In most English language classes, there is a long tradition of grouping by ‘ability’ – a practice founded upon the idea that students have relatively fixed levels of ability and need to be taught accordingly. Mixed ability teaching is related to working together with students who have different personalities, skills, interests and learning needs. Though most classes are usually multi-level, teachers (especially those with little or no experience), find teaching such classes a very difficult and demanding task as it involves planning lessons which include a rich diversity of tasks corresponding to a variety of learning styles and abilities.
The adoption of a flexible methodology is considered a challenge by some teachers as they have to put more effort when designing their lessons, they might need to learn new organizational and / or classroom management skills – and that may be something beyond their pedagogical skills.
However, teaching a non-homogeneous group of pupils can be viewed positively because it serves as a trigger for teachers’ professional growth and development as it involves the usage of variety of approaches, teaching techniques, interaction patterns, and tasks.
Problem
English language teachers often do not know how to teach effectively to students who are clearly of different levels, backgrounds, motivations and characteristics in general.
Objectives
General objectives:
The goal of this study is:
• To describe and inform about different kinds of mixed-ability classes a teacher may face
• To describe the strategies and actions that teachers can apply to deal successfully with mixed-ability classes
Specific objectives:
• To provide classroom management strategies to teach effectively in mixed-ability classes
• To inform how to motivate students in a mixed-ability class
• To provide information to teachers to cater for different types of learners
Justification
This study consists of two parts, in the first one the main goal is to make clear what a mixed-ability class is, explaining how a common class may become into a mixed-ability one; in the second part the main objective is to supply English language teachers with strategies to deal successfully with mixed-ability classes. The research is important because today’s students are no longer considered as homogeneous groups but individuals. Most classes are mixed-ability, teachers have to face classes with heterogeneous individuals with different motivation, abilities, backgrounds, etc. It is essential for teachers to know how to cope with mixed-ability classes because that can make them successful educators or, in contrast, can lead to frustration and anger.
In conclusion, through the surveys and questionnaireperformed to teachers and teacher trainees, it is possible to determine the knowledge and attitudes towards mixed-ability classes in schools, since they are responsible for guiding and accompanying students in the process of learning.
Research questions
• Why are there differences between English language learners?
• How does motivation affect the way and speed of students’ learning?
• Which is the role of a teacher in a mixed-ability class? (teaching styles)
• How to teach in a mixed-ability class? (differentiation, activities, classroom management, etc)
• How do students in a mixed-ability class learn?
• What challenges do teachers of a mixed-ability class face?
CHAPTER II – Background
Theoretical background
Many teachers are extremely worried about the fact that they have students in their classes who possess different levels of language proficiency. Indeed, mixed-ability classes are a major preoccupation for most of us because they appear to make planning very difficult. Furthermore, many teachers see mixed- ability classes as especially problematic. Yet in a real sense all classes have students with a mixture of different abilities and language level and it is inconceivable that any two students will have exactly the same knowledge of English at any one time. Even if we were able to assemble a class of real beginners, it would soon be clear that some were learning faster than others- or learning different things.
In private language schools and language institutes, teachers try to make this situation manageable by giving students placement tests so that they can be put into classes with people who are at roughly the same level as they are. Within other schools environments, students are often streamed, that is to say, re-grouped for language lessons according to their abilities. In other situations, however, such placement and streaming is not possible and so teachers are faced with individuals who have different language knowledge, different intelligences, different learning speeds, and different learning styles and preferences.
The response to this situation is to view the teacher’s role with a group in terms of differentiation. In a differentiated classroom there are a variety of learning options designed around students’ different abilities and interests; for example, teachers may assign different students different tasks. (Harmer 2007)
The term “mixed-ability” is normally used for a group where these individuals differences are very pronounced and particularly where there is a marked difference in language level.
To be more specific, mixed-ability refers to:
• Classes in which there is a very clear difference in language level among the students. There may be differences in the level of their abilities in the receptive and productive skills, fluency and accuracy work, grammatical knowledge, size of vocabulary, command of pronunciation and so on.
• Classes in which there are clear differences in learning style, speed and aptitude among the students. Some students seem to be good at languages or perhaps good at all subjects, able to pick things up quickly and remember them, while others are slower, lack study skills and generally experience more difficulties in learning.
• Classes in which there are clear differences in the students’ background knowledge, knowledge of the world and their skills and talents in other areas. Some of these differences may be linked to age, sex, different levels of maturity, different interests and so on.
• Classes in which there are different levels of motivation. Some of the students may have a very positive attitude towards learning English while others may see it as just another school subject. (Tice 1997)
When Melinda Roberts (2007) was asked about what makes an ESL class “multilevel”, she answered the following:
• The student’s personality: A student’s individual personality is another factor that affects instruction. Personality plays a huge role in a student’s willingness to participate in activities, take risks using English, and become part of the larger classroom community.
• The student’s goals: Research on student persistence is clear that the more specific a student’s goal(s), the more motivated that student is to attend class. Students, for example, who are coming to learn English so they can help their children with their homework, or so they can get a better job, will be more motivated to come to class than those who are coming simply “to learn English.”
• The student’s age: Generally speaking, the older the student, the more challenging it will be for the student to retain information. Personality and motivation, however, tend to have a greater impact on acquisition than age.
• The student’s access to English outside the ESL classroom: Finally, the number of opportunities students have to use English outside the classroom can impact instruction. While some students may live in a closed community where everyone everywhere speaks their first language, others do not and must use English to communicate in everyday situations and/or at work. Of course, the more language learners use English in their everyday lives, the more quickly their acquisition and proficiency improves.
Streaming
According to Regina Pospíšilová (2008), the concept of so-called mixed-ability classes was not originally connected with teaching English as a second or foreign language. The term first referred to what was seen as a contrast to classes where streaming had been performed. As Harlen and Malcolm (1997) explain in their research, streaming is a term that describes the method of dividing pupils into classes based on the assessment of their general ability.
Streaming was popular in Britain in the 1960s. Further studies showed that it has negative effects on the students’ performance in secondary schools, consequently it became less and less popular in primary schools and it eventually disappeared during the 1970s and 1980s.
Apart from streaming, the term “setting” appears in the same period. Setting means the regrouping of pupils based on their ability in the particular subject.
Mixed-ability grouping means within the same context, randomly chosen students gathered in one class regardless of their abilities or achievements in the subject concerned.
The students in language schools are usually placed in courses/classes according to the results of an entrance test where they have to prove their knowledge of English. From what has been said so far we would say these classes are rather ´set´ than ´mixed-ability´ as the students who eventually meet in one classroom have passed their entrance tests with the same or very similar outcomes. On the other hand, the entrance tests concentrate on the students´ level of English and as such do not provide the teacher with the information considering the students´ general abilities to learn new words, to express themselves, to study or to make progress in learning a language. Their momentary knowledge of the subject is about the same but some may have spent much more time or/and may have needed to make a lot more effort to reach that level than others. What is more, the relevance of the division of the applicants depends on other factors as well, e.g. on the objectivity of the test (if it is a multiple choice test the possibility of gaining more points not by showing the particular knowledge but by being lucky having chosen the correct answer and reaching a little higher level is always there) or on the number of courses available at a particular school (if the teacher can divide 30 students into three classes of ten the range of their knowledge within one class will be more similar than if there are only two classes with 15 students each as in the first case the teacher actually has three different levels to choose from while in the second he/she has only two).
Reasons for Differences between Learners
Beside the facts mentioned above, psychologists specializing in developmental psychology have proved that a human being is formed partly genetically by inheriting genes of his/her ancestors and partly through the environment he/she grows up in and experience.
Psychology offers its explanation for successful or unsuccessful performance of learners at schools and education generally. The reasons are numerous. Kohoutek (2006) explains that there are three types of underlying causes: social psychological, bio-psychological and intra-psychical.
Social psychological causes are connected with the student´s family and school background. We are speaking about the cultural background, general situation in the family and the relationships, the position of the student in the family, the parents’ view of the importance of one´s achieved education, etc.
Bio-psychological causes are closely linked with the student´s health and mental conditions. One of the bio-psychological elements of personality is for example temperament. Temperament itself includes aspects such as the activity level, regularity of sleeping and eating patterns, initial reaction, adaptability, intensity of emotion, mood, distractibility, persistence and attention span, and sensory sensitivity. Another bio-psychological parameter is intelligence.
As examples of intra-psychical causes of poor class performance Kohoutek (2006, p. 24) presents insufficient development of interest, a student´s negativity towards learning and school generally, intellectual passivity – underachieving (student´s results are lower than he/she actually could achieve regarding his capabilities.) As the most important element of one´s relationship to learning and school Kohoutek sees attitude. The definition of attitude is presented on Wikipedia as follows:
Attitude: A complex mental state involving beliefs, feelings, values and dispositions to act in certain ways. Attitude affects a student’s ability to learn, but is unrelated to aptitude.
To complete the definition of attitude, the definition of aptitude is included as well from the same source as well:
Aptitude: The rate at which a student can learn a language, based on raw talent. Aptitude does not seem to be related to attitude; a gifted student can have a poor attitude.
We can see here that aptitude correlates with the bio-psychological aspects.
Teaching in a Heterogeneous Class
Regina Pospíšilová in her article called “Teaching Heterogeneous Classes in Practice” stated that the interest in individual students is the key to a heterogeneous class satisfaction. It is widely known that each student is a mosaic of a number of various personal qualities and abilities which are influenced by many factors coming from the student´s life and environment. It has also been said that most of the elements of this mosaic are impossible to be influenced by the teacher, but on the other hand, a teacher who tries and works hard is not without chances completely as he/she can always motivate students to learn.
Students come from different backgrounds with different ideas, expectations and needs. They are individuals, therefore they should be looked at as individuals and not as a whole class. Trying to satisfy the class´ needs actually means trying to satisfy the needs of each person present in the class – individualization is the cornerstone.
The Concept of Individualization
According to Logan (cited in Sarwar,1990, p.202) there are certain underlying basic assumptions regarding learning when we talk of ´individualization´:
• People learn – even the same material – in different ways (this implies accepting different learning styles).
• People can learn from a variety of sources, even if the final goals are the same (it means that the instructional materials can vary)
• Direct teaching by a teacher is not essential for learning, it is only one of many possible experiences (which means that a teacher can be a facilitator)
• A variety of learning activities can take place simultaneously
• People may have a variety of goals of objectives for learning a second language.
Working as a teacher in English provides challenges every day. The teacher has to face 25-30 students at a time who are all at different levels of ability, have varying motivation for working with English and have their own special interests and experiences. The teacher meets these mixed-ability classes each day. To sum up this chapter, people have different ways of thinking, different learning styles, speed of learning etc. To find two people who are very similar in appearance is possible but to find two people with the same reactions to various mental stimuli is not.