Mixed-ability can refer to classes in which there are clear differences in language level, learning style, learning speed, aptitude, students’ background knowledge, and motivation. In this context, every student who is learning a language can be different in language level among other students. Thus, students may have different capabilities to grasp the lesson during the teaching process in the class. According to Ireson & Hallam (2001), “teachers need to recognize that a class is a mixed ability because children have different strengths and weaknesses and develop at different rates.”
In Indonesia, English is a foreign language which is taught and learned only in classrooms or additional English courses outside school. In this case, students may have some problems such as less proficient English ability because people in Indonesia rarely use English as a tool of communication. Also, teachers in dealing mixed- ability classes may have an ineffective learning classroom from both students and teachers.
Dealing with this issue, Mixed-ability students have their own learning style and preferences in learning a language. In this context, I would like to have your opinion of the following question:
What strategies would be effective to handle mixed-ability students in learning English as a foreign language?
Always have a range of follow-up activities for stronger students, who may be paired together, which they can complete while lower level students are still working on initial activities. Stronger students may welcome more autonomy, but they also need to feel they are learning something from the lesson, even while you may be occupied with further explanation to lower level students.
Use the communicative language teaching approach. Let them learn from each other. Group work is highly recommended.
Communication with each other, group discussion, reading news papers and listening news are key way. Also, another thing that work is learning from youtube videos, which is a rich source of learning material.
Communicative language teaching approach with its subsidiaries like goal based language teaching and role play strategies would help. Make your class a room for communication and make it convenient for every student to use the language.
Always have a range of follow-up activities for stronger students, who may be paired together, which they can complete while lower level students are still working on initial activities. Stronger students may welcome more autonomy, but they also need to feel they are learning something from the lesson, even while you may be occupied with further explanation to lower level students.
I think you can go by group discussions; where the higher achievers will assist the average and those below average ones(positive interdependency). Specifically, you can adopt the'talk for learning'approach.
Make sure the learning becomes more of oral activity. Students should be allowed to do more of the talking while the teacher becomes the facilitator.
Thanks.
I have been implementing in team project works about topics which interest to them: sports, welfare, tourism, food and recipes around the world, among others. Planning lesson taking into ccount their wishes and motivation could allow them a meaningful learning: it means learning with a purpose. In this case research, writting and oral speech would be easier for them
As a teacher, you need to teach the same concept several times while concentrating much on those students you want to catch up with their friends. Give the remedial work and encourage them to work in groups. This would help them to understand each other better by increasing interaction among students who may not otherwise get the opportunity to interact in class where a teacher is also found.
There should time socialization among students because through that student reveal more of their weakness to their friends and even to their lecturers. Be nice to them and ready to help build up their strength.
First of all, the teacher should do a whole class-mingles in a heterogeneous groups, so all students of different ability interact bearing in mind the peer pressure that it is efficient for students' learning. Second the teacher may differentiate objectives to cater for all the students needs in class and then the teacher differentiate tasks and activities accordingly.
In differentiating tasks/activities, the teacher can create a class layout in a way that students of mixed abilities can sit together in a way that middle achieving students can help low achieving students and high achieving students can work alone and assign to them challenging tasks.
An effective way is to create small discussion groups, so that students with mixed abilities can work together on different topics provided by teacher.In this way, they interact with each other exchanging ideas, thoughts, increase communication skills and learn by others.
Dear Luz Aide Figueroa Zapata Morena Braçaj Samuel Nti-Adarkwah Murhaf Wahb Thomas Chishimba Kabesha
In your opinion, what is the best method for group formation in learning English as a foreign language?
Whole class-mingles in which all students interact and practice the language through a various activities.
Mixing learners with different abilities can work. This would allow even those weaker ones to learn from those who are fluent. Language is learned through interactions and that's how best learners can learn.
I have been conducting action research to find an answer to this question since long. My two research papers "Gamifying ESL Speaking Classroom - a Study of impact of Game Mechanics on Learning Behaviour of Undergraduate Students" and "Heterogeneous Groups in Competition - Innovative Pedagogy for Teaching English as Second Language" would be able to answer it to some extent.
Dividing the class into small Heterogeneous groups and then creating a competitive environment among groups can help greatly.
I gamified the speaking-activities of the ESL classroom. The lesson plan was so designed that the intrinsic features of game: the desire to communicate, motivation, group dynamics and sense of shared accomplishments could be brought into classroom context.
The best reflective methods used for foreign language teaching are phonics performances, the students repeat the tone of the teacher's voice, humour/ body performances as a tool for interaction/ communication raises the curiousness of the learners. With rigorous learning, or learning with entertainment, students and teachers express and exchange emotions and eventually try to express t spontaneously using their vocabulary somewhat wit some correctness. Breaking the regular routines of teaching is vital to progress and achievement.
We have proposed a grouping method based on the complementarity of learners' cognitive skills. You can see this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282725163_A_K-complementarity_Technique_for_Forming_Groups_of_Tutors_in_Intelligent_Learning_Environments
This method was applied for teaching computer science subjects, especially “algorithms”. I think that this method can be also used for the formation of groups of learners in the case of learning English as Foreign Language (EFL) by using some learners' competences resulting from languages learning such as : comprehension, communication, listening, practicing, etc.
This link maybe useful for you :
https://owlcation.com/academia/5-Easy-Strategies-to-Help-English-Language-Learners-Succeed-in-Your-Classroom
you have to test their individual ability through a diagnostic test and then pair them in groups and go for blended learning
in situations like these where you have little idea about where to draw the baseline of skills, use language in its most primitive form. design various interactions using linguistic skills from bottom up, slowly building a repertoire.
Helping strugglers and advanced learners in heterogeneous classes requires interest, patience , and a sufficient knowledge of strategies that can keep all members of the class motivated during the teaching sessions. The application of tiered tasks or biased tasks by dividing the class into groups of three or four practically caters to differentiated instruction.
Perhaps, it would make the question easier to answer if we knew the range of abilities in these "mixed ability" classes. For example, discussion groups will only work if the lowest level learners have sufficient L2 language skills for discussion.
This Link Maybe Useful:
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teaching-mixed-ability-classes-1
Complex question needs a complex answer:
Glottodidactics synthesizes the knowledge of many sciences on the issue of successful language teaching and serves as a basis for various language – teaching methodologies. These methodologies have always been influenced by the views of psychology concerning the goals of education and the process of speech development. Consequently, the earlier methods based on teaching grammar and translation were predominant at the time when the goals of education were deduced from a theory of transfer called the theory of formal disciplines. (Theories of transfer give instructions on how to organize practice in order to benefit from the experience gained through it, see Helfenstein, 2005). The emphasis of this theory is on the fact that working strenuously on a difficult material can develop the psychical functions, and grammar is very suitable for this purpose. The student, in fact, does not acquire applicable knowledge (communicative competence in the other language) but extends his/her capacities. The direct method of language teaching starts from the presumption that the process of the first language acquisition is repeated while learning a second language1 and this is what makes the second language learning efficient in a foreign language environment. The goal in this case is efficient communication. Audio-lingual and audio-visual methods, on the other hand, are based on the assumption that the process of language development is simultaneous with the acquisition of habits. These two methods rest on the transfer theory of identical components, which claims that applicable knowledge (in this case the use of language in real situations) can be gained if there is an overlap between the elements in the situation of practice and real-life situations. Audio-lingual and audio-visual methods in foreign language teaching are based upon similar mechanisms: the learner repeats utterances imitating real communicational situations spoken in the target language - preferably by a teacher who speaks the language at the level of a native speaker - until they become automatized. In the meantime, he or she is praised, and this praise is reinforced in the sphere of experiences in the form of positive inner conditioning by the feeling of satisfaction. According to the principles of the psychology of learning, behaviour followed by positive consequences is reinforced and turns it into a habit. This, at the same time, is proof of the fact that psychological knowledge related to speech has constant influence on ideas concerned with language teaching or language learning. So, it can be seen that changes in the aims of education also bring about changes in the methods of language teaching. Today, we can no longer speak of a single dominant method of language teaching but rather about the approach to the language learned, and this enables us to deduce methods that use a variety of teaching techniques. Approach to a language indicates what our views on language as a system is, and what the function of the language is in a given community or within a type of school. This is what decides about the method that determines the tasks of both the teacher and the learners, and this makes it possible through adequate language material and concrete techniques for the goals of teaching to be accomplished. There are at least four kinds of dominant approaches to language learning (among several others). The oral approach has as its target communication in a second language in real-life situations, and the language acquisition starts with an oral phase (the length of time depends on the learners' age and the intensity of learning); the integrative approach emphasizes that mechanical learning is the more effective one in studying languages up to the age of puberty (repetition of utterances in the foreign language) while later the cognitive approach, based on the understanding of the functioning of language rules, brings greater success; the multi-medial approach stresses the use of every media that aids the development of communicative skills, while adherents of functional approach point out that the most important thing in professional training is to lay stress upon the future function of the language that the students are learning.
You can apply work grouping strategy Pair work
group work
and then whole class -mingles
Dear Tulba Alobaidy
In your opinion, what is the best work grouping strategy?
According to my experience with my students, I noticed that group work is the best plus they liked it and they enjoyed helping each other. There was much benefit for them as they share their information
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