Jayne Moon, Children learning English. Chapter 3.

1. Are they the same?
Children come in all types

2. “Some teachers say that they
find teaching classes of
mixed ability one of their
main problems. But maybe
the problem is in thinking of
mixed ability classes as a
problem rather than as
something natural in a
group of individuals "

3.  -Teachers´ experience of
differences
 -Teachers´ expectations of pupils
 -Strategies for responding to
different needs

4. Teachers´ experience of differences
How different are children?
They may differ:
 in their perception of the language
 relationship with the teacher
 family background
 types of intelligence
 Interests
 gender
 attitude and motivation for learning English
 experience of the world

5. How to respond to differences?
Some suggestions and strategies
 Use group teaching
 Give differentiated tasks to suit particular
needs
 Give attention to different groups at
different times
 Vary teaching methods to cater for a range
of different abilities and styles of learning

6. Challenges and solutions
 Time consuming satisfaction of seeing children
make progress at their level. Design a material bank with
activities for different levels
 Allocation of time/attention given to different
groups. make pupils more independent so that they
can work on their own. This will free teachers to spend time
with individuals who need extra help.
 Difficulty in aiming the lesson at the right
level. introduce lessons demonstrating very
clear what is required to do.
 Pupil’s lack of interest or low ability in certain skills and
certain types of activity. The first step is find out
why a pupil is not interested-

7. Teacher’s expectations of pupils.
What is the message of this
cartoon?
 children are very quick to know how
they have been labelled or assessed
by teachers

8. How do your
expectations
of pupils affect
them?
 Views and prejudices on the part of the teachers about
what children should be like as students.
 Teachers' views and expectations about how individual
children will perform in class based on their backgrounds
or previous experience.
 Teachers respond to children according to their
prejudices about them. If they think a child is clever, they
will ask more challenging questions. If they think a child is
weak, we will tend to give him/her more support in
answering.
 Children begin to behave as we expect them to, and so
they end up becoming successful or failing according to
teachers' expectations.

9. What do labels tell us?
Labels:
 High ability
 average
 low ability
 weak
But what are we basing our labels on?
Before making judgements or underestimating pupils’ abilities, think about this.
Are we providing pupils with a huge and diverse range of activities, so that they
have the chance of performing better?

10. How can you avoid labelling children?
Teachers need to find out pupil’s
views of themselves. This can help
them to realize what worries or
fears they may have which will
hamper their progress.
Teachers are responsible for
creating diverse activities, topics
and situations in
which Children have the chance
to show their skills and abilities.

11. High expectations.
 If we approach pupils with an open
mind and expect the best from
them, this will help raise their
expectations of themselves which
may predispose them to learn. It
may also benefit pupils' attitude
and behaviour at the time of
learning. Consequently, children
may perform better.

12. Strategies for responding to different needs
Differentiating
activities
1
Peer tutoring
2
Group teaching
3

13. Differentiating activities
Teachers can consider
 Core work for pupils
 Reinforcement work for more intensive practice
 Extension work for helping to move pupils further on and to challenge them.
Aim: to match work and activities according to pupil’s needs, interests and
abilities and depending on the support children need.

14. Peer tutoring:
 Children work together with a partner or buddy.
 Slower or weaker pupils can be paired with a
stronger partner for some activities, in which we feel
they may need extra support.
Rules:
 . Buddies are friends.
 They are there to help you.
 They support you, not dominate.
 They help you when you get stuck.
 They help you to do things for yourself- they do not
tell you the answers.

16. Group teaching strategies
Teacher:
 - To be very well organized and plan
the lesson carefully
 - To develop a proper system for
monitoring and checking work done
by pupils on their own
 - To train pupils to be able to work
independently for a large part of the
lesson
Pupils:
 - To learn how to work more
independently and to feel confident
doing this
 - To collaborate and help each other
 - To learn to follow instructions