What are different techniques that a teacher can use to teach students with mixed abilities?

Although students may be in the same class, they may not necessarily have the same ability level. This can be seen in all classes; however, this can become very noticeable in a class designed to teach a language to someone who is not a native speaker. It is up to the teacher to notice these differences in ability levels and restructure their lessons accordingly. There are a few different strategies that will help with gaps in ability levels, which consist of the use of different materials, providing the same materials with a different task, paring weak and strong students together, and even doing nothing.

This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brook S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.

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1. Differentiate materials

The first strategy is to give different materials. For this strategy, the teacher will split the students into groups based on their ability levels. Although students may be given different materials, it is important that each set of materials is about the same topic as the other. For example, think about a class of 10 students who are learning about time. There are five weaker students and five stronger students. The stronger students will be given pictures of clocks with a specific time, including the seconds. They will be challenged to write the time in a more complex way. Meanwhile, the weaker students will simply have clocks that only have the hour and minute hands. This teaching style will allow the more advanced students to not get bored, while the weaker students will not be discouraged.

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2. Differentiate tasks

The second strategy is to give the same materials with a different task. The students will be grouped the same as the previous strategy. However, with this strategy, let’s consider an activity in which students are looking at a comic strip of typical morning activities. Each group will receive the same comic strip. The stronger students will receive a list of questions containing ideas such as what, how, and why. The weaker students will receive a set of questions focusing on just what is happening in the comic strip. This strategy will also allow stronger students to be challenged, while weaker students will gain confidence.

3. Peer learning

The third strategy for gaps in ability levels is to pair weaker students with stronger students. It would be best to strategically pair one stronger student with one weaker student. For a class of 10 students, there would be five groups, each containing one strong and one weak student. It is important to consider personality to make sure that a strong student does not do all of the work. If paired correctly, the stronger students will motivate the weaker student to work harder and improve their skills. For this strategy, you could utilize a role-playing activity in which one student plays a store employee while the other plays a tourist trying to buy something.

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4. Do not differentiate

The final strategy is to do absolutely nothing. This strategy will allow students to assess everyone’s ability level and pace themselves accordingly. Every student in the class will receive the same materials and the same task. If utilized correctly, there should be no real gap in activity level. There is a significant risk that the activity may end up being too difficult for some and not challenging enough for others. An activity you could use with this strategy is a “Find someone who…” activity. Each student will have a handout of the same list, containing tasks such as “Find someone who likes the color blue” or “Find someone who doesn’t like pizza”. Students will ask their peers about the list until they’ve found someone for every task.

5. Change your approach

Strategies are proven to work. Sometimes all it takes is changing your approach to the students when you are explaining the directions of the task for improvement to be seen. This is something I have personally seen work in everyday life. Although I do not have in-class experience as a teacher, I do have a lot of experience teaching people things outside of the classroom. I grew up as an athlete. There were many times in my athletic career in which I was expected to teach the younger athletes and ones who were not as skilled as I was, how to do things the right way. Many of my teammates, who were at the same ability level as myself, would often get angry at the weaker ones when they were not understanding the directions for various skills.

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For example, during our softball offseason, we did mat room drills, which was when groups of us would need to follow hand commands from our coach exactly, or we would have to punish. A group of the younger students kept messing up, but all my teammates did was yell at them. I quickly noticed that it was the nervousness and pressure of not failing their coach and upperclassmen that were getting in their heads, so I asked them all to stay after school with me. I calmly explained what each hand command meant. I stayed with them until each group of underclassmen understood the commands and could execute them perfectly. The next time we had mat room drills, there was an obvious increase in the underclassmen’s ability level. This goes to show how important it is to have a strategy when it comes to teaching people of differing ability levels.

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Trying to teach a classroom full of students can be hard enough as it is. A teacher’s job is only made harder when that class consists of students with different ability levels. It is super important that teachers notice these gaps inability to provide each student with the best opportunity to learn. One strategy may work for one lesson, while another strategy works better for another lesson. It is up to the teacher to assess the class and utilize a mix of these strategies. In doing so, students will get the most out of the class.

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Romina Trossero in Argentina wrote into our Grammar Help section with the following problem:

‘I’d like to get some information about mixed-ability English language classes and some activities to use with a class in which there are two levels of English.’

This is Tim Bowen’s response:

This is a very common problem. Most, if not all, language classes contain students of mixed abilities. This happens for a number of reasons, but mainly because of different learning styles, different learning speeds, variations in motivation and, very frequently, as a result of logistical decisions. Very often the teacher is faced with a class which has two or more distinct levels of ability, and they have to tackle the problem of how to meet the needs of everyone in the class. Naturally, this is not an easy problem to solve, and it would be wrong to suggest that there are any simple solutions. A fundamental step, however, is to talk to the class about the problem, presenting it to them both as a normal situation and one that the class as a whole has to deal with. This is best done in the students’ first language (L1), if possible. As most of the solutions to the problem depend on cooperation between the members of the class, it is essential to stress the need for teamwork and for the class to use English wherever possible in classroom communication.

Pairing up

The use of pair and group work is essential if you are to involve all the members of the class. A fundamental technique here is the use of questionnaires and interviews. By pairing off the weaker and stronger students and by involving both in the preparation and implementation of the questionnaire you should ensure maximum participation of all the students. You can then get the weaker students to interview their stronger peers and vice-versa. Of course, this may be frustrating for the stronger students, but if they are able to see their role as that of ‘helper’, or even mentor, it may also have a positive effect.

Project work

A second area of activity that can be productive in mixed-ability classes is project work. Again, this can work successfully using mixed groups where the stronger help the weaker, but another approach is to form groups that are at approximately the same level and assign different tasks that are appropriate to the level of each group. By adjusting the complexity of the task, you can ensure that each group has a task that it can carry out successfully, thereby providing the correct level of challenge for the higher level students and not demotivating the weaker ones.

The importance of homework

A third area is that of homework. If you set the whole class the same homework task, irrespective of level, then you will have to expect very mixed results. As with progress tests, the purpose of homework should be to consolidate class work. To this end, giving weaker students less demanding tasks than their stronger peers can help both to motivate them and to give them further practice in areas of the language which they have not yet mastered. Assigning more challenging tasks to the stronger students in the group should ensure that they remain motivated and continue to make progress. It is more work for the teacher, but, ultimately, it should produce results.

The role of drilling

Choral drilling can be an effective way of involving weaker or shy students. If applied judiciously (in other words not all the time), it can give excellent practice in rhythm and intonation, as well as reinforcing word order and grammatical structure.

Finally …

Be diplomatic in your questioning techniques. Try to avoid putting weaker students ‘on the spot’ by nominating them to be the first to answer a question in open class. Instead, try to encourage a culture of attentive listening in the classroom so that you ask a stronger student first and then ask a weaker student to repeat the answer. It may take time but, once this style of interaction becomes habitual, it can be very productive in terms of class dynamics.