Mixed
abilities
What
and why?
All
classes are 'mixed ability' classes. All classes consist of individual
students with different personalities and interests. All students
also, themselves, have 'mixed abilities'. For example, some students
may find writing easier than speaking, or vice versa. Some students
find one particular task or approach more appealing than other tasks
or approaches. It is also important to distinguish two aspects of
'ability': language ability and language-learning ability. The first
aspect refers to how much language the students actually know/understand
at a particular point in time. The second aspect refers to their
ability to learn. A student may be weak in English, for example,
but given appropriate support may be able to learn quickly. This
suggests that some 'mixed ability' classes may be the result of
particular approaches to teaching (the ability to learn or the ability
to be taught?). For this reason, teachers need to adopt a flexible
methodology that allows for a variety of learning styles and abilities
(see LEARNING
STRATEGIES).
Practical
ideas
-
One key principle in teaching mixed ability groups is transparency.
Try to make sure that all students understand what is happening
in the lesson, for example by OVERVIEWING
before beginning a lesson or a new task.
- There
are a number of ways in which you can approach teaching groups
of mixed language and learning ability: (1) stronger/average/weaker
students can be given completely different tasks at different
levels of difficulty; (2) students can be given tasks on the same
topic at varying levels of difficulty (see below); (3) students
can be involved in OPEN-ENDED
TASKS which allow them to respond at their own level of ability.
In principle, approaches (2) and (3) are better, since they avoid
students feeling left out. Approach (3), additionally, allows
students to develop more freely without being restricted by the
tasks themselves.
- To
provide tasks at varying levels of difficulty on the same topic,
text, etc., think about how a task can be made more challenging
or how more support can be given. In the teaching notes for most
of the Units there are ideas for making these kinds of adjustments
to the key exercises in the Units.
- At
the back of the Teacher's Books, there are additional photocopiable
Language worksheets for each grammar point in the Topic
and Language Units.
- The
TIME TO SPARE?
exercises at the end of each Topic and Language
Unit provide further tasks for varying levels of ability.
- DECIDE
... EXERCISES encourage students to make choices about what
they need to do and to work at their own pace.
- In
GROUPWORK, try
to mix students so that students of all abilities can work together.
- See
further ideas under LISTENING,
SPEAKING, READING
and WRITING.
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