In my on way of thinking, as to summarize Harmer's advice for managing mixed-ability classes is, as a teachers the first thing that we should consider in managing a students in a classroom is, the individual differences. That no two students are alike in anyways. In that way, comparison and contrast among students will be avoided because we understand each others' capacity and ability to do the school and classroom activities. But in this case, teachers should become more creative and active in all aspects of learning.The teachers should know how to initiate classroom activities that provides learning atmosphere. Although you're teaching English language it doesn't mean that you can not use other varieties of teaching which is not related to your English lesson. Infact, you can use all the fields of education by using this so called integration method. It is a method of teaching where in you are integrating other subject to a certain lesson. Just like for example, your lesson is Syntax where in you study The Sentence Patterns of Language. Whereas, NP(noun phrase) + VP(verb phrase) = S (sentence). In this method, you are integrating Mathematics although the sum is not the same but the process is relatively similar.This is to ensure that students of different learning abilities will get glued to the lesson and will not get bored because the teacher is using different kinds of strategies and methodologies just to caters the learners' needs and for the success of the teaching-learning process.
There are two kinds of education in in the life. First is formal which is happend in school curriculum, second is informal it happend anywhere, anytime, inside of school or outside and whole of their lives. The ages of 8 to 18 are take formal education in school and they lerning many kinds of meeds, competences and cognitive skills. Students needs other languages(especially Enlish) When they take many kinds of abilities.But student cannot acquire Enlish successfully. the people who concern with formal education department think about age and language learning is that young children learn faster and more effectively than any other age group. So they want to make the starting time to learn Enlish ages earlier. But it is important because it's own to their individual abilities, learnin mehtods and opportunities. About of the learner's ages, every ages has their advantages but they have the difference of learning organization. So it is difficult to decide the Agess of time to start to learn Enlish. But before learning Enlish the learners think about their motivation and it will take them more effectiv and fast to learn Enlish.
In a real sense all classes have students with a mixture of different abilities and language levels. Mixed-ability classes are a major preoccupation for most of us because they appear to make planning and execution of plans in lessons difficult. The response to this situation is to view the teacher's role with a group in terms of differentiation. We may give different students different materials, and allow them to make choices about what material they are going to work with. But this way is problematic in large classes because giving feedback to different students in class becomes a lot more complicated. If we cannot offer students different materials, we can, instead, give them different tasks and roles. If all the students are doing the same tasks with the same content, some may well finish earlier than others. We need to reward their efforts and challenge them further. Or we can give students flexible tasks as Seth Lindstromberb suggests(Lindstromberb, 2004). It's also considerable to include tasks which do not necessarily demand linguistic brilliance but instead allow students to show off other talents they have, so that we may give individual students a chance to be 'best' at something and to be autonomous. As teachers, we will treat different students differently. During lessons, we frequently have to respond to students, giving them feedback about how they are doing, or acting as a resource or tutor. A big danger for students in mixed-ability classes is that some of them may get left behind or may become disengaged with what is happening. Therefore we need to be inclusive to draw all of the students into the lesson. Flexible groupings depending on the difficulty of the texts or different levels of students might be also helpful.
Teachers say that teaching a mixed-ability class is a very big problem because it is extremely difficult to satisfy both the beginner level students and the high level ones. Even if we were to place them according to their abilities, the students soon show different learning progress. Therefore, as a solution, use a method of differentiation which allows students to work around their abilities and interests according to Tomlinson, 1995. For instance, if a student is comfortable with graphics, showing pictures as a teaching method is very effective. It is almost impossible to do but the most ideal classroom setting would be a teacher to a student approach.
As far as I remember, in Korea this issue has been a long history to be discussed since Korea was exposed to globalization. Since both L1 and L2 have pros and cons in English class, banning Korean from English language class also has to do with L1 and L2 situation. I want to suggest a method of mixing both of them. For a few years the method of mixing L1 and L2 teachers altogether would be better to make students understand Korean meaning better. For example, in case of an English class with four hour a week, during first 1 year, let both L1 and L2 teachers have 2 hours each. And after then, only L1 teacher would be better for them to improve their English further.
It is a natural phenomenon that mixed-ability classes are in the classr oom. Because students have a mixture of different abilities and language levels.
So many teachers are worried about managing mixed-ability classes. That is they are faced with individuals who have different language knowledge, intelligences, learning speed, learning style, and preferences.
The response to this situation is to view teacher's role. In a differentiated classroom there are a variety of learning options designed around students' different ablities and interests. For example, we may give different students different tasks. I recommend that the teacher consist of mixed ablity groups and then they give each student their role in the group according to their different abilities. The students will learn and help each other as a helper.
How to deal with mixed ability classes? (by Andrew Osobka) Like he said In this case, teacher's role is very important. Teachers have to know each student's level and what they are interested in. Teachers need to study steadily how to make the class successfully. So they prepare a variety of topics, texts and collabirative activities and should make all the students join the activities. In case of Korea, we usually do 'after school'(stay the class for more study)to the lower level students. It'll helpful on the instant but it's not working for long I think. Students can be helpful each other. Osobka gave a lot of tips teachers can do in this classes so teachers should try to do all of them.
Many teachers are extremely worried about the fact that they have students in their classes who are at different levels of proficiency. Many teachers see mixed-ability classes as especially problemtic. Teachers play an important role . ①frist, divide the groups into A,B,C,D... ②teacher should give different contents to the students of their each level. ③try to solve their own each task by oneself. ④share it and compare it with each other and make one answer. ⑤teacher give rewards to the group who finishes earliest but the answer has to be right. In this case, tercher can be in difficult situation in an educational point of view. But, student can get interested in english and can develop their english level and grow with self-confidence.
The key point that Harmer described about managing mixed-ability classes is differentiation. It could be done by providing students(individuals or groups) different materials to work with. Or we could have them work with the same contents and have them do different things in response to them, which was discussed as a term "the use of flexible tasks" by Seth Lindstromberg.
As teachers, when we respond to the students, giving feedback about how they are doing, we always try to tailor our response to the particular individual(group). And we should be inclusive all the students into the lesson, preventing some students from getting left behind or becoming disengaged with what is happening in classes. And we also have to group students flexibly for a number of tasks.
While we recognize the need for differentiation, we need to be realistic about how we can achieve it and how much differentiation we can achieve. Furthermore, the degree to which we are able to differentiate between individuals depends on the physical situation in which students' learning takes place.
The main idea of managing mixed ability class is that teacher should be able to play a role with a group in terms of differentiation. All Students have different abilities, language level, interests ,intelligence and primary perceived system. Teachers cannot transfer same knowledge of English at any one time in this situation. Teachers should provide thier students with a variety of learning options such as different tasks and different response. That is, teachers should treat different students differently. In my opinion flexible grouping and flexible tasks are very important to manage this kind of class. We can group students flexibly for many tasks so the weaker students can benefit from working with students at a higher linguistic level. And also the higer level students can also benefit by explaining their knowledge to their peers. Through this cooperative task can be done in mixed ability class.
Having worked in a well known private school for just over a year I can tell you that not having the opportunity to give accurate feedback was one of the major reasons why I left. Let me start off by saying that although L1 can interfere with second language aquisition I do believe that it can help the students if it is done properly. I work with Elementary School students so I don't teach nearly as much writing as I used to. Nevertheless, when I DO teaching writing I try to make it as fun and useful as I can. I run into more developmental errors than interferance errors and the studnts are very enthusiastic for the most part. One of my favorite activities involves asking the students to shout out fifteen random words. I write the words down on the board and then ask the students to write me a short story using the words they gave me. After they are finished I correct them and then give each student individual feedback. The point of this expercise is to build confidence and help the students become more creative. One of my former professors told me that whenever he had writers block he would simply start writing. It didn't matter whether what he was writing was grammatically correct or not. Once the students move on to middle school they won't know many of the technical aspects of writing but they will have a very strong foundation to build upon.
Hamer advised, even many teachers see mixed-ability classes as especially problematic, they can stimuli individual students respond best to with ' differentiation ' of teacher's ability. * First, Give the students working with different content asking their choice of the contents teacher provide, if the class size is not that big. And encourage them respond with different feedback. **Second. Give students different takes, roles and different responds and identify student strengths of linguistic or non-linguistic. *** Third, What teacher do when students process are the following; a) 'intervein' depend on how well they are getting on students. who are experiencing difficulty and help them clear up some problems. and observe some students who get left behind or disengaged with and draw all of the students into the lesson b) Flexible groupings. *****My comment on managing mixed-ability classes is that; This situation is inevitable that Korean ELT teachers in the public school are having same problems in most classes. and it has been resulted in how they success the lesson is how they well manage the mixed ability class. As Hamer advice that teachers ability is well shown especially in how well to let the members to draw the students who get left behind and help each of level members get helped from different levels in responding (peer feedback). For example, more-proficient students can use more high leveled english to help the less-proficient students while less -proficient student cooperate the task which teacher asked with less-leveled english. If the process is going well, the effect will be same as learner in the same-ability classes, probably more than that sometimes.
To manage this mixed classes, teacher will have more time to prepare the different content for one lesson which is oriented to one target aim of the lesson. Therefore, the department of English Education should get extensive contents for each lessons.
In my on way of thinking, as to summarize Harmer's advice for managing mixed-ability classes is, as a teachers the first thing that we should consider in managing a students in a classroom is, the individual differences. That no two students are alike in anyways. In that way, comparison and contrast among students will be avoided because we understand each others' capacity and ability to do the school and classroom activities. But in this case, teachers should become more creative and active in all aspects of learning.The teachers should know how to initiate classroom activities that provides learning atmosphere. Although you're teaching English language it doesn't mean that you can not use other varieties of teaching which is not related to your English lesson. Infact, you can use all the fields of education by using this so called integration method. It is a method of teaching where in you are integrating other subject to a certain lesson. Just like for example, your lesson is Syntax where in you study The Sentence Patterns of Language. Whereas, NP(noun phrase) + VP(verb phrase) = S (sentence). In this method, you are integrating Mathematics although the sum is not the same but the process is relatively similar.This is to ensure that students of different learning abilities will get glued to the lesson and will not get bored because the teacher is using different kinds of strategies and methodologies just to caters the learners' needs and for the success of the teaching-learning process.
ReplyDeleteThere are two kinds of education in in the life. First is formal which is happend in school curriculum, second is informal it happend anywhere, anytime, inside of school or outside and whole of their lives. The ages of 8 to 18 are take formal education in school and they lerning many kinds of meeds, competences and cognitive skills. Students needs other languages(especially Enlish) When they take many kinds of abilities.But student cannot acquire Enlish successfully. the people who concern with formal education department think about age and language learning is that young children learn faster and more effectively than any other age group. So they want to make the starting time to learn Enlish ages earlier. But it is important because it's own to their individual abilities, learnin mehtods and opportunities. About of the learner's ages, every ages has their advantages but they have the difference of learning organization. So it is difficult to decide the Agess of time to start to learn Enlish. But before learning Enlish the learners think about their motivation and it will take them more effectiv and fast to learn Enlish.
ReplyDeleteIn a real sense all classes have students with a mixture of different abilities and language levels. Mixed-ability classes are a major preoccupation for most of us because they appear to make planning and execution of plans in lessons difficult. The response to this situation is to view the teacher's role with a group in terms of differentiation.
ReplyDeleteWe may give different students different materials, and allow them to make choices about what material they are going to work with. But this way is problematic in large classes because giving feedback to different students in class becomes a lot more complicated. If we cannot offer students different materials, we can, instead, give them different tasks and roles. If all the students are doing the same tasks with the same content, some may well finish earlier than others. We need to reward their efforts and challenge them further. Or we can give students flexible tasks as Seth Lindstromberb suggests(Lindstromberb, 2004). It's also considerable to include tasks which do not necessarily demand linguistic brilliance but instead allow students to show off other talents they have, so that we may give individual students a chance to be 'best' at something and to be autonomous.
As teachers, we will treat different students differently. During lessons, we frequently have to respond to students, giving them feedback about how they are doing, or acting as a resource or tutor. A big danger for students in mixed-ability classes is that some of them may get left behind or may become disengaged with what is happening. Therefore we need to be inclusive to draw all of the students into the lesson. Flexible groupings depending on the difficulty of the texts or different levels of students might be also helpful.
Shin-Sook Bahn says...
ReplyDeleteTeachers say that teaching a mixed-ability class is a very big problem because it is extremely difficult to satisfy both the beginner level students and the high level ones. Even if we were to place them according to their abilities, the students soon show different learning progress. Therefore, as a solution, use a method of differentiation which allows students to work around their abilities and interests according to Tomlinson, 1995. For instance, if a student is comfortable with graphics, showing pictures as a teaching method is very effective. It is almost impossible to do but the most ideal classroom setting would be a teacher to a student approach.
Kyung Kyu Shin said...
ReplyDeleteAs far as I remember, in Korea this issue has been a long history to be discussed since Korea was exposed to globalization. Since both L1 and L2 have pros and cons in English class, banning Korean from English language class also has to do with L1 and L2 situation. I want to suggest a method of mixing both of them. For a few years the method of mixing L1 and L2 teachers altogether would be better to make students understand Korean meaning better. For example, in case of an English class with four hour a week, during first 1 year, let both L1 and L2 teachers have 2 hours each. And after then, only L1 teacher would be better for them to improve their English further.
It is a natural phenomenon that mixed-ability classes are in the classr oom. Because students have a mixture of different abilities and language levels.
ReplyDeleteSo many teachers are worried about managing mixed-ability classes. That is they are faced with individuals who have different language knowledge, intelligences, learning speed, learning style, and preferences.
The response to this situation is to view teacher's role. In a differentiated classroom there are a variety of learning options designed around students' different ablities and interests. For example, we may give different students different tasks. I recommend that the teacher consist of mixed ablity groups and then they give each student their role in the group according to their different abilities. The students will learn and help each other as a helper.
How to deal with mixed ability classes?
ReplyDelete(by Andrew Osobka)
Like he said In this case, teacher's role is very important. Teachers have to know each student's level and what they are interested in. Teachers need to study steadily how to make the class successfully. So they prepare a variety of topics, texts and collabirative activities and should make all the students join the activities. In case of Korea, we usually do 'after school'(stay the class for more study)to the lower level students. It'll helpful on the instant but it's not working for long I think. Students can be helpful each other. Osobka gave a lot of tips teachers can do in this classes so teachers should try to do all of them.
Many teachers are extremely worried about the fact that they have students in their classes who are at different levels of proficiency.
ReplyDeleteMany teachers see mixed-ability classes as especially problemtic.
Teachers play an important role .
①frist, divide the groups into A,B,C,D...
②teacher should give different contents to the students of their each level.
③try to solve their own each task by oneself.
④share it and compare it with each other and make one answer.
⑤teacher give rewards to the group who finishes earliest but the answer has to be
right.
In this case, tercher can be in difficult situation in an educational point of view.
But, student can get interested in english and can develop their english level and
grow with self-confidence.
The key point that Harmer described about managing mixed-ability classes is differentiation. It could be done by providing students(individuals or groups) different materials to work with. Or we could have them work with the same contents and have them do different things in response to them, which was discussed as a term "the use of flexible tasks" by Seth Lindstromberg.
ReplyDeleteAs teachers, when we respond to the students, giving feedback about how they are doing, we always try to tailor our response to the particular individual(group). And we should be inclusive all the students into the lesson, preventing some students from getting left behind or becoming disengaged with what is happening in classes. And we also have to group students flexibly for a number of tasks.
While we recognize the need for differentiation, we need to be realistic about how we can achieve it and how much differentiation we can achieve. Furthermore, the degree to which we are able to differentiate between individuals depends on the physical situation in which students' learning takes place.
The main idea of managing mixed ability class is that teacher should be able to play a role with a group in terms of differentiation.
ReplyDeleteAll Students have different abilities, language level, interests ,intelligence and primary perceived system.
Teachers cannot transfer same knowledge of English at any one time in this situation. Teachers should provide thier students with a variety of learning options such as different tasks and different response. That is, teachers should treat different students differently.
In my opinion flexible grouping and flexible tasks are very important to manage this kind of class. We can group students flexibly for many tasks so the weaker students can benefit from working with students at a higher linguistic level. And also the higer level students can also benefit by explaining their knowledge to their peers. Through this cooperative task can be done in mixed ability class.
Having worked in a well known private school for just over a year I can tell you that not having the opportunity to give accurate feedback was one of the major reasons why I left. Let me start off by saying that although L1 can interfere with second language aquisition I do believe that it can help the students if it is done properly. I work with Elementary School students so I don't teach nearly as much writing as I used to. Nevertheless, when I DO teaching writing I try to make it as fun and useful as I can. I run into more developmental errors than interferance errors and the studnts are very enthusiastic for the most part. One of my favorite activities involves asking the students to shout out fifteen random words. I write the words down on the board and then ask the students to write me a short story using the words they gave me. After they are finished I correct them and then give each student individual feedback. The point of this expercise is to build confidence and help the students become more creative. One of my former professors told me that whenever he had writers block he would simply start writing. It didn't matter whether what he was writing was grammatically correct or not. Once the students move on to middle school they won't know many of the technical aspects of writing but they will have a very strong foundation to build upon.
ReplyDeleteHamer advised, even many teachers see mixed-ability classes as especially problematic, they can stimuli individual students respond best to with ' differentiation ' of teacher's ability.
ReplyDelete* First, Give the students working with different content asking their choice of the contents teacher provide, if the class size is not that big. And encourage them respond with different feedback.
**Second. Give students different takes, roles and different responds and identify student strengths of linguistic or non-linguistic.
*** Third, What teacher do when students process are the following; a) 'intervein' depend on how well they are getting on students. who are experiencing difficulty and help them clear up some problems. and observe some students who get left behind or disengaged with and draw all of the students into the lesson b) Flexible groupings.
*****My comment on managing mixed-ability classes is that;
This situation is inevitable that Korean ELT teachers in the public school are having same problems in most classes. and it has been resulted in how they success the lesson is how they well manage the mixed ability class.
As Hamer advice that teachers ability is well shown especially in how well to let the members to draw the students who get left behind and help each of level members get helped from different levels in responding (peer feedback). For example, more-proficient students can use more high leveled english to help the less-proficient students while less -proficient student cooperate the task which teacher asked with less-leveled english. If the process is going well, the effect will be same as learner in the same-ability classes, probably more than that sometimes.
To manage this mixed classes, teacher will have more time to prepare the different content for one lesson which is oriented to one target aim of the lesson. Therefore, the department of English Education should get extensive contents for each lessons.