There are two types of loud classes – those who are unruly and out of control and those who are excited about learning and deeply engrossed in an exciting activity. With both classes, it is important for a teacher to be able to quickly calm the students and move on to the next activity. This can be done without speaking a single word.

In fact, speaking to the class will often have the opposite effect as students will raise their voices to continue to be heard over the teacher. Instead, a teacher should silently signal to the students that it is time to quiet down and move onto another activity. There are several ways to do this.

1. Turn off the lights, or flick them once to get the students’ attention.
2. Raise hand in a quiet signal and wait for all hands to go up and mouths to shut.
3. Clap a rhythm pattern for students to echo clap in response.
4. Utilize another quiet signal the students are familiar with.

Once the students have been signaled to quiet down, it is vital that the teacher wait. It may take 5 minutes, but it is important that students realize that they need to be quiet and settle down on their own. As more students calm down, they will help hush those students around them, especially if the time it takes for the class to quiet down is banked educational time that is then taken back from recess.

*Additional note from Anonymous*

I use a quiet signal in my classroom and it works really well. I challenge students to beat their quiet time and within the first week of school my students are usually all quiet within seconds of receiving the signal. This allows me great opportunity for extra instructional time and the students really like the challenge.

Related posts:

1. How to Calm Students Down
2. Speak Softly
3. Behavior Plan: Raise Hand to Speak
4. Music in Classroom Management
5. Bad Classroom Management Example