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Recent demands for more standards-based teaching can feel like a huge impediment to encouraging differentiated instruction, especially for teachers and principals who recognize student variance and want to address it appropriately. A relatively new phenomenon (at least in its current form), standards-based instruction dominates the educational terrain in a time of great academic diversity in contemporary classrooms. In fact, standards-based instruction and the high-stakes testing that drives it can often feel like a locomotive rolling over everything in its path, including individualized learning.

When any phenomenon in education suggests that we may have to jettison common sense and good pedagogy, we must first examine it in light of what we know about high-quality instruction. In other words, if we understand how standards-based teaching does or does not align with sound teaching and learning practices, we can then approach what look like barriers to differentiation. In truth, the conflict between focusing on standards and focusing on individual learners' needs exists only if we use standards in ways that cause us to abandon what we know about effective curriculum and instruction.

Differentiation: A Way of Thinking About the Classroom

Students who are the same age differ in their readiness to learn, their interests, their styles of learning, their experiences, and their life circumstances.

The differences in students are significant enough to make a major impact on what students need to learn, the pace at which they need to learn it, and the support they need from teachers and others to learn it well.

Students will learn best when supportive adults push them slightly beyond where they can work without assistance.

Students will learn best when they can make a connection between the curriculum and their interests and life experiences.

Students will learn best when learning opportunities are natural.

Students are more effective learners when classrooms and schools create a sense of community in which students feel significant and respected.

The central job of schools is to maximize the capacity of each student.

By definition, differentiation is wary of approaches to teaching and learning that standardize. Standard-issue students are rare, and educational approaches that ignore academic diversity in favor of standardization are likely to be counterproductive in reaching the full range of learners.

Differentiation must be a refinement of, not a substitute for, high-quality curriculum and instruction. Expert or distinguished teaching focuses on the understandings and skills of a discipline, causes students to wrestle with profound ideas, calls on students to use what they learn in important ways, helps students organize and make sense of ideas and information, and aids students in connecting the classroom with a wider world (Brandt, 1998; Danielson, 1996; Schlechty, 1997; Wiggins & McTighe, 1998).

Differentiation-one facet of expert teaching-reminds us that these things are unlikely to happen for the full range of students unless curriculum and instruction fit each individual, unless students have choices about what to learn and how, unless students take part in setting learning goals, and unless the classroom connects with the experiences and interest of the individual (Tomlinson, 1995, 1999). Differentiation says, "Building on core teaching and learning practices that are solid, here's what you do to refine them for maximum individual growth."

We first need to ask, Is a given teaching or learning approach likely to have a positive impact on the core of effective teaching and learning? When we are content with the answer, we can ask further, What is the effect of the practice on individuals in an academically diverse population? The latter question always helps us refine the effectiveness of the former but cannot substitute for it.

Standards-Based Teaching

For many teachers, curriculum has become a prescribed set of academic standards, instructional pacing has become a race against a clock to cover the standards, and the sole goal of teaching has been reduced to raising student test scores on a single test, the value of which has scarcely been questioned in the public forum. Teachers feel as though they are torn in opposing directions: They are admonished to attend to student differences, but they must ensure that every student becomes competent in the same subject matter and can demonstrate the competencies on an assessment that is differentiated neither in form nor in time constraints.

Do the standards reflect the knowledge, understandings, and skills valued most by experts in the disciplines that they represent?

Are we using standards as a curriculum, or are they reflected in the curriculum?

Are we slavishly covering standards at breakneck pace, or have we found ways to organize the standards within our curriculum so that students have time to make sense of ideas and skills?

Does our current focus on standards enliven classrooms, or does it eliminate joy, creativity, and inquiry?

Do standards make learning more or less relevant and alluring to students?

Does our use of standards remind us that we are teaching human beings, or does it cause us to forget that fact?

If we are satisfied that our standards-based practices yield positive answers, we can look fruitfully at how to make adaptations to address the needs of academically diverse learners. If our answers are less than satisfactory, we should address the problems. Such problems inevitably point to cracks in the foundation of quality teaching and learning, and we diminish our profession by failing to attend to them. Differentiating curriculum and instruction cannot make up for ill-conceived curriculum and instruction.

Negative Cases

In one standards-driven district, primary grade teachers attended a staff-development session that they had requested and in which they had high interest. The staff developer asked them to list some concepts that they taught so that the session would be linked to what went on in their classrooms. When-even with coaching and examples-no one was able to name the concepts they taught, the staff developer asked for the topics they taught. More awkward silence followed. A few teachers said that they sometimes took a day or two to talk about holidays, such as Halloween, Christmas, or Kwanza, because young students were excited about special occasions. Other teachers explained that they no longer taught units or topics (and certainly not concepts). Their entire curriculum had become a list of skills that students learned out of context of any meaning or utility-except that the test was coming, and all 6- through 8-year-olds were expected to perform.

A highly successful elementary school was started two decades ago to serve a student population that speaks more than 25 languages and whose homes are often marked by economic stress. The librarian in the school recently remarked, This has always been the best place in the world to teach. The students have loved it. Their parents have trusted it. Our students have done well. The teachers have always been excited to come to work. It has been a place of energy and inspired teaching. In the last two years [since the inception of a standards-based program and high-stakes testing], I've watched us become what we were created to avoid. We are telling instead of teaching. We fight to find time to reach out to the kids. Joy in classrooms has been replaced by fear that is first felt by the teachers and then by the students. We're trying hard to keep alive what we believe in, but I'm not sure we can.

In another standards-driven district, middle school teachers listed student names in one of three columns: Definitely, Maybe, and No Hope. The designations showed who would surely pass the standards tests, who might pass, and who had no chance of passing. The teachers separated the students into columns because, they said, there was no point in worrying about students who already knew enough to pass the test, and there was no point in wasting time on students who could not be raised to the standard. "It's the only way to go," said one teacher. "It's what we have to do to get the points on this year's test."

In all these places, teachers feel torn between an external impetus to cover the standards and a desire to address the diverse academic needs. In truth, the problem is not a contradiction between standards and appropriately responsive instruction. The problem lies in an ill-conceived interpretation and use of standards that erode the underpinnings of effective teaching and learning. The problem is not that we can't attend to the needs of individual learners, but rather that we've lost the essential frameworks of the disciplines in addition to the coherence, understanding, purpose, and joy in learning. Our first obligation is to ensure that standards-based teaching practice does not conflict with best teaching practice. Once those are aligned, differentiation-or attention to the diverse needs of learners-follows naturally.

Standards and Differentiation

There is no contradiction between effective standards-based instruction and differentiation. Curriculum tells us what to teach: Differentiation tells us how. Thus, if we elect to teach a standards-based curriculum, differentiation simply suggests ways in which we can make that curriculum work best for varied learners. In other words, differentiation can show us how to teach the same standard to a range of learners by employing a variety of teaching and learning modes.

Choose any standard. Differentiation suggests that you can challenge all learners by providing materials and tasks on the standard at varied levels of difficulty, with varying degrees of scaffolding, through multiple instructional groups, and with time variations. Further, differentiation suggests that teachers can craft lessons in ways that tap into multiple student interests to promote heightened learner interest in the standard. Teachers can encourage student success by varying ways in which students work: alone or collaboratively, in auditory or visual modes, or through practical or creative means.

Positive Cases

Science teachers in one small district delineated the key facts, concepts, principles, and skills of their discipline for K-12. Having laid out the framework, they examined the state-prescribed standards for science and mapped them for K-12. They found that the standards in their state did a pretty good job of reflecting the facts and skills of science but did a poor job of making explicit the concepts and principles of science. With the two frameworks in front of them, the teachers could fill in gaps-and more important, could organize their curriculum in ways that were coherent and manageable. Their work helped their colleagues see the big picture of science instruction for K-12 over time, organize instruction conceptually, and teach with the essential principles of science in mind. The result was a districtwide science curriculum that made better sense to teachers and students alike, helped students think like scientists, reduced the teachers' sense of racing to cover disjointed information, and still attended to prescribed standards.

In a high school Algebra II class, the teacher acknowledged that some of her students lacked prerequisite skills, whereas others learned as rapidly as she could teach or even without her help. At the outset of each chapter, the teacher delineated for students the specific skills, concepts, and understandings that they needed to master for that segment of the curriculum-both to have a solid grasp of mathematics and to pass the upcoming standards exam. She helped students make connections to past concepts, understandings, and skills. She divided each week into segments of teacher-led instruction, whole-class instruction, and small-group work. For group-work sessions, she sometimes met with students who were advanced in a particular topic to urge on their thinking, to help them solve problems in multiple ways, and to apply their understandings and skills to complex, real-life problems. Sometimes she met with students who needed additional instruction or guided assistance in applying what they were learning. Sometimes she created mixed-readiness teams of students whose goal was solving a problem in the most effective way possible. The teacher randomly called on students to present and defend their team's approach, thus maximizing the likelihood that every student had a model for solving an important problem and was able to explain the reasoning behind the solution. These problem-solving groups often evolved into teacher-created study groups that worked together to ensure that everyone had his or her questions answered. Not only did the teacher provide some class time for the study groups, but she also encouraged regular after-school meetings in her room, where she was able to monitor group progress and assist if needed. She recalls,The hardest thing for me was learning to teach a class where I wasn't always working with the class as a whole, but that has been rewarding, too. I know my students better. They know Algebra II better-and I think I probably understand it better, too. I haven't made a math prodigy out of everyone, of course, but I can honestly say the students like algebra better and are more confident in their capacity to learn. Their scores on the standards test improved, even though I targeted some ideas and skills more than others. I think what that fact tells me is that if I help students organize their mathematical knowledge and thinking, they can fare better in unfamiliar territory.

In an elementary classroom, a teacher organized many of her standards around three key concepts-connections, environments, and change-and their related principles; for example, living things are changed by and change their environments. She used them to study history, science, language arts, and sometimes mathematics. Although she generally taught each of the three subjects separately, she helped students make links among them; she created activities for the students that called for reading skills in social studies, for example, and social studies skills in science. That approach, she said, allowed everyone to work with the same big ideas and skills in a lesson while she could adjust materials, activities, and projects for varied readiness levels, diverse interests, and multiple modes of learning. Bringing the students together for class discussions was no problem, she reflected, because everyone's work focused on the essentials-even though students might get to those essentials in different ways. "It took me some time to rethink the standards and how I taught them," she recalled. But I feel as if I'm a better teacher. I understand what I'm teaching better, and I certainly have come to understand the students I teach more fully. I no longer see my curriculum as a list to be covered, and I no longer see my students as duplicates of one another.

In these settings, teachers have retained-or, in some cases, have discovered for the first time-the essential frameworks of the disciplines and the coherence, understanding, purpose, and joy in learning. The teachers have struggled to meet their first obligation-to ensure that standards-based teaching practice is not in conflict with best teaching practice. Once the teachers aligned standards with high-quality instruction, differentiation followed naturally.

Quality and Personalization

Overwhelmed by the task, a teacher recently pleaded, "I have all these students with all these different needs; how can anyone expect me to differentiate in my classroom?" Odd as the comment sounds, she spoke for many of us. The more complex the task, the more inviting it is to retreat to the familiar-to find a standardized approach and cling to it.

Thus, we find ourselves saying, "I know I'm missing lots of my students, but if I don't hurry to cover all the standards, how will they succeed on the test?" Or, "I know it would be good to involve students in thinking and problem solving, but there's just no time." The deeper issue is about what happens when we use any approach that allows us to lose sight of the soul of teaching and learning. A secondary factor is that such approaches make it difficult to attend to individual differences.

Do standardizing practices fail academically diverse learners? Of course they do. Whatever practices invite us to be paint-by-number teachers will largely fail students who do not fit the template. Paint-by-number approaches will fall short for all of us-teachers and students alike-because they abandon quality. Paint-by-number approaches will fail teachers because they confuse technical expedience with artistry. They will fail students because they confuse compliance with thoughtful engagement. Any educational approach that does not invite us to teach individuals is deeply flawed.

Teaching is hard. Teaching well is fiercely so. Confronted by too many students, a schedule without breaks, a pile of papers that regenerates daily, and incessant demands from every educational stakeholder, no wonder we become habitual and standardized in our practices. Not only do we have no time to question why we do what we do, but we also experience the discomfort of change when we do ask the knotty questions. Nonetheless, our profession cannot progress and our increasingly diverse students cannot succeed if we do less.

Grading Practices

How do learners benefit from a grading system that reminds everyone that students with disabilities or who speak English as a second language do not perform as well as students without disabilities or for whom English is their native tongue?

What do we gain by telling our most able learners that they are "excellent" on the basis of a standard that requires modest effort, calls for no intellectual risk, necessitates no persistence, and demands that they develop few academic coping skills?

In what ways do our current grading practices motivate struggling or advanced learners to persist in the face of difficulty?

Is there an opportunity for struggling learners to encounter excellence in our current grading practices?

Is there an opportunity for advanced learners to encounter struggle in our current grading practices?

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Recent demands for more standards-based teaching can feel like a huge impediment to encouraging differentiated instruction, especially for teachers and principals who recognize student variance and want to address it appropriately.

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Susan Demirsky Allan is Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction for the Grosse Pointe (Mich.) Public School System. She works with teachers and administrators developing and implementing curriculum, improving classroom instructional practice, and inducting new teachers into the teaching profession. Allan is an author of Local Realities, Local Adaptations: Problems, Process, and Person in a School's Governance, as well as many articles on grouping practices and gifted education. She has presented at many conferences, served on the boards of national and state organizations, and consulted around the country and internationally.

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Leadership for Differentiating Schools & Classrooms - ASCD

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Try going a week without hearing a call for a massive overhaul of our educational system. Parents, students, educators, bureaucrats, pundits . . . everyone says something must be done. But what? And who should do it? In this environment, school leaders must build bridges for change.

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Where is it from?

How can I use it in class?

When should I use it?

Why should I use it in the classroom?

A few useful variations

Are there any disadvantages with using TPR?

TPR stands for Total Physical Response and was created by Dr. James J Asher. It is based upon the way that children learn their mother tongue. Parents have 'language-body conversations' with their children, the parent instructs and the child physically responds to this. The parent says, "Look at mummy" or "Give me the ball" and the child does so. These conversations continue for many months before the child actually starts to speak itself. Even though it can't speak during this time, the child is taking in all of the language; the sounds and the patterns. Eventually when it has decoded enough, the child reproduces the language quite spontaneously. TPR attempts to mirror this effect in the language classroom.

How can I use it in class?

In the classroom the teacher plays the role of parent. She starts by saying a word ('jump') or a phrase ('look at the board') and demonstrating an action. The teacher then says the command and the students all do the action. After repeating a few times it is possible to extend this by asking the students to repeat the word as they do the action. When they feel confident with the word or phrase you can then ask the students to direct each other or the whole class.

It is more effective if the students are standing in a circle around the teacher and you can even encourage them to walk around as they do the action.

When should I use it?

TPR can be used to teach and practise many things.

Vocabulary connected with actions (smile, chop, headache, wriggle)

Tenses past/present/future and continuous aspects (Every morning I clean my teeth, I make my bed, I eat breakfast)

Classroom language (Open your books)

Imperatives/Instructions (Stand up, close your eyes)

Storytelling

It can be adapted for all kinds of teaching situations, you just need to use your imagination!

Why should I use it in the classroom?

It is a lot of fun, students enjoy it and it can be a real stirrer in the class. It lifts the pace and the mood.

It is very memorable. It really helps students to remember phrases or words.

It is good for kinaesthetic learners who need to be active in the class.

It can be used in large or small classes. It doesn't really matter how many students you have as long as you are prepared to take the lead, the students will follow.

It works well with mixed-ability classes. The physical actions get across the meaning effectively so that all the students are able to understand and use the target language.

It doesn't require a lot of preparation or materials. As long as you are clear what you want to practise (a rehearsal beforehand can help), it won't take a lot of time to get ready.

It is very effective with teenagers and young learners.

It involves both left- and right-brained learning.

When I use TPR, first I get the students to do the actions and then I do them and drill the students (chorally and individually) to give them an opportunity to practise making the sounds. They are then ready to give commands to each other.

A game I like to play is to organize the students into a circle around me, I say the word and the last person to do the action is out. This person then stands behind me and watches for the student who does the action last. Eventually there is only one student, she is the winner.

You can extend this by playing Simon Says. This time when you give a command, students should only do it if you say "Simon says..." at the start. I might say, "Simon says, 'slice some bread'" or "Simon says, 'chop an onion'" and the students must do the action. However if I say, "Whisk an egg" the students shouldn't do this. If anyone does the action that Simon doesn't say then they are out and have to watch for the mistakes of the other students.

Are there any disadvantages with using TPR?

Students who are not used to such things might find it embarrassing. This can be the case initially but I have found that if the teacher is prepared to perform the actions, the students feel happier about copying. Also the students are in groups and don't have to perform for the whole class. This pleasure is reserved for the teacher.

It is only really suitable for beginner levels.

Whilst it is clear that it is far more useful at lower levels because the target language lends itself to such activities I have also used it successfully with Intermediate and Advanced levels. You need to adapt the language accordingly.

For example, it helped me to teach 'ways of walking' (stumble, stagger, tiptoe) to an advanced class and cooking verbs to intermediate students (whisk, stir, grate).

You can't teach everything with it and if used a lot it would become repetitive. I completely agree with this but it can be a successful and fun way of changing the dynamics and pace of a lesson used in conjunction with other methods and techniques.

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Where is it from? How can I use it in class? When should I use it? Why should I use it in the classroom? A few useful variations Are there any disadvantages with using TPR? Where is it from?

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Bradley - Scaffolding Academic Learning for Second Language Learners (TESL/TEFL)

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This article stresses the importance of scaffolding academic language for second language learners, emphasizing active student involvement.

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Here is a talk from IATEFL by Professor of Psycholinguistics, Zoltán Dörnyei, on what exactly Safe Speaking Environments are and why you should care.

The talk looks at creating a psychological environment in the classroom which might make students' lives easier. Zoltán says that in order to facilitate speaking in the language classroom, we need to:

Create suitable conditions in accordance with the main tenets of group dynamics, and

Apply the principles of safe speaking environments

What conditions need to be in place so we can start implementing a safe speaking environment?

Zoltán talks about group cohesiveness being a very important attribute, which determines the productivity of the group, and the degree of members' engagement with the group.
He looks at eight different factors that promote group cohesiveness, including cooperation, competition and teachers' leadership styles.

Zoltán goes on to discuss group norms - the rules and regulations that govern classroom life, as well as unproductive norms. Three critical classroom norms he presents are:

1. The norm of mediocrity
2. The norm of tolerance
3. The norm of effort and perseverance

Watch the full video below to learn more about group dynamics and to see Zoltán share the five principles of a safe speaking environment:

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Safe Speaking Environments - What? Why? How? | Cambridge English

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Here is a talk from IATEFL by Professor of Psycholinguistics, Zoltán Dörnyei, on what exactly Safe Speaking Environments are and why you should care. The talk looks at creating a psychological environment in the classroom which might make students' lives easier.

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I will link three practical classroom activities to the ideas of American Psychologist Carl Rogers.

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The book is a showcase of best practice from a variety of teaching contexts around the world, where colleagues have successfully embedded equality and diversity in English language teaching.

Developed by David Valente

This book is free to download below as a pdf file.

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Equal opportunity and diversity: The handbook for teachers of English

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The book is a showcase of best practice from a variety of teaching contexts around the world, where colleagues have successfully embedded equality and diversity in English language teaching. Developed by David Valente This book is free to download below as a pdf file.

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The United Kingdom´s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland) Our privacy and copyright statements. Our Freedom of Information Publications Scheme. © British Council, 10 Spring Gardens, London SW1A 2BN, UK.

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Identifying and working with dyslexic students

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The United Kingdom´s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland) Our privacy and copyright statements. Our Freedom of Information Publications Scheme. © British Council, 10 Spring Gardens, London SW1A 2BN, UK.

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Scroll through the list of courses and learning paths available in this category.

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At this age, the learners aren't motivated by new language, they're motivated by an activity. It can be very difficult to get them to speak if they really don't see the point. You can approach this by focussing on the following.

1. The function of the language and using an authentic or near authentic task (e.g. get them to sit back-to-back to practise speaking on the telephone).

2. A motivating task, which uses the language you want them to practise (e.g. students write questions on small squares of paper using the target language, then form the papers into a board game to be played using dice and counters).

Here are some possible examples, which apply to one or a combination of the above.

A popular, well-known type of activity is the information gap. In this type of activity, one group has half of the information required to complete the task and the other group has the other half (or pairs of students). The two groups need to exchange information to complete the task. Possible examples of tasks are:

Making an arrangement: Each group has a diary, with appointments already filled in. They need to exchange information in order to agree when they can meet.

Giving/receiving directions: Two sets of maps, each with information missing, and two sets of directions for these missing places. The students again need to exchange information in order to complete their maps.

Secretly put an object in a paper bag (or hide it behind me, or write the word, or draw a picture). I then get the students to guess what's in the bag, by asking an appropriate question. The student who guesses correctly takes over from me. Do this a couple of times, and then let the students take over. Group vs group, or in pairs.

Find your partner. Information is written on slips of paper, which can be matched in some way. Each student receives a paper, then the class mingle and exchange information in order to find their partner. E.g. for a group of ten students, to practise colours, colour in five slips of paper and write the words for these colours on the other slips. Students ask each other, 'What colour have you got?' in order to find their partner. (The point of this activity from the students' perspective is finding their partner, not necessarily the practice of the language.)

The following example may be appropriate for more advanced students. I call this activity 'Find someone who'. Each student writes the end of the sentence on their own piece of paper. The students then mingle and hopefully conversations are started. (The students can also use questions for this activity e.g. 'When was the last time you....?')

Crosswords: Each group has some of the answers. They need to make up appropriate questions and then exchange, or ask appropriate questions. Hopefully, the students will be more concerned about completing the crossword, rather than worrying about speaking.

For a listening text, in which the students would normally listen to a tape in order to fill in the gaps, why not give each group half of the answers? They are then given the opportunity to exchange information. They can listen to the tape afterwards as a final check.

Here are some examples of other activities I use with my younger learners:

I hope that the suggestions and examples given are useful and practical for your situation, or inspire you to invent others.

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At this age, the learners aren't motivated by new language, they're motivated by an activity. It can be very difficult to get them to speak if they really don't see the point. You can approach this by focussing on the following. The function of the language and using an authentic or near authentic task (e.g.

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Each of your students can choose a blank 'badge builder' from one of our four great designs. On each design there is space for ten badges. You can award your students 'badges' for good work in different categories at the end of a class or activity. Beneath each badge is a space for the student to write a short sentence to explain what the badge was awarded for.

The different badge categories are:

Speaking English

Good writing

Good reading

Good listening

Good grammar

Good vocabulary

I did my homework

I listened to the teacher

I arrived on time

I worked well with my classmates

Good behaviour

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Each of your students can choose a blank 'badge builder' from one of our four great designs. On each design there is space for ten badges. You can award your students 'badges' for good work in different categories at the end of a class or activity.

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By British Council

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In my experience, there are only a few reasons for conducting one-to-one lessons. I mean, naturally, those pupils who attend the usual school, not any special cases, like home-schooling, or correctional schools, or any other specialized institutions and unique arrangements for unique circumstances. Below is a list situations I have encountered.
Private lessons for which a teacher is paid directly by parents are arranged for several reasons
A typical instance is when a pupil missed some important periods, and thus needs extra coaching. Another, slightly different one, is when parents wish their child to learn more, to have higher grades and better exam results, and to prepare for further studies at a university. In any class, there are also a few children who find it difficult to absorb the whole curriculum, or are developmentally slow. One-to-one lessons may help them immensely.

Unfortunately, I have seen many cases where parents are advised by teachers to arrange private lessons, because teachers need to supplement their salaries. When I first started working at school, an older teacher approached me to explain how it was all done. "You send your bad students to me, I send mine to her (the third teacher at the same level), and she sends hers to you, thus we all get well-paid". Since it was the very beginning of my own very first year at school, and we were teaching second graders - beginners, I inquired politely, "What if I have no bad students?" She laughed into my face. Naturally I know that it is very easy to downgrade or upgrade any pupil. I also know that we all deal with multi-level classes. What works for one child may not work for another. I saw it as a natural challenge. Every child is an individual who deserves equal chances. I just had to figure out how to teach them all well. The national curriculum is compiled by experienced professionals. It is designed so that any pupil may achieve at least the satisfactory level required for them to pass on to the next year. Raising the children's level, and helping them get higher grades, is up to the teacher.
One-to-one teaching in the classroom
For me, Step 1 is always mentally evaluating my class. Getting acquainted with the family situation is helpful too. There are no two similar children; thus, every pupil may need an individual approach. A class genius may require some extra tasks so as not to be bored, and consequently misbehave or create a disturbance at every lesson. The slowest child needs to be given a carefully calculated amount of work, and encouraged to plod along no matter how poor the results may be at first; such children also may need protection from bullies. Using ICT in the classroom gives us great opportunities for arranging individual sessions for the whole class simultaneously. We just need to master the time slots, to be on hand when any of the children are done with the tasks so that we can check the answers, grade the exercises, and provide them with more work if needed. Any child who has done an exercise well needs to be praised. The very good ones value accolade as much as the weaker ones.
A child is or was sick, or had a trauma which prevents them from attending regular classes at school
In my country, as I discovered when the occasion arose, a teacher is ordered to visit such a pupil at home on a weekly basis, for no additional pay. Thus I took a bus and then walked a few minutes, at -30C, smack into a dire situation. My pupil had to stay in bed for several months, mostly on her stomach, after a bad fall, which resulted in a spine injury. Her younger sister, also a pupil from my school, recently fell down on ice and broke her leg. Their mother, a single parent, was always at work. In a small town, word spreads fast. Next day at work, several colleagues approached me to give me lists of homework for both girls: it turned out that I was the only teacher who really visited those sick children at home, as per regulations. So I shuttled the lists, and then filled-in exercise books, back and forth. The girls were always happy to see me, and ready to do whatever I told them to. Since the younger one had huge gaps in her EL level, and because I knew her teacher well, I helped her with the subject while my own pupil did some written exercises. I also listened to their woes, and helped them with some other subjects, and brought them some extra foods. Once, I slipped and fell outside myself, getting badly bruised. So there we were, two girls on their beds and myself lying down on the couch, peacefully speaking English. Both girls came back to school in May, at the end of the academic year; both did well in all the final tests and examinations.

Basically, I can formulate my EL teaching principles quite simply: see what kind of class you get, and deal with it. I had students in their ninth year at school aged 14-15, who could not read. They happened to be out sick with winter flu when the curriculum declared the "Learning to Read" period. Their parents could not afford to hire private tutors. And the pupils somehow scraped through from class to class, getting very low grades, growing more and more discouraged. All right, so I had some teenagers who could not read and were afraid to say so. I allotted special time slots for them during the lessons, for example when all the others were writing their tests, and we spent some quiet time sitting in a far corner, with me teaching the said student how to read in English. Every year, I got a few very talented teenagers from other schools, who had studied English since their second grade, but never had a teacher who would speak the language in their lessons. Thus, when I spoke English to my classes on September 1, the new pupils would react with stunned uncomprehending faces. But they could read and write. All I had to do was teach them how to speak and how to listen to the authentic recordings.

The Result is that in my twelve years of working at school, hundreds of my pupils have taken their final examinations. About five of them got "Good" as their GCE grade; all the rest got "Excellent".

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In my experience, there are only a few reasons for conducting one-to-one lessons. I mean, naturally, those pupils who attend the usual school, not any special cases, like home-schooling, or correctional schools, or any other specialized institutions and unique arrangements for unique circumstances.

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By British Council

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Mixed Ability

All of us teach mixed ability/multiple level classes. It is perhaps a natural side-effect of the historically recent compulsory education: in many countries, parents are required by law to send their children to school between the ages of 5-6 and 16-17.

While the curriculum is oriented towards a non-existent "average" student, who is expected to absorb a lot of knowledge in a large variety of subjects during the requisite decade of studying, the real-life children differ greatly. No two pupils are alike. They have various temperaments, inclinations, interests and abilities. Their health, their stamina, their families and social milieu represent the society as a whole. In one class, we may have an assortment of polar opposites! Here is a novel aspect, a topic for discussion. We went through the same system. Let us remember our own school years. Were we excellent, straight-A students? Did we find ALL the subjects equally fascinating and manageable? Did we like ALL our teachers? Were they able and willing to satisfy our thirst for new knowledge? Did we have that shattering experience, when we suddenly discovered that our teachers made mistakes? Since we are all EL teachers here, does this necessarily mean that we struggled with, say, mathematics and science? What were our own final grades? Straight A's, or top marks in English and literature, but good or satisfactory ones for the other subjects? Or maybe we got "Satisfactory" in all the subjects. This means, in effect, that we teachers are also a mixed-ability bunch of people. In a way, we have to deal with our own younger selves.

* The stronger students present quite a challenge to any teacher. How does a young, beginner teacher identify them? They may perform all the tasks in half the allotted time. If they cannot attract our attention, they become bored. They may also keep quiet because their peers make fun of them. Why exactly? Have you often seen those who lag behind congratulate the smartest children and offer words of praise and encouragement? A bored child may misbehave and even become disruptive in the classroom; sometimes, like Hermione Granger, they may be the very first ones to raise their hands up and try to answer all our questions ahead of the class. While we may wish to hold an intelligent conversation with the most gifted student in our room, we must involve the whole group in every activity. One way to help both the young talents and the rest of the students is to have some extra tasks ready. Once your best pupil is done with all the exercises, quietly give them a card with the new task, or have them work on an on-going project. With one very talented and extremely active girl, I had a short conversation after the lessons. We agreed that she would contain her enthusiasm and impatience, and do some research while the rest of the group would finish their work. I gave her a plan for the term. When somebody asked why she could use the internet while everybody else was busily plodding along with pens and exercise books, I said mildly that anybody could do the same if they achieved her speed - and her marks. The challenge usually works well among children. Some of them tried to emulate her, with good results.

* The weaker students are generally easier to see. First of all, there is the tell-tale behaviour, they tend to try and hide behind their classmates, and they practically never raise their hands. A good way to encourage them is to set some limits. If we know that while the rest of the class will manage to perform all the tasks in a test, the weaker ones will struggle simply because they are afraid of the amount, of what they see as an insurmountable huge number of items. We may mark those items which are a must for them, and tell them that the others are just revision, repetition, and thus are not so important. This immediately reduces the pressure, and they may actually manage to do quite a lot. Some children freeze if called to come out to the board, because they are used to getting sneers and jeers at every lesson. We may begin by letting them reply from their safe place, their own desk, and gradually move on to other forms of answers.

* The average students, or the majority of a class, are the ones at whom the whole curriculum is oriented. We should always see them, too. If they find any topic too difficult, we may find a different approach to its presentation. If a topic seems too easy or boring, we may think of how to make it more attractive. It pays to use several activities which are liked by multiple levels, be it a daily or weekly warmer, an international project, or a school festival. I once had a whole class of teenagers who loved reading aloud. It seemed to me at times that their parents had never read to them. They would rush into my classroom, open their books and look at me with shining eyes. So we chain-read on a weekly basis, a sentence per student. Thus we attacked any grammar theme, any new text, any exercise. Bottom line is, whatever works goes.

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Mixed AbilityAll of us teach mixed ability/multiple level classes. It is perhaps a natural side-effect of the historically recent compulsory education: in many countries, parents are required by law to send their children to school between the ages of 5-6 and 16-17.

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By British Council

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By British Council

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Ice-breakers are speaking activities used with a new class in order to give the learners an opportunity to meet each other. In order to complete an ice-breaker task learners must talk to each other.

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By British Council

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Learning to listen to each other more carefully can build their ability and confidence in real-life situations, in which they will need to focus on both listening and speaking. The following activities are a fun way of getting students to concentrate more and to remember information.

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By British Council

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This section is dedicated to teachers of teenagers. Find lesson plans, activities, stories and poems, articles and teaching tools to help you in your teenage classroom.

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How to encourage children to write discourse and give feedback

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How to encourage children to write discourse and give feedback

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By British Council

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How to Encourage Children to Write Discourse and give Feedback

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Writing a DiscourseSir Francis Bacon said 'reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man'. Writing is the most difficult language skill. A child starts acquiring the four language skills listening, speaking, reading and writing in order. This is true of all the languages including English.

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By British Council

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A reason to speak
Make sure that the children have a reason for speaking, for example, they need to talk to their partner to complete a picture or to find information in order to make a graph. Think about the questions you ask in class. If you ask 'Is this a pencil?' children can only respond either 'yes' or 'no'. And of course you already know it's a pencil so the question isn't real. If you hide the pencil in a bag and ask 'What's in the bag?' this is now a fun game and learners are motivated to answer using a wider range of language.

Whole class speaking activities
You can use chants or songs to give the whole class the opportunity to listen and repeat the sounds, rhythm and intonation they hear. You can ask learners to join in with just part of the song or chant at first and then gradually build up to the whole thing. Here's an example of how to do this with a tongue twister:

Play or say the tongue twister then tell your learners that they are going to repeat the sentence bit by bit after you. Start by asking your learners to repeat the last part of the sentence and building up to the full tongue twister like this:

Teacher: seashore
Learners: seashore
Teacher: by the seashore
Learners: by the seashore
Teacher: seashells by the seashore
Learners: seashells by the seashore
Teacher: She sells seashells by the seashore
Learners: She sells seashells by the seashore

Have your class repeat the whole tongue twister slowly and then more quickly after the version on LearnEnglish Kids. Find the above tongue twister here:
https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/tongue-twisters/she-sells-seashells

You can find many more tongue twisters on LearnEnglish Kids here:
https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/tongue-twisters

You'll find lots of ideas for more whole class speaking activities in this article:
www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/circle-games

Speaking in small groups or pairs
Children, including very young learners, can work in pairs or small groups to maximize their speaking time in class. When learners work in pairs or small groups the teacher is able to monitor, move around the class and really listen to the language being produced.

After doing a whole class activity with the tongue twister above you could have learners work in pairs to take turns repeating the tongue twister as fast as possible without mistakes. This isn't easy of course and you could demonstrate this to the class by trying to say it quickly and correctly yourself. Get the learners to count how many consecutive error-free versions you can say.

You can give learners a spot the difference information gap activity to do in pairs. Give each learner a picture. The pictures should be almost the same with two or three elements missing from each picture. Without showing each other the pictures they should describe their pictures to each other and try to find which objects are missing. They will practise colours, prepositions of place and adjectives such as big and small. They can compare their pictures when they have finished.

Ask children to sit back to back and imagine they are having a telephone conversation. They can practise telephone language or just simple exchanges based on your current class topic that aren't connected to the telephone itself. Sitting back to back make this more fun, interesting and helps children really concentrate on listening to their partner.

Children can play a board game in small groups. Before they start you can practise game language such as 'It's my turn' and 'Throw the dice' as a whole class. If you want to practice specific language points you can write questions the squares on the board. When a player lands on a square with a question they have to answer the question. You can print a snakes and ladders board game or a board game template on LearnEnglish Kids here:
https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/crafts/snakes-and-ladders
https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/crafts/board-game-template

Learners can act out a simple play in small groups. Use masks or puppets to make this more fun. You'll find finger puppets, masks and a Goldilocks play in the crafts section on LearnEnglish Kids:
https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/crafts

Setting up speaking activities
Make sure that children know what they have to do. Demonstrate the activity either yourself or with a volunteer. Ask the learners what they have to do and maybe let them answer in their mother tongue to check understanding. Appoint an 'English monitor' in each group to remind the others to speak English. If you put learners into pairs of A and B, make sure everyone knows whether they are A or B by asking for a show of hands. Set a time limit and have a signal for finishing such as raising your hand and saying 'stop'. You could also have an activity ready for early finishers such as a worksheet to complete or a selection of picture books to look at.

Classroom language
Try to use English as much as possible for communication in the classroom from day one to give learners the chance to speak English with you and with their classmates. Demonstrate your instructions as you say them in English and your learners will soon understand 'Sit down', 'Put your pencil on the table', 'Hands up' etc. Teach learners to use expressions like 'Can I have...', 'I've finished', 'Can I go to the toilet?' at the start of the course so that they have the language to speak to you in English in the classroom.

Praise your learners when they try to use English and keep reminding them to use English whenever possible in class.

When you have used some of these ideas, why not come back to this page and leave a comment below to tell us how your class went. Let us know if you have any additional ideas!

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A reason to speak Make sure that the children have a reason for speaking, for example, they need to talk to their partner to complete a picture or to find information in order to make a graph. Think about the questions you ask in class. If you ask 'Is this a pencil?'

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Stirrers and settlers for the primary classroom

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Stirrers and settlers for the primary classroom

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By British Council

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Teachers need to take many factors into consideration when planning a balanced primary lesson and it is important to plan varied lessons.

Different kinds of activities to practise the different skills need to be balanced against each other.

Teachers need to be aware that children have a much shorter concentration span than adults and this will affect the number of different activities we plan for a single lesson.

Pace and timing are important considerations - at primary level it is better to use short, sharp activities so that children can sustain their attention. If concentration flags, change the activity. Teachers need to plan a balance of 'heads up' and 'heads down' activities, alternating the interaction patterns between individuals/pairs/groups and whole-class activities.

Likewise teachers will need to take into account the learning styles of the different children in the class. Different types of activities will be more suited to visual/ auditory/ kinaesthetic /tactile learners.

Finally, there is often a need to build in some 'quiet time' into a lesson. This time helps students as well as teacher sanity. Silent reading or an individual quiet activity can help prepare a class for learning - for example if they arrive after a noisy P.E. lesson. The teacher can take the opportunity during these kinds of activities to deal with classroom admin, check who knows what and/or give individual help where necessary.

Analyse a lesson!
Think about any lesson you have taught recently and analyse the pattern and balance of the lesson. Draw a graph with a horizontal and vertical axis. Write the activities you did with the class on the bottom axis and then plot the noise and activity level. Remember noise is not always negative! Then analyse your graph. Are there any parts of the lesson which needed more 'stirring' or more 'settling'? This technique is useful to evaluate a lesson you were not happy with and can help you to pinpoint the areas to plan in greater detail.

Settling students
'Settlers' are activities which are designed to calm students down and settle them into a routine. Basic classroom management and routines are essential to establish as a pre-requisite for learning. Make sure children know what the routine is when they arrive in class e.g. coats off, books out, files or folders on the desk/under the chair. This is especially important in larger classes or tight working spaces so that valuable teaching time is not lost.

Have a clear signal to get the children's attention and make sure children know what it is. Clap your hands, bang the board rubber, say a signal word clearly and hold up your hand - try not to just shout at your students.
Settler activities

Vocabulary categorising or brainstorming activities
For example give children 12 words randomly across the board and ask them to put them into the correct category. Revise familiar lexical sets - clothes, colours, numbers, animals or reinforce the topic you are currently teaching. Ask children to add other lexical items.

Prompts
Prepare for listening or speaking exercises by asking children to copy simple prompts from the board. For example, give children a list of five food items to copy and ask them to add five more. Then use the list for simple pair work or listen and tick practice.

Wordplay activities
Use matching activities with pictures and words or phrases, anagrams, missing letters, definitions games, jumbled sentences, wordsearches, crosswords. Children love puzzles so get them using their brains!

Whole-class listening activities or games
Try doing a simple picture dictation asking children to draw a fun or crazy picture. With very young learners you could dictate a monster or alien to practise colours/parts of the body. With more advanced learners you could build up a crazy scene, practising all the prepositions.

Read and draw activities
Give children a short reading text e.g. description and ask them to draw what they read about.

Stories or storybooks
Practise your story-telling technique! Alter your classroom if you can for 'story time'. Small classes of Very Young Learners can sit on the floor in a semi-circle round the teacher to enable you to exploit pictures and explain meaning. With larger classes make photocopies and enlarge pictures of characters and places to stick up on the board as you tell or read the story.

Arts and crafts activities
This type of activity requires thorough preparation! Introducing creative and design elements caters for a wide range of learner. Give clear instructions so that children can settle into the task once they start. Try making class wall displays, mini-projects, a class book or other cut and stick activities.

Stirring students
Let your students move around as much as possible. In large classes with a lot of furniture this will require some planning. Vary pairs and groups by assigning random numbers. With large classes organise 'Home' groups so that children move into these automatically for group work.

Encourage movement as much as possible. Even asking children to come out to the front and write an answer on the board provides variety and livens up dull exercises.
Stirring activities

Mingles or surveys
Use games which encourage children to act with lots of others if you have the space. Activities such as ' Find someone who..?' are a good way of drilling without being boring. Try this game: Animal stickers. Prepare a sticker with an animal name for each child and stick it on their backs. Children walk around asking questions to find out what they are.

Action/movement games
Word circle games e.g. throwing the ball to revise interchanges or vocabulary sets are a useful way of getting all children moving and participating. Clapping and clicking games are good for larger classes as they involve movement without too much hassle. Any team games running to the board are extremely motivating because of the competitive element. Mime games are also a good way of getting children moving.

TPR
Use TPR as a regular part of classroom routines and activities. For example in listening activities : Put your hand up when you hear ...!

Songs, chants and raps
All children are motivated by songs and these kinds of activities are all-inclusive, catering for all levels of learner. Sing songs or say chants faster and faster to really stir them up! A really good example of this can be found in the Learn English kids website with the traditional song 'If you're happy and you know it'. Or divide your class into groups and allocate parts to sing or sing in a round.

Drama/acting out
Puppets or masks can really bring alive a dialogue, role-play or story. Make simple masks out of paper plates for main characters. Bring in realia and props for children to use for acting out e.g. some real money and a bag for shopping. Have a dressing up box of simple props such as hats, glasses etc. Puppets or finger puppets can be used to liven up even the most boring dialogue, especially when accompanied by funny voices!

Technology
If you are fortunate enough to have a computer in the classroom exploit the free resources available on the internet fully. TheLearnEnglish Kids website provides a huge range of games, songs and stories to liven up and 'stir' children. Another very useful site providing materials on a huge range of topics is 'Enchanted Learning'. Go to http://www.enchantedlearning.com/

First published in 2008

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Stirrers and settlers for the primary classroom

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Teachers need to take many factors into consideration when planning a balanced primary lesson and it is important to plan varied lessons. Different kinds of activities to practise the different skills need to be balanced against each other.

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By British Council

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Here you can find a wide range of practical resources to use in your primary classroom.