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D evening Brahim! Good evening to you all!
I �m so glad you brought up this issue to the forum. I�ve been a passionate defender of pedagogical differentiation for the last decade and I truly believe that the key to the success of mixed-ability classes resides in this approach.
I work in a public school that receives about 1500 students (from the 7th to the 12th grade) from different social and economic backgrounds. When students come into our school in the 7th grade, we try to put them together in a class according to their level/ grades (24/25 students in each class or 20 if it has students with disabilities).
However, just like you�ve said, there is no way we can have a homogeneous class. They might even be all in the same level, but they would have different ways or rhythms of learning, for example. So how do we deal with it?
Personally, when I�m given a class in the 7th year (their 1st year in our school), which will be mine till the end of compulsory education � 9th year � I try not only to learn as much as possible about the students� interests, learning preferences and level of awareness, but also to identify students� strengths and weaknesses in terms of their communicative competence in English.
After more or less 2 months, I usually have 2 or 3 groups identified in each class - Those who are very good at English, those that are good and those that are not so good. I have come to the conclusion that I don�t need to have different activities for the VG and G students (class made by level). It is the not so good that need guidance. These are the steps I usually follow:
- Talk to the students and make them aware of their difficulties;
- make clear what it is expected from them at this level and where they are;
- establish priorities and a period of time to achieve them;
- agree on what we�re going to do in class and out of class;
- agree on assessment terms.
Things we do in class:
-Sit the student next to a good one, who will become his/her tutor in the English classes. At the beginning, the tutor has the tendency to answer all the questions, but, as time goes by, he/she learns how to lead his/her mate to give the answers himself/herself. It�s a process in which both of them learn something from each other.
-The topics in class are always the same for all the students; it is the tasks
that are/may be different.
Examples: In a reading or listening task, students that are good will have more complex exercises. Those who are not so good will have less complex ones � multiple choice, True/false, answering simple questions on the text, easier references and vocabulary exercises, etc. Sometimes, they may also have a different text on the same topic. They may work in groups and present their work to the class. Those with the more difficult text will do the same.
In a writing task, depending on the level of the students, they can have just
a text to complete, while the others have to write their own text. They can
also write a paragraph or a small text, following the guidelines I give them
and a model � usually a text studied in class. For these students, the pre-
writing activities are extremely important. The better they are, the better
their text will be. In a speaking activity, they will have more time to
practise. At this point, fluency and verbal and non-verbal strategies are
more important than accuracy. Communication must be established.
Accuracy will come later. I also make students talk more in class. For
example, when I �m doing a pre-reading/listening activity, I usually give the
students 3 to 4 minutes to discuss sth in pairs and then present it to the
class. That �s the only way we have to make all students talk in a class
There has to be student-student communication.
The students are aware of every goal achieved and motivated to keep up the good work. They take regularly some extra work for the weekend and as they improve I start preparing more difficult tasks until they are able to do those done by the good and very good students. Their tests are made according to the tasks and the level of difficulty they are used to work in class .
Of course that this whole process has to be assessed every class, by the student and by me, so that I�m able to praise every little progress or use other strategies if I see that the ones I �m using are not working.
Good night to you all.
mena
, but I finished writing my answer after 2 a.m....