Chapter 1 Classroom management: Teaching mixed-ability classes

Teaching style
Firstly, it is helpful to reflect on the way that we conduct our classes. Think about your normal teaching style for a moment. Does it communicate (intentionally or otherwise) that you expect all the students to ‘know the answers’? Feedback sessions, in particular, can be daunting for lower level students who may not have been able to complete all the answers. They are often conducted in a ‘ping-pong’ style, where questions are aimed at individual students one at a time, putting people on the spot and often resulting in one or two stronger students dominating. Instead, you could display the answers on the board and get students to check in pairs, taking off the pressure to need to know all the answers and boosting everyone’s confidence.
Variation
Secondly, consider the style of your classes in general. How much variation is there? This could mean variation in the demands you place on students: level, pace and amount of work. How about your classroom organisation? Is it very teacher-fronted (ie. teacher stands at the board all the time, communicating that you are the only source of knowledge?) Activities can be organised in different ways as well- a balance between group work, pair work and individual work is beneficial as different learners work best under different circumstances.
Individualisation. Individualisation could mean giving learners a choice– a choice of how fast to work, where to start, when to speak and when to listen. Often we teach in a way that shows we expect all students to work at the same speed, pace and level. Rather than telling students to complete the answers one by one, why not allow them to begin where they like and complete the questions they know the answers to? And in place of setting a certain amount of work to be completed, you could set a time limit, meaning each student can achieve as much as they are capable of.
Collaboration
A mixed group of students provides so much scope for peer learning! You can maximise on this by allowing students to work together, in groups and pairs. Collaboration lends itself well to activities that involve recalling/brainstorming. For example, if you want to revise vocabulary related to a particular topic that you taught previously, put students into groups of 3 and ask them to see how many words they can remember together (add a time limit to make this more competitive!) Working together removes the feeling of a hierarchy which may be off-putting or discouraging.