Welcome to
ESL Printables,
the website where English Language teachers exchange resources:
worksheets, lesson plans, activities, etc.
Our collection is growing every day with the help of many teachers. If
you want to download you have to send your own contributions.
I hope you will be able to provide me with suggestions to get a way out of my dilemma.
Here is the thing:some of my students always fall behind their peers which makes it hard for me to have a successful class.Even though I make my instructions as clear as possible, they fail to keep up.They never get them unless I explain them in their mother tongue.And even if they get it right, they do it wrong.Actually, they are far behind and I don �t know what do to involve them in the lesson.And if I design activities that would involve them, the others get bored due to the simplicity of the task.I am in a dilemma.Help me, please.I want to get these laggers interested, but I don �t want the best students to lose their anticipation and excitement or feel bored.
If possible have the weaker pupils sit close together so that you can give them a second explantion while the others are working.
You can also grade the class assignments - A- would be the exercises everyone must do - basic level, B - for the slightly better pupils and C- for your top group so they are challenged by more difficult exercises ( they have to complete A and B before starting C) so they will be kept busy.
Then you can grade you tests so the weakest group should be able to get between 60-70% the middle group from 71- 85% and your top pupils off course will be close to 100%.
I sometimes prepare activities for them to do in pairs, but I put an advanced st along with a lagger. You have to know them well and prepare the activities well, so the advenced ones wouldn �t suffer, and the laggers would be motivated. I find that activities with humour and creativity are very helpful in this - e. g. a creative writing task - some of my sts do this naturally, to some I suggest this: if they �re writing a crime story, they both have to supply ideas, then the advanced st creates sentences and the lagger has to write it all down. But if the atmosphere is good, this strategy flows naturally and motivates them both. ONce I even let them do a revision test (not the real test, but the one before the actual test) like this and it turned out it helped the advanced sts clear out some details, whereas the laggers got the idea of how simple it actually is. If I explain too much, it makes them feel stupid and they complain just to seem cool, whereas the advanced ones get bored. This partnership builds up the esteem of the advanced sts, and the laggers are not so ashamed to ask their peers to explain sth. However, I �m really careful to change partnership combinations, prepare interesting and well-planned activities and to discretely monitro their work. It provides really great results (and in time, requires less effort and time in preparing), because some laggers are just lazy, but some fall behind because at first they �re too ashamed to ask you for help, and if they �re not really linguistically talented (and not all kids are), it �s enough for them to lose interest if 3-4 classes pass without them understanding the main point, and then it may be too late. Just don �t give up. Read all the advice people here give you and try. Be persistent - teenagers may take lots of effort and time, but they �re worth it and you can still get results with them. You just have to find the balance, not to embarass them with too much explaining, yet to gain their trust. This partnership system helps me a lot and really gets results.
After teaching for 35 years or more!!?? I can say that one way to get students to try their best is to make them feel they are individuals and not just a "mass " in front of you! What I do and I must say that it has limits because ,as teachers, we don �t have all the cards in our game, is take time just before the lesson or afterwards to talk individually to them. i just say according to the situation: How are you today? or you seem to be quite agitated today. Anything the matter? or I ask him/her easy questions Or just give him a look showing that I know he is there .... etc... At this age children are very self conscious and sometimes hate to speak in front of others.... Just try to respect their personality.... Speak frankly to them but always INDIVIDUALLY !! You seem to be doing well at maths why not at English? Is anything wrong with English? Use humour not irony!! Humour is a loving attitude irony hurts!! That �s all my divagations for now ! You will manage to find a solution! Being concerned is the first step to solutions and you seem to be sincere!
My students are from 9 to 14 (4th - 8th grade) but they start learning
English earlier (1st grade) . Some of them have problem even in grade 4. And
that �s the time (4th and 5th grade) when I make the biggest effort.
These kids usually have problems with other subjects as well - most of them are
kids with special needs . There are
several things which should be done ( my opinion)
1. Test kid to see what he/she knows - it �s good to be in contact with the
teacher from previous grades - if he/she keeps notes about kid it �s great.
2. Make a good plan based on the test you have made and monitor kid �s progress
3. It �s HARDWORK because it demands simplifying each
lesson according students abilities so finally you end up with a new
textbook but once you make some materials you can use it later. But it �s
difficult to "run" with some kids and teach others how to
"walk" at the same time.
And I think that with such kids you should use mother tongue - if not
orally than in your written materials because if they don �t understand you and
you cannot teach 1 -1 ... There �s no point. What else can you do?
4.For such kids you should have some extra classes.
It �s hard, and if you have a big class... even worse. Once I had a deaf
student and it was interesting experience for me. Interesting but hard.
And finally the results (English knowledge) are maybe not always satisfying
if you consider all your efforts, but you gain something else with your kids...
Well, I can see I �m not the only one facing this agonizing problem! The only difference is that my pupils are aged between 17 & 19. Added to this, I have to cover the whole curriculum no matter what happens (they �ll sit for the bac exam by the end of the year).
As for my dealing with it, I adopt different approaches none of which seems to be truly fruitful. In fact, I do as Mariethe said. I try to see them as individuals with different needs & personalities but it does not work with all of them. (Some of them see this as an opportunity to get my attention so that by the end of the session they tell me abt their pblms, even the extracurricular ones!)
When assigning a group-work task (e.g. a roleplay), I try to break them into mixed-ability groups to help them learn from each other. Yet, I find out that either the high-levelled pupils do it reluctantly (they want to work with pupils like them) or the low-levelled ones do nothing on the basis that it �s too late to learn English.
I try to ask very easy questions to get mediocre pupils involved. Then, I discover that I �ve lost the attention of the bright ones.
In one word, do whatever you think is fit for your kids coz you know them best, but pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase don �t use Arabic. If you do so, they �ll think that you �ve yielded to their paramount demand: teaching English in Arabic, which you already know is anti-pedagogic.
May God bless you with muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch patience!
I totally agree with Mariethe and anitarobi, of course!
what I do at the beginning of each class is a short recap of our last lessons. I usually ask my "good" pupils to start saying a couple of sentences, then I ask the weaker ones to repeat - I do that for 3 or 4 sentences - it seems to help them remember, because they usually have troubles building sentences, so it �s easier to repeat first - then I ask all the class to build their own sentences.
I �m working in small teams in my classes (5 pupils per team), so I started a reward system based on green points: the team gets a point if all the pupils talked once, they can also get extra points if they do an activity successfully by working together - to encourage them to help each other. Of course they can also have have red points if they mis-behave... but the point is to encourage them, not punish them, so before giving them red points there �s a warning... I also have that system for each pupil: they can earn up to 4 green points per lesson if they participate, mind their grammar, do their homework... I include all those points in a mark.
