While teaching young learners, teachers often have to face discipline problems. Students do not always follow the rules, tend to talk to their friends during a lesson or play with different toys and objects. Such behaviour leads to chaos and disruption in the classroom. In order to solve these issues and motivate children to participate in the activities, many teachers decide to use punishment and reward systems, which may take forms of pluses and minuses, extra marks, stickers, motivational stamps or sweets. There usually is some improvement in children’s behaviour, but the effect is often temporary. Motivational systems have a number of other disadvantages as well. The article presents the issue of discipline in the young learner classrooms and describes the concept of motivational systems with their advantages and disadvantages. Alternative ways of maintaining discipline and enhancing students’ motivation are discussed.
