How to teach heterogeneous groups

What is mixed ability?

—  Jim Rose, teacher, says “Students who used to be split according to their abilities into ‘streams’. And now they are mixed together in one class. There are good students, average students, and bad students”.

—  Penny Ur (2006) says is a group in which children of varied abilities are taught together rather than being set apart in groups according to level.

Some Problems of Mixed Ability Classes

—  Effective Learning: “I can’t make sure they’re all learning effectively: Is the tasks I provide are either too difficult or too easy for the student?”

—  Participation: “I can’t activate them all: only a few students – the more proficient and confident ones – seem to respond actively to my questions.”

—  Materials: “I can’t find suitable material;the textbooks are homogenous aimed at one kind of learner, with no options or flexibility.”

—  Discipline: “I have discipline problems in these classes; I find them difficult to control.”

—  Interest: “They get bored; I can’t find topics and activities that keep them all interested.”

—  Individual awareness: “I can’t get to know and follow the progress of all the individuals in my class;there are too many of them, and they’re all very different!”

—  Error Correction: “I can’t keep up with the marking load.”

Some teaching solutions

•      Vary your topics, methods, texts.

•      Make activities interesting.

•      Encourage collaboration (maintain students’ engagement to do collaborative activities).

•      Individualize (by doing individualize activities, learners learn at their own pace and choose their tasks or materials)

•      Personalize (involving students’ own ideas and experiences to add interest).

Adapting Materials for Mixed Ability Classes

There are some questions to consider when preparing your lesson:

—  Is the activity approriate for the age group?

—  If not, how will I bridge the gap?

—  What’s the point of the activity?

—  What will students be learning?

—  Should I explain to the students why we’re doing the activity?

Textbook materials are very often need to be adapted and suplemented for heterogeneous classes in order to add variation and interest, in order to get more collaboration and participation.

Variation for Teaching

—  Topic

—  Skill (reading / writing / listening / speaking)

—  Active / reflective

—  Organization (teacher-led, individual, group/pair)

—  Level of difficulty

—  Speed

—  Material (board, improvised, course-book, visual materials)

To Get Learners’ Interest

—  Topic

—  Meaningfulness

—  Personalization

—  Task-based

—  Game-like     

—  Visual materials

—  Aesthetic aspect

—  Entertainment: humor, drama

—  Music / rhythm

—  Open-ended cues

Encourage Collaboration

Learners work together in order to get better joint results than they could on their own.

Advantages:

Peer-teaching

Educational implications

Feeling of teamwork

But:

What about those who prefer working on their own?

Does it hold up the faster ones?

Designing own activities – “Say Things About a Picture”

“How many things can you think of that are...?”

bicycle

because                     people

chocolate                                           pencil

friend              money

girl                                                                   walk

English

Not all tasks work as collaborative activities.

Some tips:

•      Pair work usually works better than group work.

•      Make sure the task is such that it is likely to be better done by the group / pair than by an individual (e.g. peer editing)

•      Allow individuals to work on their own if they prefer.

Doing Your own Thing – “Metaphors”

What is the best metaphor for an English lesson?

A variety show                                   A conversation

A menu                                               Consulting the doctor

Eating a meal                                    Doing the shopping

A football game                                 A symphony

A wedding                                          Climbing a mountain

‘All Children are born with potential and we cannot be sure of of the learning limits of any child’

(Robert Fisher, 2001:1)