space and its distribution is not something superfluous or merely decorative, but above all, it is a way of facilitating the achievement of the objectives for the students and adapting the methodology that we are currently carrying out. Consequently, the organization of the classroom is always related to concrete methodological options that can be stimulating or inhibiting the activity. As Moll and Pujol (1992) indicate, the methodological criteria that prevail in the educational project will be reflected in the environment and in the organization of the activity within the classroom.

The spaces of the educational centers must be essentially multipurpose and flexible in their use and fulfill a series of minimum requirements that the educational administration has legislated2. However, in addition to these minimum requirements we must take into account many other characteristics among which we highlight the following:

– Possibility of admitting diversified uses as well as changes in structures through movable partitions, curtains, screens, sliding doors.

 – Hygienic spaces, easy access, safe, well lit and whose color and texture contribute to create a pleasant, cheerful and warm.

– Well planned according to the type of activity that will be carried out at each moment, giving an individualized and adjusted response to the specific needs of the children.

– Spaces adapted to the characteristics of the people who live in them, facilitating access to those students with specific needs to move in the center with safety and clear reference points (eliminating architectural barriers and adapting furniture, lighting, textures, etc.)

– The materials must be seen properly from the height of the eyes of the children in their different ages.

– The educational material should be subject to the curricular project of the center and to the classroom settings.

– Both the furniture and the materials will have very planified their accessibility, care, maintenance, visibility.

The didactic experiences consulted in this sense show a diversity of criteria and approaches regarding the layout of the space, when and how to carry out the changes, decision making, selection of materials and resources. Some authors (Pujol and Mongay (1994), Cela and Palau (1997) point out that the distribution of the class should not be done by teachers but by the children themselves at very young ages (4 and 5 years). This will be the first collective activity to be undertaken at the beginning of the school year. They consider that it is easier to establish the class as their own place and see the possibilities of change and different forms according to the interests of the group throughout the course. In this sense Cela and Palau (1997) pronounce that democracy begins in the classroom making space and time are organized according to the needs of the students and not the other way around. Other authors, on the other hand, point out that the team of teachers should be the one who, in a coherent way, organizes the space of the center, by areas of knowledge, workshops, specialties and the students themselves to be transferred From one space to another (Viñas and Delgado, 1988) Another interesting perspective is the one that places more emphasis on the contributions that can be made by the entire Educational Community and on the fact that these decisions are reflected in the Educational Project. Finally, another criterion proposes spatial organization as an element that facilitates the treatment of diversity in any of its aspects: intellectual, affective, relational, motorist. On this subject Darder and Gairín (1994) raise the attention to diversity From two different and closely related approaches: a) the intervention of the teacher-tutor with each student in an individualized way according to the different needs and b) the establishment of organizational forms of the classroom and the center that make the attention to diversity something structured, accessible in a general framework for all students and their families, such as specific corners, workshops, etc.

NOTION OF SCHOOL SPACE

Space along with its physical, expressive and symbolic characteristics, have a communicative dimension (a language) that influences and regulates the behavior of children. We must consider space as an educational resource and as a basic aspect of the organizational quality of the center for two fundamental reasons:

For the importance of the interactions of the subject and the properties of the context in which it is situated.

For pedagogical studies that value the importance of discovery learning, the processes of cognitive self-organization of children and the indirect role in environmental management that the teacher exercises. The school space is a material element, a means that the centers possess and that can be defined as the continent and content of the different situations of teaching learning. Continent because it allows the teaching / learning process to be carried out in the interior. And content, because it conditions the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are imparted. In order for school space to be considered as such, it requires that it meet certain requirements, such as intentionality, structure (not limited to four walls), didactic-pedagogical approaches, as well as active subjects that lead them.

The school space is conditioned by two factors:

External factors: geographical location of the center, taking into account the climate, since it depends on orientation, lighting, ventilation, heating, materials to be used, etc. The number of students, the vegetative growth of the area, the economic factors, which limit, since it is necessary to find centers whose costs are low in the construction, maintenance and conservation; Acoustic conditions, access, evacuation plan, etc.

Internal factors: the educational center must have enough space in terms of quantity and variety to achieve quality training, taking into account the new didactic methodologies and advances; Has to provide spaces that facilitate and foster relationships among the different members of the educational community; It has to accommodate offices, management office, secretariat, tutorials, teachers room, classrooms, multipurpose room, gym, library, and so on.

Based on the above constraints, the school space must be: expandable (flexible in scope), convertible (allowing modifications so that it can adapt to the variety of situations posed by each school year and each group of students / As), multipurpose (that allows diversity of possibilities depending on the needs of each day), varied to guarantee the integral development of students and, at the same time, communicable to favor the exchange between all the elements that coexist in the center As I mentioned in Justification, spaces must respond to the characteristics, rhythms and needs of students and adults responsible for the teaching / learning process. Therefore each of the areas that are created must arise from the needs of the previously identified children, these being the following:

Affective needs: offering children physical and human reference points that provide them with security, confidence and stability. The child should find in the spaces a pleasant and welcoming climate, that invite him to stay in them and that allow him to show himself as he is.

Need of autonomy: guarantee spaces where the child can act freely without the need of the adult, eliminating architectural barriers. The materials should be available to everyone.

Need of movement: the child is active by nature, therefore spaces must be offered that stimulate the movement and help to enhance the motor skills; Open spaces and wide to be able to run and move freely to help you gain greater control and mastery of your own body.

Need of socialization: the child needs to relate and communicate with others, needs to establish links with equals and with adults, therefore we will plan spaces that facilitate different types of groupings: large group, small group, couples, individual. The organization of space should facilitate group work while allowing isolation, work and individual play.

Physiological needs: the center must have spaces that respond to the primary needs of hygiene, food, sleep, safety and comfort. The center should accommodate and respond to all of them by having areas suitable for it. Also create safe spaces, eliminating risks that could harm the child.

Need of discovery, exploration, knowledge: The child is enriched by the environment around him; Therefore, spaces rich in stimuli will be offered, which will enhance the exploration and discovery, allowing the child to learn to learn, enhancing the game since through it the child learns, discovers, grows and develops . In the end it is necessary to create different environments that allow an integral development of the individual, and that are protagonists of their learning.

CLASSROOM SPACE AS A PEDAGOGICAL DEVICE

The layout and organization of spaces is closely related to the pedagogical-organizational model. The space tells us in a visible way the pedagogy chosen by the teacher, serves as an evaluation tool for the Educational Project and Programming, in order to verify that the model proposed in it is the one being carried out, or If on the contrary there are contradictions between the declared and the practiced.

Marina Ballo (1985), published an essay in which it showed the relationship between the models of organization of spaces and the idea that the teacher has about their educational role. In this essay, we analyze and describe a typology of classroom environment in the nursery school, from a great work of observation, discussion seminars and interviews with teachers, we can extract three types of classroom-based organization.

The first is the one that has characterized children's school for a long time and which reproduces an atmosphere of a class that is governed by a traditional pedagogical model. The space organization of the classroom is characterized by tables in the central space, used interchangeably in all activities; By the teacher's table that reproduces the function of the old stage and by materials stored in cabinets arranged along the walls and that are not accessible to the child; Therefore, the use of the same is managed by the teacher / who decides the when and the duration of the same. This model of space distribution informs us of the pedagogical model used by the teacher, confirming that the child is not the main protagonist and that the child is not an active being in his / her learning. In this type of classroom social relations with others are not taken into account, since the only type of relationship exists is that of the teacher with the group-class, all do the same and at the same time, perform the tasks that the teacher Choose at any time. The negative repercussion that this model causes in children is the annulment of their desires as an individual. The space is at no time used as an educational resource to ask the students for initiative or to differentiate and personalize educational activities.

The second type of classroom space is a partially differentiated environment, in which some structured corners can be observed but without defining or defining well, the central area of ​​the classroom is occupied by tables in which teacher-led didactic activities , Occupying these the great part of the space. Therefore, the fundamental objective of why this distribution is to make the child work, play is only relegated to specific moments of the day, essentially for relief or for moments of transition. Most of the day is spent at the table seated and always the whole group-class performing tasks guided by the teacher. The game is never integrated into the project along with formal activities, as a method of developing linguistic, social and cognitive abilities. In this model, the observation acquires a punctual character and is not used as an instrument of formative evaluation.

The third and last model is characterized by a complete differentiation of educational spaces, presenting the classroom as a set of spaces in which in addition to game material, tables are placed. Therefore, they no longer occupy the central space of the classroom nor the largest space, but are decentered and differentiated by zones, thus serving (within the zones) for specific activities. Here spaces have a purpose, are educational resources, empower autonomy, exploration, learning, discovery, research. The areas are well separated and delimited by structures that prevent children from visualizing the others, also preventing them from disturbing one another. The game and the activities are both educational and are carried out in small groups, where cooperation, socialization and the construction of their own learning take a very important role. The corners are never used as an element of transition, they are static elements, spaces in which play, free or directed activities are developed that promote autonomy, socialization, movement, symbolic function, communication, and so on. The average educator in the learning by discovery that the child acquires, must be very attentive to capture and respect the needs, rhythms and characteristics of each of the students. This distribution of spaces favors autonomy and individualization, directly influences the quantity and quality of social interactions, being these in smaller and longer groups, helping to deepen relationships and links.

Therefore, after this analysis we can affirm that the distribution of space in the classroom is a clear mirror of the pedagogy that is applied in it and, of course, that influences directly in the integral development of the child, In the capacity of experimentation, investigation and exploration of the same. It even conditions communicative, relational skills and playful behaviors. Researches such as those by Manetti and Camoart (1987) have shown how the variation of the physical-environmental structure of the class by periods can facilitate the possibility of social relation between children and promotes new habits or styles of communication, besides Favor structured and cooperative games. The possibilities of developing diversified activities, individual or small groups that a correct distribution of classroom space guarantees, reduces aggressive behaviors, favors more individualized behaviors and relationships with both peers and adults and increases the ability to make autonomous decisions.

2.4. Effective and ineffective techniques in Classroom Management

Undoubtedly, the impacts on quality and equity of the subsidized education resulting from this initiative are mainly played in the relevance and relevance of the Improvement Plans that design and implement support and management for their schools. For this to happen, these proposals for change that involve the plans must be immersed in a global and comprehensive view that seeks to make each school an effective school. This is a formal socio-educational space that achieves an integral development of each and every one of its students greater than would be expected considering their previous performance and the social, economic and cultural situation of the families (Murillo, 2007). This is a no-nonsense challenge since it involves introducing radical changes into deeply rooted and institutionalized practices and processes.

To achieve this, it requires schools and their actors to identify what it is they must modify at the same time, to make visible the path or path that will make it possible (Jones, Jones, 2015.). In other words, one proposes that these Educational Improvement Plans be sustained and inserted in the conceptual perspective of "Improving School Effectiveness". In fact, this perspective, theoretical and practical, offers knowledge and strategies that together with pointing out what a school must change to increase school performance and ensure the integral development of each student, provides clear guidelines on how to do so. Thus, it is an approach that points out to schools and their actors the "where to go", along with "how to go" (Arends, 2014; Reynolds et al., 1996). It feeds and nourishes the knowledge and experience accumulated from two great and influential educational movements: School Efficiency and School Improvement.

The Contribution from School Effectiveness

The contributions of the school effectiveness movement and perspective have been especially relevant in demonstrating that the school contributes significantly to student development and learning and provides strong evidence regarding internal and external school processes and factors that enable students to learn and Develop the maximum of capacities, skills and attitudes citizens, considering the characteristics and social, cultural and economic situation of their families. From this perspective, learning and associated school performance are understood as a consequence of the articulation and interdependence of factors and variables of the student (including his / her home and family), the classroom, the school institution and the educational system.

Thanks to this type of studies, it is now possible to know what part of the students' performance is the responsibility of the school where they study and what part is the responsibility of their personal and family characteristics, or of the local and national context in which said school. Equally essential is their contribution in the identification of the factors that within the classroom and the school, are mostly associated with such performances or performances (Arends, 2014:99). It is this adequate identification and understanding of the factors involved, which allows intervention for its modification, so as to positively affect learning and school achievement. In fact, the vast production of studies and research on school effectiveness has allowed us to have solid and convincing evidence of the internal and external factors affecting school achievement and learning (Burden,2016) Among the main factors typical of students and their families are:

• Personal characteristics of the student: gender, being immigrant or native, or having a foreign mother tongue

• Socio-economic family situation

• Cultural level of the parents, especially since the schooling reached.

• Child labor

• Attendance to school

• Expectations about your future.

• Family support for the school process

• Attitude and motivation

Regarding the institutional factors, the following are involved:

• School climate

• Management leadership pedagogical leadership

• School infrastructure

• Human and Financial Resources

• Existence of school objectives focused on learning and school achievement. Shared Goals

• Teamwork

• Planning Culture

• Participation and involvement of the educational community

The important contribution of this perspective acquires its real meaning by showing that despite the weight and importance of cultural and family socioeconomic factors in the performance of students, the school is a relevant space for them to learn and develop fully. That they and the educational community have a fundamental responsibility so that children – regardless of the economic and socio-cultural characteristics of their parents – access to knowledge, learn and achieve results that allow them equal opportunities and social mobility. Today there is evidence regarding the magnitude of this contribution, but as much or more important than the previous one, is the contribution of this theoretical perspective to the interpretation and understanding of the effect of the school on the results and the school performance. The change that the school has to take to maximize its effect on learning and student achievement requires knowing the necessary dimensions of intervention and, within it, recognize the factors that are directly involved and directly involved for that school specific. In short, from this movement it becomes possible to have clarity about what children know and learn in school, as well as to identify factors specific to students and their families, the classroom, the school and the context that explain it .

Many of the studies that address School Improvement have been concerned with understanding what institutions need to improve and how this change occurs. Thus, thanks to the knowledge accumulated since the school improvement movement, we now have interesting clues as to how institutions should change to offer quality education. In this respect, the evidence provided by various studies and research (Fullan, 1972 -1991- 1998, Hopkins, 1987-1996, Hopkins and Lagerweij 1997) argues that:

The school should be the center of change. The adoption of innovation that implies change must recognize that school is a dynamic institution; that the subjectivity of its actors builds and validates the need for change and legitimizes or not results and processes. It is the school, in both structure and culture that initiates and constructs change.

The change that improves quality puts the focus on students learning, the school and the classroom. Change requires time and resources and must be a consequence of internal processes. Change always affects institutionalized and legitimized processes and practices. To produce changes in this sense requires time to achieve internal consensus and ownership of the innovation involved, as well as the resources and conditions for this to occur. Nothing imposed from outside is neither effective nor stable.

The educational communities that have succeeded in the undertaken changes, clearly recognize what must be changed and share the need to do so. From this common framework and validated among all, changes are organized, planned and prioritized according to the improvements to be achieved. The most important change that must be produced for school improvement is cultural. It must change the pattern of meanings and practices from which the role of the school is understood and assumed in the learning of each child and young person.

A school changes effectively when it changes practice and the teaching perspective. Improving education requires a double effort from teachers: to believe in the abilities of their students and assume that they as teachers have an essential and irreplaceable role in what they learn or stop learning each and every one of their students.

The change that seeks improvement must affect the form and dynamics of the participation of the educational community, especially of families and students.

The conduction and management of institutional management is of central importance to the change and improvement. Significant and stable change is sustained in a democratic and challenging leadership. Conduct that guides and promotes change in the responsibility and possibility of all and, in doing so, strengthens the practice of all. It is a possible task to achieve successfully when working in a team and among all.

The possibility and sustainability of changes require systematic processes and mechanisms of internal and external support and supervision. This underscores the importance of leadership and role played by administrators, supporters and supervisors of schools.

This is an integral and complex process that integrates decision, willingness, commitment with relevant action and shared responsibility. It affects knowledge, practices, judgments and prejudices, expectations and routines and must coordinate students, parents, teachers, directors, managers and administrators, as well as supervisors and technical and political actors at the intermediate levels of education systems. The innovation to be introduced must allow schools to become true learning communities based on a solid pedagogical and management autonomy that allows them to improve and sustain the quality of education. The improvement of the school is to stop looking at each area and actor separately, to assume that the magnitude and relevance of the change to be achieved is not only supported by good programs or improvement projects. This type of change will not be possible without the agreement and consensus of all; without the active and committed participation of each one; without there being a decision to improve professional practice and ensure it; without the will to want to recognize the own strengths and weaknesses as well as the others and without the validation of the systems and mechanisms (internal and external) to safeguard and to sustain the change reached.

The classroom factors validated by international research related to student learning (Gettinger, 1988) are: classroom climate, teacher engagement, teaching strategies, lesson preparation and organization, time management, attention to diversity, evaluation and monitoring, and expectations.

However, some authors (Reynolds, 1995; Stoll and Fink, 1996; Van de Grift and Houtveen, 2006) argue that ineffective classrooms methods are not simply "ineffective" but have characteristic elements that define them. Thus, based on a review of research, Sammons (2007) points out that there are seven elements that define and characterize the classrooms where students achieve the lowest results of what would be expected:

Generalized low expectations for the capacities of students, especially for those who come from contexts where the socio-economic level is low;

Emphasis on supervision and routine setting;

Poor teacher-student interaction;

The teaching methodology requires little participation on the part of the students;

Students believe that their teachers do not care about them, do not help them, or care about how much they learn;

Frequent use of critical evaluation

Use of negative feedback.

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CHAPTER 3. THE EXPERIMENTAL STAGE. THE IMPACT OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES IN DEVELOPING SKILLS WITHIN ELT

3.1. Pre-experimental stage. Basic tools and methods

3.1.1. The premise and the aims of the research

The main objective of the present research is to highlight the advantages and limitations of the methods in the formation and development of competences by English teaching – learning to the students at secondary cycle. Subordinate to the proposed goal, the pedagogical experiment will take into account the following aspects:

1. the efficiency that the use of modern educational means and implicit interactive methods have in teaching – learning English language at the level of secondary cycle;

2. the appreciation of the correlation between the systematic use of modern educational means and the improvement of the school performances of secondary students.

The general hypothesis can be formulated as follows:

• Using interactive methods systematically in the context of teaching-learning-assessment at the English Language discipline, one may observe a significant contribution to the improvement of the students' performance in the secondary cycle.

The approach of didactic activities in the experiment was carried out from the perspective of checking the specific assumptions in a derivation report with the general hypothesis.

Specific hypotheses:

1. The systematical use of interactive methods in the context of didactic activity influences significantly the formation and development of competences, the ability to understand and use the specific concepts of English Language in ways corresponding to the needs of individual life as regards the students in the secondary cycle.

2. The systematic use, in didactic activity, of modern educational means influences significantly the formation and development of the capacity to understand and use the specific terms and concepts of English Language as well as the ability to experiment and explore / investigate reality through the use of specific tools and procedures.

3. The optimal use of modern educational means, combined with interactive methods has a significant influence on the efficiency of didactic management in the secondary cycle.

Research objectives

The research objectives can be expressed as following:

• to participate actively and interactively in learning, to discover new knowledge in collaboration with other colleagues and under the guidance of the teacher;

• to discover, recognize and use correspondences and successions or phenomena associated with the given rules;

• to explore different ways of learning;

• to observe and denote the effects of phenomena and use a specific language in the description of various situations;

• to form a correct and efficient intellectual work style that they can adopt in their learning activity.

Research variables

In terms of the general hypothesis, the following variables have been set for this experiment:

– independent variable – this variable is represented by the design and development of learning activities based on modern educational means and, implicitly, on interactive methods, focusing on their systematic use in didactic activities;

– Ist dependent variable : level of school results obtained by secondary school students (grades A and B) at the English Language discipline;

– IInd dependent Variable: students attitude towards school and learning in the secondary cycle.

Major Research Coordinates:

The research took place between the 15th of November, 2016 and the 26th of May, 2017.

Sample of Participants:

– Experimental sample: Grade A, ……… School, name of the city, 19 students: 10 male students and 9 female students.

– Control sample: Grade B, …….Secondary School, name of the city, represented by 20 pupils, 8 boys and 12 girls.

The content sample was represented by:

• Curricular area: Foreign Languages

• Discipline: English Language and Literature

The learning units approached were:

…………………………………

…………………………………

3.1.2. Methods and techniques of investigation

The didactic methods applied in the context of present research have been selected so as to have the capacity to respond to the requirements of a pedagogical investigation, but also to prevent potential errors in investigation and processing of factual material. In this context, in order to confirm or refute the previously established general hypothesis we used a methodological system made up of the following methods:

-the method of the conversation

-the method of systematic observation;

-the method of analyzing the products of the activity;

-the case study method

-the method of the medium-term psycho-pedagogical / didactic experiment. This experiment was carried out in stages, according to the following phases: the pre-experimental phase, the experimental phase and the post-experimental phase.

The observation method is used to investigate and collect the experimental data according to the requirements of the type:

• formulating the exact purpose of observation,

• drawing up the observation plan,

• recording the data in a proper manner (video, audio, or classical),

• classification,

• comparing,

• reporting

• Data interpretation.

Observation can be spontaneous, scientific, exploration-oriented and experimental. This is one of the main methods of direct investigation, manifesting itself in the form of a systematic act of careful follow-up of the educational process, under certain sides, without making any changes from the researcher. The natural observation can be undertaken in parallel with the current activities, the observer's teaching staff giving him the opportunity to consider the quality of the activities carried out by the pupils, the frequent errors in solving the various problems, the typical situations in which one manifests indiscipline or inattention. In the context of this method, the observed data is immediately recorded, without the pupils becoming aware of this. In this respect, we used the observation sheet on the basis of which we prepared the observation protocol. The data gathered, after being ordered and interpreted, gave me a primary orientation on the subject of this research, as well as some methodical suggestions useful for the next stage.

The method of conversation involves the discussion of the teacher's framework, whose role is that of the researcher and student, respectively the subject investigated. This method allows direct observation and direct appreciation of the pupil's inner life, the intentions behind his behaviour, as well as the opinions, beliefs, attitudes, aspirations, interests, conflicts, prejudices and mentalities, feelings and values ​​of the pupil.

The advantage of this method is that it allows the collection of numerous, varied and valuable information in a short time and without the need for special materials and equipment. Organized from an intellectual and affective point of view, but also its placement at the optimal moment of teacher-school relations, the method of conversation made possible the emergence of the moments by which the children remained close to me. According to the particularities of the secondary school students, we organized conversations that were meant to invite intimacy and relaxation, but at the same time, to the continuity, in order to record the child's livelihoods. During the process of the conversation, I did not write down anything about the children's approach, but later on I formed the protocol of the discussion. The disadvantage of this method derives from the possible failure of the subject's receptivity, its subjectivity, and in this respect it is necessary for the data to be completed and verified by other methods.

The case study method involves presenting the case, analyzing it, proposing solutions and testing them, applying the optimal and efficient solution. The "case study" method refers to individual behaviour throughout the social framework, focusing on data analysis and on their unitary presentation as relevant variables necessary for understanding the knowledge.

On the whole, one may consider that we have used a category of methods for describing and measuring the various aspects and manifestations of the pedagogical act in the current context. The fundamental aspect of the tools included in this group is the recording of data and findings after they have occurred. Thus, it is possible to obtain an inventory of these data which will allow the diagnosis of the manifestations and, implicitly, the improvement of the educational activity.

The method of analyzing school activity products. In terms of this method, it is possible to research the pupils' school performance and the various activities it involves. The analysis of the activities products carried out by the students gave me some important clues about the characteristics of observation, the ability to observe, understanding and mental development, the volume and accuracy of knowledge, the ability to put them into practice, general and special skills, general and specific creativity saddle. Of particular importance is the analysis of the products made by students in their leisure activities.

They show the motivational orientation characteristic of schoolchildren, as well as the interest they have in studying Romanian language and literature.

Research Tools

In order to get information about the pupils' personality, their level of knowledge and skills, their behaviours and their involvement in the educational process, we used as research tools:

– pedagogical knowledge tests;

Most of these instruments have been taken over and adapted to the content of the pupils, the particularities of the pupils and the objectives in question.

3.2. Experimental stage. Testing

The initial stage helps to establish the level at which pupils are at the moment of initiation of the psycho-pedagogical experiment, both in the experimental sample and in the control sample.

Table 1

The results obtained at the initial test by the experimental sample

The results are distributed as following:

Average at the class level is of the form: (1×0+2×0+3×3+4×1+5×5+6×3+7×2+8×1+9×0+10×0):15= 5.20

Module (the most frequent mark) is represented by mark 5

Table 2

Nominal table with the scores obtained at the initial test by the experimental sample

Analyzing the results obtained by 15 of the 19 pupils of the grade A, respectively the experimental sample, at the initial test, we can say that the module at the group level is 5, 11 grades being scored over the mark 5. In the same context, one may observe a grouping of marks on a fairly large segment.

Observing the graph above, there is a lack of 1 and 2 marks which suggests that the tendencies of promotion are increasing, but there is a deficit of 9 and 10 marks that suggests the poor involvement of pupils in the teaching-learning process. Also, since no student has fully achieved the objectives proposed by the didactic approach, it is easy to understand that success can only be achieved in the future by longer training and by giving more attention and importance to the discipline.

Table 3

Results obtained at the initial test by the control sample

The results are distributed as follows:

Average at the class level has the following form: (1×0+2×0+3×2+4×3+5×3+6×2+7×3+8×2+9×2+10×0):17= 5,88

Module (the most frequent note) is represented by the marks: 4, 5 and 7

Table 4

Nominal table with the marks obtained at the initial test by the control group

According to the graphs and tables above, the representative sample of the control group ranges around marks 4, 5 and 7. In this context, in the grade B there were 12 marks over 5, also observing here a grouping of marks on an extended segment. Also, the fact that marks 1 and 2 are missing suggests an upward trend in the promise of the initial test, but on the other hand, the absence of the mark 10 can be attributed to the lack of student concentration. Under the same aspect, no student has fully achieved the objectives proposed by the didactic approach.

According to the results obtained by the students of the experimental and control groups, the following measures for optimizing the didactic approach can be considered:

• Returning with additional information in the field where a deficit is found

• To propose new exercises and text that pupils should analyze from this perspective

• Insisting on resolving exercises of the type corresponding to the initial test

Observing the structural diagram of the averages obtained at the level of the two classes in the context of the initial test, it is noted that the control group is relatively higher compared to the experimental group. One may observe in this context an initial phase of the finding, also known as the initial test, the context in which the starting dates were collected, the level existing at the time of initiation of the secondary experience with which the English language teacher works. Interpreting the results and the information obtained from the pedagogical knowledge test, the analysis of the pupils' products, their systematic observation and the learning outcomes, one may found that there are no very large differences regarding the two samples, as the above diagram emphasizes.

In the context of administering the initial test at the level of the two samples, the following general and specific competencies are noted:

General, social and civic competencies

1. Receiving the written message, from literary and non-literary texts, for various purposes;

2. The correct and appropriate use of the English language in the production of written messages, in different contexts of realization, with different purposes.

Specific targeted competencies

1.1 reading a variety of literary or non-literary texts, demonstrating the understanding of their meaning;

1.2. Recognizing the specific modalities of organizing the different types of texts and;

1.3. Knowing the correctness and expressive value of the learned grammar and lexical categories in a text;

2.1. Expressing in writing their own opinions and attitudes;

2.2. The correct and nuanced use of learned semantic categories;

2.3. Use varied modalities for expressing the text.

3.3. Post-experimental stage. Evaluation/Conclusions

The final experimental stage of this research was the administration of a final evaluation test, the subjects being the same for both classes, experimental and control ones. Subsequently, the results recorded in this context were compared with those obtained from the initial assessment.

As far as the evaluation of the results is concerned, it was possible with the help of the notes, to set the total score for each item. The next step was to compare the results obtained by each class in terms of comparison charts and those that reveal the structure.

In the context of the final stage, the following general and specific competencies were considered:

General, social and civic competencies

1. Receiving the written message, from literary and non-literary texts, for various purposes;

2. The correct and appropriate use of the English language in the production of written messages, in different contexts of realization, with different purposes.

Specific targeted competencies

1.1 reading a variety of literary or non-literary texts, demonstrating the understanding of their meaning;

1.2. Recognizing the specific modalities of organizing the epic text and the expressive procedures in the lyrical text;

1.3. Knowing the correctness and expressive value of the learned grammar and lexical categories in a text;

2.1. Expressing in writing their own opinions and attitudes;

2.2. The correct and nuanced use of learned semantic categories;

2.3. Use varied modalities for expressing the text.

Table 5

The results obtained at the final test by the experimental sample

The results are distributed as following:

Average at the class level has the following form: (1×0+2×0+3×0+4×2+5×0+6×1+7×6+8×3+9×1+10×2):15= 7.26

Module (the most frequent note) is represented by the mark 7

Table 6

Nominal table with the marks obtained at the final test by the experimental class

Based on the graphs and tables representative for the results obtained by the experimental sample at the final test, it can be stated that the module was around the 7th mark, and in terms of the degree of advancement, this is a good one, 13 marks being recorded over the 5th mark. As well as in the case of the final test, a grouping of marks on a quite stretched beach is noted. In the same context, none of the marks 1, 2, 3 and 5 were recorded, and two pupils with mark 10 achieved the objectives that were initially proposed in the context of the didactic approach.

Table 7

Results obtained at the final test by the control sample

Table 8

Nominal table with the marks obtained at the final test by the control class

Analyzing the results obtained at the final test by the control sample, there is a presence of 14 marks over the 5th one. In this context, the module is represented by mark 5, observing a grouping of marks on a large beach.

Also in the case of the control group, marks such as 1, 2, 3 and 10 are missing, which means that none of the grade B pupils have fully achieved the objectives proposed during the didactic approach.

In this context, the main measures for optimizing the didactic approach at both levels are:

• Return with additional information

• To identify gaps in the context of the teaching-learning process in which pupils should be involved at maximum capacity

• Insist on solving the exercises similar to the ones received by the students at the final test

Observing the structural diagrams of the averages obtained at the level of the two samples in the context of the final test, it is noted that with respect to the experimental group, the average is higher compared to the control one.

The analysis and interpretation of the data and implicitly, of the obtained results suggests the presence of a positive trend aimed at improving the school results of the secondary level students in favour of both experimental and control samples. Moreover, this trend can not be exclusively attributed to the psychic and physical development of pupils, which is why we can assert that the initial hypothesis is confirmed. Using the interactive methods and techniques, both individually, by group and frontal, is the following:

• children have the ability to learn new knowledge with ease;

• the students' confidence in their ability to decode and comprehend the content, both individually and at group level, is observed;

• students show an increasing desire to be involved in the learning process and show no signs of fatigue as they engage willingly, freely, consciously, learning logically and actively;

• children have acquired a tinted language and enriched by various teaching methods;

The data suggests that there is a positive trend in improving student outcomes in favour of the experimental sample, in terms of transforming the teacher-student relationship into a democratic one, aligned with modern standards. Thus, students at the secondary cycle enjoy effective communication based on cooperation, mutual help, initiative and freedom, thanks to the factual methods used by the English teacher.

In this context, it can be said that the present study was a real challenge for me, in terms of an opportunity to study both the literature and the psycho-pedagogical type, to enrich and deepen my knowledge regarding interactive methods and phenomena characterized by complexity, but topical and vital for the future. In the case of the two samples studied in this research it was found that in the first experimental phase, the differences between the average are statistically relative, the balance inclining towards the control sample, but as the experimental intervention is unfolding, one may observe remarkable differences between environments, on this occasion favouring the experimental group. This is due to the fact that the dynamics of the school performance, which the experimental group follows, contributes to the decrease of the difference between the media to the inflection point, after which the difference between the averages in favour of the experimental sample follows an ascending trend.

The qualitative and quantitative comparative approaches between the two groups (experimental and control) reinforce the assertion that the ascending evolution of the school performance of the experimental sample is strongly influenced by the final experimental intervention.

CONCLUSIONS

The experimental investigation supports the intention to verify the extent to which the use of interactive teaching methods and of the modern educational means in the teaching of English Language and Literature in the secondary classes has a particular influence on the achievement of the students' superior performances in terms of the positive impact these methods especially in the field of effective and conscious learning, but also as regards the intention to identify the limits of the use of these methods.

The research deals with a current issue, framed in the new orientations of contemporary pedagogy, aiming in particular at replacing the grading methodologies and differentiating ones that support the individualization and the personalization of the educational process, offering equal opportunities to all students regardless of their level, thus promoting various methods with a high training potential that can lead to the optimization of the action taken by the students in the context of their own learning.

The approach taken in the present research presents clarifying and argumentative aspects, supporting the idea that the interactive methods promoted systematically and with pedagogical relevance in didactic activity have positive effects on school performance at the level of secondary classes.

Appreciating the results obtained from the investigative approach, it can be confirmed that the teaching of English Language and Literature to the secondary classes using modern educational means and interactive methods has significant positive effects, both in the formative segment and in the information plan.

The design and development of the pedagogical experiment was carried out from the perspective of optimizing the teaching and learning process of the English Language and Literature in the secondary classes, the exigency of the systematic use of interactive methods regarding the formation and the development of the fundamental competences, in the dynamics of school performance segment. The pedagogical intervention was carried out in the context of the English language didactic activities at the level of the A and B grades. The two samples (experimental and control) were selected according to the methodology of pedagogical research while respecting the compatibility with the various requirements imposed by the objectives and the hypothesis of the formative experiment.

With regard to the content sample, its delimitation was possible by the potential of capitalizing on the formative valences that modern and interactive didactic methods have, appreciating also the extent to which the content contributes to the learning and development of the understanding, using the concepts and specific terms of the discipline of study, exploration and investigation capacity of reality. Thus, the content sample covers a significant part of the contents of the Engish Language.

The formative experiment was the fundamental stage of this pedagogical research, at which level the didactic activities did take place at the secondary classes, according to the intervention project. The processing and interpretation of experimental data, referring to specific hypotheses, makes it easier to outline future conclusions.

Using interactive methods makes it possible to create a logical and natural chain between old and new knowledge; didactic units are not separate sequences, but they are interconditioned in a training situation, contributing to an optimal understanding of them, as they capitalize and activate the previous knowledge of students.

As expected, conducting this experimental research has given me the opportunity to see new perspectives, address other possible themes or subtopics, set new objectives and, implicitly, distinct working hypotheses, use innovative assessment tools and advanced data analysis techniques. In the same context, the process of collecting and analyzing data has given me the opportunity to know the various limits of research.