Content Introduction Chapter I. Planning a comprehension instructional sequence lesson

Chapter II. Strategies for teaching mixed ability classes

1. 
   Teaching students who are clearly of different levels.
   

Some useful strategies for managing mixed ability classes are listed below: Supportive learning environment – It is important to create a supportive learning environment in the classroom, where learners feel confident and able to perform to the best of their ability. Classroom management – By managing classes effectively, teachers can ensure that learners will be involved as much as possible in the lesson. Classroom management techniques include organising the classroom layout for maximum learning potential, involving all students, learning and using learners’ names, teachers cultivating a positive attitude through their own attitude to the class, praise and encouragement, grading and using relevant teacher talk, using the board effectively and managing learning activities by giving good instructions, asking concept checking questions, using pair and group work, setting time limits, monitoring the activity and including feedback on the activity. Learning to learn – Teach learners about different learning styles and the different learning strategies for visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners. Teach learners how to be resourceful so that they know where to find help if they get stuck. Provide learners with the goal for the lesson and encourage learners to review and assess whether they have achieved the goal by the end of the lesson. Variety – Vary topics, methods of teaching, focus, materials and activities. Variety will generate learner interest and motivation; and lessons will accommodate different learners’ levels, abilities and learning styles. Grouping – Use a range of interaction patterns in class. Learners should work in groups, pairs and individually. Groupings should be changed often, thereby giving learners an opportunity to work with different learners. Pace – Teachers must be mindful of the pace of their lessons. Teaching a class too slowly or too quickly may lead to boredom or frustration. A teacher must be aware of his/her learners’ abilities and pitch the pace of the lesson accordingly. Interest – Teachers need to make the lessons interesting in terms of content, topic and activities. To find out what interests the learners, teachers could find out what interests the learners outside the classroom, allow learners to share their interests with the class through project work and personalization activities, such as ‘show and tell’, or allow learners to chose the content, topics or activities for lessons, where appropriate. Collaboration – Getting learners to work together and cooperating has a number of benefits for the learners and teacher. Learners develop their learner autonomy and learn from their peers, rather than always being reliant on the teacher. Learners who collaborate on tasks learn how to compromise, negotiate meaning and develop self-evaluation skills. Collaboration tasks can involve project work as well as pair or group activities. Individualization – Hess describes individualization as ‘providing opportunities for students to work at their own pace, in their own style and of topics of their choosing’. Individualization can be promoted in the classroom through portfolios, self-access centres, individualized writing or personalised dictionaries. Personalisation – Ur suggests including activities which allow learners to respond personally. Such tasks increase learners’ motivation and interest as they are based on something the learners have experienced and can relate. Blooms taxonomy – Make use of higher order thinking skills by providing learners with problem-solving, analysis, evaluation and synthesis activities, rather than only comprehension tasks. Open-endedness – Open-ended activities allow learners to respond to tasks and questions which have a variety of possible answers rather than one correct answer. Open-ended tasks allow learners to perform at their level of ability. Such tasks include sentence completion activities, story completion activities, brainstorming, writing own definitions for words, answering questions in a range of ways. Compulsory plus optional tasks – Ur suggests learners are assigned compulsory tasks with additional materials should they finish the core tasks. By setting compulsory plus core tasks, all learners are engaged and can feel a sense of achievement when completing a task. Adapting materials – Course books are designed for a particular language level and do not offer much flexibility. As a result teachers may need to adapt the materials to make them easier or more challenging. Homework – Homework is an excellent tool to provide learners of all levels and abilities with an opportunity to review and consolidate the material covered in class. In reality, every class can be described as a mixed ability class as it is made up of learners who are different in terms of their knowledge and ability. This article aimed to outline mixed ability factors and the advantages and problems associated with teaching mixed ability classes. Studies have shown that teachers who view their learners’ differences in a positive way and embrace strategies for teaching mixed ability classes are better equipped to teach in mixed ability classroom contexts. You may often be teaching a class which has students who are clearly of different levels. They may have different starting levels of English or they may learn at very different speeds - for any number of reasons. These are several strategies that a teacher can use to deal with this situation. This is the first of two articles on the topic.
The second article covers. Range of tasks Extra work / Homework Student nomination. Supporting the weaker students Error correction. This first article deals with the following strategies.
Discussion and needs analysis
Student self-awareness
Work groupings
Discussion and needs analysis. It is easy for students to get frustrated in a class of mixed ability. Stronger students may feel held back, weaker students may feel pressured. The teacher may feel stressed. The best solution to this is to have an open-class discussion about the classroom situation - to ensure the best for everyone it is better to acknowledge the situation and for everyone to agree how to deal with it. It is probably best to stage and structure the discussion. Needs Analysis
Use a needs analysis to prompt the students to reflect upon their learning style, learning strategies, language needs, learning enjoyment, motivation, language strengths and weaknesses.
Questions that might be included are...
What kinds of class activities do you enjoy / benefit from?
Which language skill do you most wish to develop?
Do you prefer working individually or with a partner?
Would you rather sit and listen to the teacher all lesson or participate in group work? Students compare their answers in pairs or small groups. You should collect the information and prepare a statistical representation of the key questions and answers. This will help to develop the sense of shared community in the class.
Explain and discuss
Explain the mixed-level situation to the students and give a list of possible approaches to the teaching and learning. In pairs, the students rank the approaches/ideas according to their suitability for the situation. Following feedback, you should highlight the strategies you plan to use. A student contract. Developing with the students, or perhaps writing it yourself, a contract of behavior for activities is a useful device. 'I will help and support my activity partner.' 'I will participate in group work.' Tell them what you are going to do If you think your students are not mature enough to carry out this kind of reflection, explain the situation to the class and tell them what strategies you will be using. If students know what to expect, you can hope that they will cooperate. All of the above work could be done in the mother tongue, although I feel it is best done primarily in the target language (as it draws attention to the fact that this is a learning language issue.) Student self-awareness. Encourage students to develop an awareness of their own language abilities and learning needs. What are their strengths and weaknesses, and how can they focus on these? How can they measure their own progress. This may take the form of a learner's diary, regular self-assessment, keeping records of mistakes, keeping a record of things learnt. Work groupings Varying the way students work in the class will help meet the variety of levels in the class. Pair work You can pair strong with strong, weak with weak, or strong with weak. Perhaps in a very controlled activity, the strong with weak will work well. In a freer activity, perhaps strong with strong will be of benefit. Variety in the pairings is the key here - and you should also be sensitive to the general relationships between different students, and learn to note who works well with whom. Group work These groups could be of mixed levels or similar ones. The hope is that in a smaller group, the weaker student will feel more able to contribute. Also, if the group is working with a set of information, divide the information between the students, forcing them to work together. You may consider dividing your class into groups by level for the whole lesson, enabling you to give a different level or number of tasks to each group. Discussion of this strategy with the class should help prevent stigmatization. Whole class – mingles. This is a favored strategy of mine. A mingle activity involves students talking or interacting with many different members of the class in a short period of time in order to achieve a task. This means that any one student will work with students at different levels - experiencing stronger and weaker levels of communication. This supports the weaker students and provides opportunities for the stronger ones.
A classic activity is a 'Find someone who...' In this activity the student has to survey the class to find people who…(for example)
…have got something - Do you have a CD player? Or…
…have done something - Have you eaten fish and chips? Or…
…like something - Do you like tennis?
If a student answers yes to a question, then the other student should ask for more information. If a student answers no, then the other should find a new person to ask, and may come back to the first student with another question later on.
The potential for this is endless. It is a great way to provide practice of a particular language structure/area (10 questions all using the past simple) and provides controlled practice as well as the opportunity for further freer discussion. It also creates a lively classroom dynamic. Mingles can take many forms - students may have to find the person who has a matching word to theirs, or the second half of a split sentence. The students may all have the same or different questions, or a mixture. The key is the general principle of an information gap or communicative need. Overall, variety in the types of working groups, and an open discussion of the class situation will help to deal with some of the difficulties that are present in mixed ability classes. The aim of these strategies is to create a positive working environment, which is all part of ensuring better learning.
This is perhaps the most common case where students of various levels are placed in the same class. By advanced classes, most students will possess a similar core knowledge of English. But in a beginner class, some students will have never studied the language, while others might have spoken English at home or with friends. A student interested in the language might have studied it on their own by watching English media. These activities will put some students far beyond their peers, even though it’s their first year studying English in school. Lack of resources Especially with smaller language schools, sometimes there simply aren’t enough teachers or classes to place students in their exact level. A school might only have two classes: beginner or advanced. A general school might not have the time or resources to test students and place them in an appropriate level. Instead, they’ll place students of the same grade in the same class. There are many levels of language learning, so in institutions with less resources, teachers often have to cover a wide range of students in one class. Natural student variations. Even in an advanced class, there are some students who naturally grasp English and others who struggle greatly. Because of these natural variations, there will always be some students more advanced than others. It’s important to be able to teach various levels at once so that no student is lost or bored. What is the challenge of simultaneously teaching ESL students of different levels?
A multi-level class poses many challenges, not only for the teacher, but also for the students! Students bored or lost Whether you’re aiming your lessons more for the beginner or for the advanced student, you’re bound to lose someone! If you spend time teaching the beginner basics such as, “Hello. My name is…,” the advanced student will be bored out of their minds! But if you teach the advanced student the difference between “they’re,” “there” and “their,” the beginner will be completely lost! It’s hard to find a happy medium with vastly different-leveled students. Students not learning. Being bored or lost eventually defeats the entire purpose of a class: to learn. Teaching the basics means the advanced student isn’t learning anything new, just hearing what they already know. But teaching more difficult topics means the beginner isn’t learning those basics that will allow them to progress. A conundrum indeed! How will you even go about planning a lesson for this multi-level class? You’re only one person! You can’t teach two things at once! Do you resign yourself to the fact that you’re simply going to lose someone? Or is there a way to include everyone? What are some resources that can help you teach different levels of ESL students? FluentU. This English Educator Blog has great resources for teaching all levels of English and mastering the art of differentiation. And the FluentU English teaching program itself is designed to handle this sort of situation, with a variety of videos and exercises at different difficulty levels and built-in scaffolding. Plus, you’ll be able to track the progress of each individual English student as they journey through their chosen videos and exercises. Test levels of English. The Cambridge English exam will allow you to accurately gauge the English level of each student in your class. Webinars on mixed-level classes. The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language offers many webinars, some of which are specifically about teaching mixed-level classes, such as “Practical ideas for teaching mixed level groups” by Agi Orosz. Check them out! Differences in learning styles. North Carolina State University has a useful study on learning styles called “Understanding Student Differences” by Richard M. Felder and Rebecca Brent. Strategies for mixed-level classes. AP Central has an insightful article on teaching combined-level classes called “Strategies for a Combined-Level Language Class” by Keiko Abrams, Michiko Sprester and Yoko The Top 5 Ways to Teach Different Levels of ESL Students in the Same Class Not to worry, you don’t have to clone yourself to be able to navigate this difficult situation! Even in a less-than-ideal mix of students, you can still find ways to engage them all. Don’t worry about planning a “perfect” lesson; just do the best you can. Since you can’t be everywhere at once, have your students help one another by placing them in an effective seating arrangement. Seat the advanced student next to the beginner. This way, the advanced student will be able to help the beginner. By forming these pairs, you’ll be able to include more challenging material in each lesson because your students can help each other. The advanced student will learn more too by having to explain what they know to the beginner. If you have some students who are at an intermediate level, seat them together. You can’t individually help each student throughout the lesson, but your students can help each other so that everyone understands the material. You could also place students in a small group of four or five. In each group, you can have at least one advanced student and at least one beginner. You can divide your students into groups by their English level. You could simply do beginner, intermediate or advanced based on your initial interaction with your students or the quality of their first few assignments. You could also test your students to get a more exact level, using a test such as the Cambridge English exam. TESOL, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, divides students into five levels based on these standards. You can divide your groups as officially or unofficially as you choose. But same-level groups will help you to address the same level of student all at once, which will allow you to give level-specific assignments. Even if you’re teaching from a specific book or workbook, there are always ways to expand an assignment to challenge the students who need it. Beginner Start any assignment with the lowest level student in mind. If your class includes a few students who don’t know any English, then make sure your assignment starts at a beginner level so that they can learn the basics. Perhaps your book has a lesson on basic conversation. This is useful information that every English speaker must know. They have to know “hello” and “goodbye” before they can discuss business negotiations! Don’t skip these basics just because some students will be bored; instead, expand these basics for those at a higher level. After covering the basics, make the assignment a bit more difficult for students at the next level. Any student who already knows basic conversation can do something more challenging than the original assignment. Teach them a few colloquialisms to complement the basics. Have them write down at least 3 ways of saying any basic conversational term. For example, “How are you?” can also be “How’s it going?” or “What’s up?” or “What’s going on?” or “What’s new?” To motivate students, you can even offer extra credit to those who complete the more difficult assignment. To challenge this group, you can make the assignment even harder. If they already know basic conversation and colloquialisms, have them write a conversational script for a certain scenario that you will give them. For example, you could have two advanced students write a script that shows business colleagues greeting one another and making small talk outside of work. This will challenge them and teach them a specific conversational tone. You could even have them perform the skit for you to practice their pronunciation! By taking one assignment and adding onto it, you can ensure that the basics are taught and more advanced students are appropriately challenged. This is important in any class because there are many types of learning styles. But this is especially important in a multi-level class so that no one is left behind. You can start your lesson by giving the information verbally. Even if you have students who don’t understand much English, it is helpful for them to get used to hearing a native speaker. They’ll gradually be able to pick out words and understand sentences. If you know your class has beginners, make sure to speak very slowly and to pick out important terms. For example, if they don’t understand very much, you can repeat a key word a few times and have them say it too. Maybe you said the sentence, “I want you to finish this for homework” and you want them to become familiar with the word “homework.” Repeat this word as you say the sentence and make sure they know its meaning by motioning to the worksheet or by having a more advanced student translate. This way both beginners and advanced students can benefit from hearing you speak. A chalkboard, dry-erase board or overhead projector is very important because it will allow students to see the lesson. Some students simply learn more visually. This is useful for both beginners and advanced students. Beginners need to become familiar with spelling, and while they might struggle to understand what you’re saying, seeing the word will allow them to learn it. But this will also help advanced students, especially those who have learned English by speaking it at home, but have not learned proper spellings. A beginner might need to see the word “homework” so that they can look it up in the dictionary and memorize it. An advanced student might need to see the word “homework” because while they know the word, they might be inclined to spell it as “homwirk!” English spelling is difficult to learn, so it will help all levels of learners to see and write the words. You can use visual aids to help your students or even have your students show something by acting it out! For example, if you’re teaching sports, you could bring in some different equipment from each sport like a soccer ball, basketball, baseball, football and tennis ball. By showing the equipment when saying the word, beginners will be able to understand it. You could quiz your class by holding up a ball and having them name the sport so that your advanced students can practice their pronunciation. You could even have students act out the sports and guess which one it is. This encourages student participation and makes the lesson more meaningful to all levels. Games are a great way to involve all levels of English learners. Even a game geared towards beginners can give advanced students a chance to practice speaking and listening. Plus, all students are more likely to learn when they’re having fun! Choose teams strategically. Make sure that one team doesn’t have all of the advanced students while another team has mostly beginners. Everyone will be challenged and included when the teams are mixed. You could let students choose teams too by selecting team captains and having them alternate picking teammates. The teams will likely be mixed because advanced students will probably be chosen first and then beginners, so each team will get some of each level of student. Games help students learn by requiring active participation. You could even offer an award for the winners, like a point of extra credit.