Teaching english to multilevel classes

2.2. Using Self-Access Materials
What makes strategic interaction special is that a group of students who are often at different English levels—rather than an individual—is assigned each role in the interaction.
While only one student from the group will act as speaker during the interaction, which usually happens at the front of the class, everyone in the group is responsible for deciding what that person says during the dialogue.
The group discusses together what the speaker will say together in a cluster—like team members in a football huddle—and then makes a plan for the interaction including brainstorming phrases and responses that might be used. After this, the chosen speaker moves to the front of the room to act as the quarterback, tossing out the words and ideas that his or her group came up with together.
In addition to having a role, each group also has a secret goal to accomplish during the dialogue which often conflicts with the goals of the other groups. Students must continue the dialogue, the speaker often coming back to discuss ideas and plans with his or her group and then returning up front, until all the roles in the dialogue can come to a compromise.
First of all, it is flexible. You can tailor the topic and the roles to the skills and interests of your students.
You can take breaks as a class. Once the role play with the designated speakers has gone on for a while—or if it seems like the students hit an obstacle, ran out of ideas or otherwise got stuck—you can pause the interaction and have the speakers return to their groups for a team pow-wow. There they can discuss more ideas, approaches, vocabulary and phrases.
The best English interactions are based on real-life situations. This means you can choose or design your role play based on what your students are learning. They can then use the specific vocabulary and/or grammar they are learning in other aspects of class. Plus, they will get great practice for situations they will encounter with real-world language use.
Everyone participates at their language level, and no one is left out. More advanced students can represent the group in the dialogue while less advanced students can contribute their ideas in the safety of their small group—not always in front of the class. Errors in the smaller group will not be as public or as noticeable and therefore speaking will be less intimidating for your beginners. At the same time, everyone assists with the dialogue and watches the role play unfold, so they feel like they are part of everything.
Different level students work together to accomplish a goal. Lower-level students will improve their language just by interacting with higher-level students. Higher-level students will be able to encourage and assist lower-level students, since they have navigated those waters in the past.
Strategic interaction is communicative. It is not just going through static exercises but instead requires students to use English to accomplish a goal.
Students must work together to accomplish that goal. Goal-oriented work is more like real language use and will prepare students for what they will do with English outside of the ESL classroom.
Finally, strategic interaction encourages higher-level thinking. You will help students develop skills which are useful for speaking English and beyond, such as problem solving, negotiating and compromising.