The use of students’ name cards in large classes

Abstract

In teaching classes of 80-120 learners, teachers may be worried about controlling and managing classrooms, communicating with students, and attracting their motivation and interest. One idea to address these problems is for students to wear cards during classes; such cards contain information including students’ names. This article reports on a questionnaire survey that investigates students’ attitudes towards the use of name cards to examine whether they can facilitate classroom management. The subjects were in four large classes: Classes A and B, with name cards, and Classes C and D, without name cards. In the two former classes, based on the information on their cards, the students had to sit in the same place throughout the semester. The findings show that, at the end of the semester, the students with name cards, to some extent, felt that the use of such cards had made them more alert in class and had facilitated classroom activities, including the formation of groups; moreover, they reported that the cards had helped them make new friends.