Teach English in Guang'Anmennei Jiedao - Beijing

Classes of mixed ability It is not easy to find one single definition for the term ?classes of mixed ability?. In fact, all teaching at school could be considered as mixed-ability teaching since the moment a teacher has responsibility for teaching more than one child/student at a time. However, thinking not exactly about individual differences, but about the level of the language in general, classes of mixed ability could be the ones where students? level of the language is different. These differences could be caused by several reasons: a) A group has been formed of different people working for one company; b) A group has been formed of different people by their own choice, e.g. they decided to take a course in English; c) Two different classes with few students could be joined in one in small rural schools; d) students of one and the same class could be with different attitudes or motivation and hence different language levels. It is easier for the teacher to split up such a group and make two groups with similar abilities, but it is not always possible, so the teacher has to face the challenge to work with a group of mixed ability. The first thing after testing the students and realizing their differences in the levels of the language is to decide whether to highlight these differences and split the students into two separate groups or plan the lessons and activities in the way students even do not notice they are different. For the teacher it could be easier and less time consuming if the students were split into two groups, whereas students would certainly feel better not knowing they are weaker than others. Because even a strong and capable student could end up with a failure through negative labelling and low expectations. Therefore it is always better to keep the knowledge of the students? levels to him/herself (in case all the students are in one group), but while planning and organizing the lessons be aware of these differences. When teaching speaking it is essential to give lots of guided and controlled activities in the beginning to develop confidence and self-assurance. When organizing pair work it is advisable to pair weaker students with stronger ones in the beginning, but later make pairs of students with similar levels. In this pattern stronger students will help the weaker ones, but later they will enjoy their ability to speak with an equal partner. Weaker students will benefit from talking to stronger ones, but later being paired with similar students they also will be able to carry out a proper conversation. While teaching reading, texts of different levels of difficulty could be given. E.g. if the topic is ?Natural disasters?, the students of higher level could work with an authentic text from a newspaper or a book while weaker ones could be given the same text, but adapted. As a result, the whole class work on the same topic, read the same text, do the same exercises, but at different levels. In some cases exercises also could be differentiated. Teaching listening, the exercises should be different as the listening text itself would be the same . E.g. the weaker students are given the words in jumbled order for a gap filling exercise while the stronger ones have to hear and understand the right words themselves. Weaker students could be given the task to hear and understand different numbers (years, dates, measurements etc.) while the stronger students should understand the idea. Teaching writing is a bit easier because basically it is an individual activity. While planning and learning, working in groups and doing exercises, all students could work together, when writing a text everyone would do it individually. In that case the teacher assesses the students? final work according to their level of the language. Teaching grammar is hard job at any level. In classes with mixed ability weaker students should be given lexically easier exercises while teaching the same grammar theme. E.g. learning passive constructions the sentences for weaker students could be like ?Peter draws a picture.?, whereas for stronger ones they could be more difficult like ?The police regularly chase the criminals in this area.? The same system could be applied while teaching any grammar theme. Finally, a very important issue is evaluating and assessing the development of the students in a mixed-ability class. The teacher should be aware of the progress of each individual student because it is essential to support every student and provide them with equal opportunities to develop their knowledge of the English language.