Bullying in the TESOL Classroom

This chapter aims to provide an overview of the nature, prevalence, and impact of bullying in the classroom. Bullying is a frequent experience for many students and is associated with a range of negative outcomes, including poor mental health and poorer academic achievement. As a social justice issue, bullying can be a meaningful and engaging topic to discuss in a TESOL class and can provide students with the necessary language skills to talk about and report the behaviour. Teachers, therefore, play a crucial role in teaching about bullying alongside identifying and managing bullying behaviour. This chapter equips TESOL teachers with an overview of contemporary research on bullying. It begins with a discussion on the definition of bullying before providing an overview of research on the nature and correlates of bullying behaviour. Issues specific to the TESOL classroom are also highlighted. An overview of managing and intervening in bullying is then provided. The chapter ends with a consideration of how action research can be used in the classroom to tackle bullying, and a research proposal is provided. The aim is to equip TESOL teachers with appropriate strategies to identify and manage classroom bullying behaviour.