Teacher Refresher Course - (London) 5th session

5th Session: Managing Mixed Ability

That was an interesting session because who doesn't have at class a mixed ability group? Everybody has different kind of students at class and for teachers is difficult to manage the group.

First of all, we talked about "what is a mixed ability group?". The teacher pointed some ideas like these:

- One in which students have different levels.

- One in which students have different learning experiences and styles.

- One in which students have different levels of motivation.

...

Here there are some activities for managing a mixed ability group:

- Focus on topics that interest students.
- Push early finishers.
- Give different tasks to different students.

...

Then we discussed about these points:

- Explain methodology
- Drill
- Nominate
- Teach turn taking techniques
- Rearrange groups
- Give clear instructions
...

After that, the teacher gave us an article that was written by Jim Rose, Mixed Ability an "inclusive" classroom. I tried to find it on the Internet and uploaded on my blog. At the end, I found it, it's from a "English Teaching professional magazine". If you are interested on it here there is a link to this website. I think you have to sign in and pay for the subscription. 

http://www.etprofessional.com/

I add a video that talks about mixed ability classroom from Oxford University Press.