The Unteachables Podcast

#83: How to craft a strong teaching presence that transforms those constant low-level disruptions (almost like flipping a switch, no exaggeration!)

• Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 83

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In this episode, I’m diving into one of THE most transformative strategies for managing low-level disruptions—almost like flipping a switch. I'll explore how your teaching presence, especially through non-verbal communication, can significantly shift classroom behaviour. It’s not about doing one thing—it’s about everything you do.

Listen in as I discuss:

  • What even is a strong teaching presence?
  • Understanding the power of non-verbal communication in classroom management
  • The difference between "credible" and "approachable" teacher presence and when to use each
  • How small changes in body language, tone, and stillness can immediately impact behavior
  • Practical examples of adjusting your teaching style for better student engagement
  • The importance of aligning your body language with the expectations you set for students

This episode is packed with actionable strategies that can transform how you manage your classroom. If you’re tired of the constant chatter and low-level disruptions, listen in as I share the non-verbal techniques that changed everything for me—and they can for you too!

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Speaker 1:

Oh, hi teachers. Welcome to Unteachable's podcast. Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the Unteachable's podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship, all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support? I've got your teacher friend. Let's do this. Hello, wonderful teachers, welcome back to another episode of the Unteachables podcast. It is so lovely to have you here.

Speaker 1:

A couple of episodes ago I spoke about it was episode 81, if you want to go and listen to that I spoke about the three common mistakes that fuel low level disruptions, and I mean like common common mistakes. I have observed many, many lessons in my career and these common mistakes happen almost every single time. I observe anybody's lessons, so it was really worth going back and listening to that episode. But this episode I wanted to talk about the flip side. In that episode I do talk about some immediate fixes, but this episode I really wanted to focus on how to. It's like the flick of a switch and I would not say that lightly something that is like a flick of a switch when it comes to transforming the low level disruptions in the room and it is how we kind of craft our strong teaching presence. What I want to say first is that it's not just one thing that we need to do. It's not one strategy necessarily. It is everything that we do. But in this episode I wanted to give you a few nonverbal nuggets that you could take away that really will start to transform things for you and to start to craft that teaching presence. But yeah, just to caveat that there is so much more to it and it is so much more nuanced than this and it's not something that I can convey in a single podcast episode. I've got a whole course around it.

Speaker 1:

But I really did want to talk about something that changed my life as a teacher Again, not something that I would say lightly, but it really did change my life and it was my understanding around nonverbal communication. It all came from the Envoy training that I did and that sparked it for me and Envoy, which is Michael Grinder's I'll try to get this right educational nonverbal yardsticks, and there's like a reason why it's called the yardstick thing, but it was the thing that sparked for me this kind of aha moment around. Oh, my gosh, there is so much about classroom management that I don't know. There is so much that I'm bringing to the table that I have no awareness of. There is so much that I have control over in my classroom that I had no idea that I had control over, because I need to be able to have control over myself. So it really became this huge foundation in my own work that I've been able to hone and adapt and mesh together with a bunch of other stuff across different contexts and environments. So it has just been revolutionary for me, just even the idea that nonverbals are something that we need to be super aware of and craft and be strategic around and to give you a little bit of insight into these things and kind of start your journey around it if you haven't started that yet, or strengthen your journey if you have started that journey.

Speaker 1:

I want to take you back to I think it was my second year of teaching when I did Envoy and I talk about this story in my book as well. So if you have read my book, that's why it might sound familiar. In my second year of teaching I had you have like six classes, seven classes, eight classes however many classes you have in secondary but I had two, like I had a lot of classes, but these two classes I'm talking about were at the opposite end of the spectrum. I had this year eight class that was the bottom class and don't get me started on like the top and bottom classes and you know all of that kind of stuff, but I had this year eight class that was the lowest class on paper. And then I had this year 10 class that was the top class on paper.

Speaker 1:

So naturally, as an English teacher I was really excited for the year 10 class and I was dreading the year 8 class just a little bit. Remember, I was very early in my career. I didn't have a lot of skills and I didn't have a lot of experience and all the rest of it. I was so excited about this year 10 class. I just imagined us sitting there and talking about literature and how exciting the books were, that we were reading and you know all of the things that an English teacher would just froth over. And I was so excited. And then they lived up to my expectations at the very beginning of the year. The year 10 class Brilliant, so great, it was so exciting, I was doing such good work with them.

Speaker 1:

The year eight class horrible, it was horrific. I'd go into the go into the staff room, I'd lay on the floor my friend Karen, I would call it liquefying We'd sit at the desk and then we just slowly just sink off our chairs onto the floor, very unprofessionally during meetings, might I add, that's what we do. We would just be so exhausted after classes like this. But year eight class challenging. Year 10 class brilliant.

Speaker 1:

But then, yeah, for some reason things started to swap and I started to look forward to teaching the year eight class and I started to dread teaching the year 10 class. I'm like what is happening here and it happened so incrementally and just subtly that I just had no idea what had happened, what had changed. Did the classes change? Did like what had gone on here to make this year 10 class the class that I absolutely love teaching that were, on paper, supposed to be the top class on paper, supposed to be the well-behaved class on paper, supposed to be the class that had the least amount of classroom management issues, with what has made them now more challenging than the year eight class. That was supposed to be the class that was the most challenging, that was supposed to be the most disengaged To be able to explain what was happening in the classroom with these two classes.

Speaker 1:

By the way, I was not able to explain this at the time. It took me many years to be able to reflect and explain what was happening in these two classrooms, but to be able to explain that we have to understand the nonverbal approaches that we can flip in between when it comes to teaching our students. There are two kinds of ways that we can show up. There are two kinds of teacher personas that we can embody, and both of these, in teaching, have a very important time and place. But it's about balancing them. I spoke about it in one of my episodes the pendulum that we swing between. I think I spoke about it last episode when I was talking about the teacher quiz. But there's this pendulum that we have to swing between, between two styles of nonverbal communication. They are the credible style and the approachable style. What was happening and I'll go into them a little bit more in a second.

Speaker 1:

But what was happening was that in the top class, in the year 10 class, because of my expectations around the students, because I was treating them differently, I was leaning more on the approachable, I was leaning more on the friendly, the casual, the chatty, you know, and they were the top class. They were super chatty and loud and without me holding those reins and leading them, they were just all over the place. It's not that I wanted to be their friend, I wanted to just build rapport and I was super inexperienced in doing this. And if you listened to the last episode as well, you'll know that I am a dynamic teacher and if you've done that teacher quiz you'll know. But I am a dynamic teacher in nature.

Speaker 1:

So I was trying to engage these students through my verbals, through my voice, through projecting that voice, and I was getting increasingly flustered and I wasn't able to embody the calm and the quiet and the credible to be able to bring that back in. So I was very inexperienced in doing that. But what I was naturally doing with the year eight class is because I expect them to be more challenging. I was embodying more of the credible. Naturally, I was doing this. I was really trying my very best in that class, without knowing this, by the way, so it wasn't perfect, but I was trying my very best at it. I was trying to embody more of a credible persona.

Speaker 1:

So, for example, and imagine, this is like watching a split screen on the left-hand side, you've got my year 10 class. On the right-hand side, you've got my year eight class. Imagine that I'm walking into both of these classes. This is how I would give instructions in the approachable and the credible. I might've walked into the year 10 class and gone hey, everyone, look up at the board. I've popped up what you're doing for the, for the. Do now for the lesson, jot it down in your books, and I'm going to give you three minutes to do that. I might be leaning against the desk, I might be walking around and like saying hello to some students. I am much more approachable in my body language. I am much more loose with my movements. I'm not embodying a credible teaching persona. And now look onto the right-hand side of that split screen and you'll see me walking into my year eight class. I'm walking straight, I'm walking slowly. I'm talking slowly. I'm talking with less up and down intonation. So this is how it sounds like with my year eight class. Okay, year eight, if you draw your attention up to the board, there's your lesson objectives. I'm going to give you three minutes to write those in your books. Before we get started, I'll pop a timer up on the boards. I'll be standing there still. I'll be watching the students get started.

Speaker 1:

I was, and that wasn't perfect because I would use a lot less verbals than that now, but that is what I was doing with year eight and I was embodying the credible. My movements were slower, my volume was quieter, my pace in everything I did was slower, actually. But not only was that language different, the intonation was different. It wasn't welcoming further discussion. It wasn't inviting silliness or playfulness. It was steady, it was slow, it was different. It wasn't welcoming further discussion. It wasn't inviting silliness or playfulness, it was steady, it was slow, it was calm. I was mirroring to my year eights the vibe that I wanted. I was mirroring to them.

Speaker 1:

I am being a credible teacher, whereas with the year 10 class I was, you know, having a chat. I wasn't leading that room in the way that I needed to lead it. I was really being approachable. I was just having a chat, like I am with you now. Then, along with the way that we say things, what goes along with this is your actual body language. So again, look at that split screen. Look at me with that year 10 class. The approachable teacher is bouncy and bubbly and I use a lot of open and friendly hand movements. But then go to the year eight split screen.

Speaker 1:

If you're wanting that calm environment that reduces low level behaviors, you need to practice stillness. So in that year eight class I was steady, I was still. I was pausing next to the board. I'd be using my presence around the room and standing behind certain students. I was naturally trying my best, without having the actual, explicit skills to be able to do this, and I was doing that because I thought in my mind, if I give an inch, they'll take a mile. So I really need to be boundaried in this classroom. I was different with them, naturally without being cognizant of it.

Speaker 1:

So when I fast forwarded a term and I had utter chaos in my year 10 class, every single lesson, and I was in there bouncing around hey, everyone, you know, stuff's up on the board. I was sipping my coffee, I was flopping around from person to person and then in my year eight class, I was handing the page out of the door go sit down, get set on you do. Now, when I was getting them standing up row by row and sending them out of the room, I was embodying the credible in a way that I didn't realize I was embodying. So the second I did this training, I remember going, oh my God, this envoy training. I remember the penny dropping and going, oh my gosh, this is what I've been doing, this is where I've been going wrong. And I remember intentionally then using my non-verbals, with that year 10 class and the one pivotal moment in my career. I will never, ever forget this moment.

Speaker 1:

I thought, okay, I'm going to line this year 10 class up outside. They've never done this before. We're one term in. They usually sprint inside, grab whatever chair they want, sit there, have their energy drinks, talking to each other. I thought I'm going to change this. I need to do something different. So I lined them up outside.

Speaker 1:

I stood there, I lined them up, I adopted a credible stance, I adopted a credible voice. It felt weird, it felt unnatural. One of the kids even said to me Miss English, what's wrong with you? Why are you acting like this? But very, very quickly, just by me embodying the credible, by me using my gaze, by me using my presence, by me using my stillness, they very, very, very quickly fell into line with what I was needing them to do. I sent them one-to-one into the lesson and, with me saying barely anything at all, they sat down quieter than I had ever seen them in my life, just by changing the way that I was standing, speaking, waiting and breathing, like I will never forget that moment.

Speaker 1:

Because that was the moment I thought and I don't want to swear on this podcast because I've kept it clean for 80 something episodes but I thought oh, my effing, this is changing, this is like, this is the next phase of my career, this is, this is life changing, this is a game changer in a way that I never imagined. So remember, I spoke about that pendulum, that pendulum between the approachable and the credible. Both are important, and I spoke about that a little bit on last week's episode of the podcast as well, when I was talking about the teacher personas, because, as a dynamic teacher, my pendulum is always swinging towards the approachable, when I needed to be swinging it towards the middle, where I was balancing at the right times strategically, the times where I was credible, which is when I needed attention, when I needed students to be working independently. And then the approachable, where I was having a chat with them, when we were having a more relaxed activity. Maybe we're doing a group activity, whatever we're doing, but really balancing those two teacher non-verbal personas. That is something that is going to change the low-level behaviors that you see in your classroom. But, as I said in the start of the episode, it's everything that we're doing and if they aren't coming on board, still, if you're trying the approachable and the credible and they're still not coming on board, it's not because you're doing anything wrong. Necessarily. It's because there's so much more to it.

Speaker 1:

I go into each of these in more depth and detail and strategy in my low-level behavior bootcamp, which is currently open for enrollment if you'd like to join, on top of many other things that I go into, and I also apply them to three specific roadmaps. So setting a class off on independent work, bringing a class back from whole class chaos and then putting out individual spot fires. But here are a couple of nuggets. I obviously can't go through all of that on the podcast, we'd be sitting here for three hours and I wouldn't have the visuals or the resources or anything to actually get you to hardwire that properly. But here is a couple of nuggets that really can change the game for you.

Speaker 1:

The first is ask yourself and I ask myself this every single lesson is if things are going awry. I always ask myself this is what I am asking of my students right now in alignment with or contradicting the message I am sending through my body language, for example and this goes into the mistakes that I spoke about two episodes ago, those three big mistakes we all make Because, for example, if you're expecting your students to be quiet but you're still talking over them, you're never going to get them to listen to you because you're sending messages that what you're saying isn't important. You're sending messages to get them to listen to you because you're sending messages that what you're saying isn't important. You're sending messages that it's okay to talk, as you're reinforcing that for them, and sometimes we really shoot ourselves in the foot and, by the way, that is all happening without you realizing it. That's not a conscious decision that you're making. Sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot by just not mirroring our expectations and it just totally undermines our own efforts.

Speaker 1:

You could be doing a million things right, but you do this one thing and it could undermine everything and make things 50 times harder. You could have the most brilliantly planned lesson, you could have wonderful lesson design, you could have wonderful pedagogy in so many other areas, but if you do this one thing, then it could really undermine all of the wonderful things that you've done and make things very hard for you. So please listen to that episode a couple of episodes ago about the mistake, the common mistakes that we all make in the classroom, because those little tweaks could even just those three little tweaks could make a huge impact in your classroom management. The second thing I just want to say is the pause is important.

Speaker 1:

I know that sometimes waiting for complete silence before you start, even start your lesson, feels like an eternity, but, as I just said, if you don't wait and you talk over the low level disruptions, you are giving students the message, or sending the messages, that whatever you're about to say isn't important. They don't need to be a part of it and it doesn't matter, especially if it's those students that are sitting up the back there and they're used to being the students who things. You let things slide, because it's such a battle, it's such a hill that you just don't want to die on. But pause, wait, be still. Use that credible stance up, straight looking around the room, using your gaze, breathe. Use a hand up and wait for everyone else to. You know, pop the hand up as well if that's your thing. But eventually they will learn your nonverbal language and they will become better at it and they will know that you're always holding that boundary. And if that doesn't work, then there are roadmaps that you can follow to then address those individual students.

Speaker 1:

But as a general rule, the pause is so important and not teaching over the chatter is so important. Honestly, I use these things every single lesson the approachable and the credible. I use the pause. I use the rest of the P's in the toolbox Every single lesson and with almost all behaviors low level, high level, everything in between. It is the bread and butter of how I address most things and once you get this in your arsenal, it is golden. So please go and try, just become really conscious. Am I being credible or am I being approachable? What am I embodying in this classroom right now? And once you get that. It is absolutely transformative for your practice and I can't wait to hear you go out in the classroom and try that and feed back to me how it's gone.

Speaker 1:

And if you do want to come and learn the whole approach, you can come and join me for my Level Behavi behavior bootcamp. I'll drop that link in the show notes or it's the-onteachablescom forward slash LLBB for low-level behavior bootcamp so you can go have a look there. And because you've listened right to the end of this podcast, you can get 20% off. Just use the code podcast20 at checkout and I'll knock 20% off your enrollment. Because I just want to say thank you for being here with me on the podcast, because if you're here listening, that means that you are absolutely dedicated to changing your practice and that is not something that I take lightly and I really hope to see you there and until next week.

Speaker 1:

Oh, actually I have one little other announcement. I'm floating the idea of doing a second podcast episode weekly, just like a really short five minute episode. I love that. I say floating the idea of doing it. I'm not floating it with anyone except my own brain. I'm a one woman, but besides my husband that does the uh, the odd video editing every now and again for my courses, bless you. So shout out to my husband If you're listening, you're not listening. I don't think you choose to listen to my voice any more than he has to. But I don't know what it's going to be called yet or when it will start, but a five minute shorty episode that would just be based around a really quick win. So you might see more than just one a week and that will be very exciting. We'll see what happens there.

Speaker 1:

But I just wanted like a different episode where I just did like a really quick win that you could take into the classroom and then apply. I actually wanted to call it SHIT. That works, but, as I said, like this is a clean podcast. I don't know if I want to go there, but we'll see. I am vibing that name. I don't know why I'm still talking. Have a lovely week and I'll see you next time.

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Claire English

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