Tips for teaching big, small and mixed-ability classes by barbsaka

Fabiana

barbsaka — 2013-02-19 12:11:49 UTC

Once I get to know my students, I work on sitting arrangement so I will always have mixed ability sub-groups. It is not that I place all the best together and separate the rest, I just mixed them . It is a big effort for me for I have to be careful to not hurt anybody´s feelings, etc.

Fabiana

barbsaka — 2013-02-19 12:13:21 UTC

Once a month, in my EFL classes I make them read newspaper articles. So I buy the Buenos Aires Herald (excellent resource!!!) and ...YES ONE NEWSPAPER FOR 25 KIDS!!!, give each group a sheet and ask them to read and summarise one or two articles. How? the most complex pieces of news go to those A-B students, who are already mixed with C-D ones ...but they don´t know that! Sports section for boys, Entertainment, Art, for some girls and if there is something concerning Field Hockey I make the girls who play for the school team read about it. I am aware that they are not focusing on the same Vocabulary topics, but at least they read, scan, skim and answer anything I ask them to do. If we have time, we act out some tv news programs, CNN, BBC and they adore that!

Wade

barbsaka — 2013-02-19 12:19:26 UTC

Peer pair work with one strong student leading another. Group work customized by ability. Games and activities in which the element of chance is more important to winning than ability.

Martin

barbsaka — 2013-02-19 12:20:40 UTC

Web quests are great activities for mixed ability classes and I get my teenagers paired by stronger to weaker learners. This works well.

Wade

barbsaka — 2013-02-19 12:22:17 UTC

Have higher level students ASK the questions for the others to answer. Converting an English statement to a Wh- question requires 17 mental steps, so is much more challenging. Besides, we should teach ALL of the language, not just the half about answering questions. Our students also need to learn how to ASK questions to get to true communicative competence.

Divatiara

barbsaka — 2013-02-19 12:24:09 UTC

I usually ask some reliable students or early finishers to be my 'assistant' to help in monitoring class work.

Wade

barbsaka — 2013-02-19 12:25:00 UTC

When I put kids in groups, I often use card games for practice. I imbed rules in the game such that if any kid catches another kid speaking the mother tongue, they get an advantage in the game. In that way, all my kids are monitoring each other to keep them speaking in English.

Winda

2013-02-19 12:27:56 UTC

I often use cooperative learning techniques in dealing with the case of big/small and mixed ability classes. It makes my life easier not only in terms of delivering the materials but also in managing the class, and the students enjoy them too. I did classroom action research on cooperative learning techniques few years ago. The result shows students enjoy working in groups since it is less threatening as they have opportunity to practice more. They favor some techniques of CL. They see the techniques fun and this makes them see English fun too

2013-02-19 13:02:08 UTC

Rose - Open-ended tasks

2013-02-21 10:21:50 UTC

Open-ended activities allow learners with different abilities and language
knowledge to express themselves. I use short videos or music videoclips to
generate Memory Games for instance. Before pairing them up, I play the video
without any instruction. Then, I pair or group them together and create tasks
where learners can contribute to the success of the task according to their
own abilities. It involves watching attentively and remembering. One simple
task we can give is to ask them to watch and pay attention to a specif topic
and write down all words related to the topic within a certain time frame or
if there is a narrative, learners can retell the story by discussing and noting down
all the details they remember. They can work on memory games individually too.
Teens love it. A sample of it in Image + Sound + Color post below.

Barb

barbsaka — 2013-02-21 11:09:33 UTC

barbsaka — 2013-02-21 11:14:31 UTC

barbsaka — 2013-02-21 11:14:50 UTC

Rose

barbsaka — 2013-02-21 12:01:59 UTC

Videos and open ended activities

Valentina

barbsaka — 2013-02-21 12:53:24 UTC

Strategies for large teenage classes

Karen

barbsaka — 2013-02-22 08:35:33 UTC

Have your students create and make videos together. Pair the higher level students with the others and let them have fun creating together. They love to make their own videos!

Jane

2013-03-01 11:41:37 UTC

Here's a recording of Barbara's webinar on 'Getting the best from big, small and mixed-ability classes': https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/meeting.jnlp?suid=M.CB4A1D3BCCBA0C4DCFFC850EAD8D25&sid=2011204

Jane

2013-03-01 11:45:14 UTC

A Facebook chat on this topic:

Jane

2013-03-01 11:46:13 UTC

Here's a Facebook chat on this topic