The document discusses various strategies for teaching mixed-ability classes, including dividing students into groups with different tasks, providing extra activities for advanced students, and encouraging the use of students' first languages in some circumstances to help comprehension. It also addresses ways to deal with uncooperative students, quiet students who don't want to speak, and students who don't understand audio tracks, such as using pair work and predicting listening content.

1. Practice II
Practice Paper N° 14
Student: Amorella Ludmila Fantino
CHAPTER 14: What if?
1-Mixed- ability classes present the teacher with insuperable problems.
Even though it is easier for teachers to work in a class where students are at a
similar level and share the same abilities, mixed-ability classes challenge their
capacity to establish a learning goal for the whole class and achieve it. Different
realities will make traditional teachers more flexible and will engage them to look
for new possibilities to integrate all their students in a successful learning process.
The only thing you can do with a mixed-ability class is ignore the problem.
In mixed- ability classes, teachers have to be more committed with their work and
whole class than in an average ability class. Different students will have different needs
and the teacher will have to evaluate how to cope with all the necessities in a
harmonious way. There is a wide variety of resources that can help us to reduce the
learning difficulties and find the way in which each student learns and feels motivated
class by class. For example, teachers can suggest different materials and tasks using the
students themselves as ways of dealing with it.
All- classes are mixed-ability classes
It is impossible to have a classroom where all the students know the same and have
the same interests. If we believe this, we are completely wrong. Each student has their
own identity and their own strong and weak points. Teachers should observe their
students and find the best way to work with them letting all of them progress.
2-a-
b- Teachers can divide their students in different groups mixing creative children (to
illustrate what they write and produce a fascinating story) with those that know more
vocabulary and structures and with those that do not like writing but have inspiring
ideas.
c- Teachers will make their students get in pairs and write together one way of
agreeing and one way of disagreeing and then they will share on the board all the
outcomes to put them later into practice.
d- Teachers will form different groups. Some of them will work with technology
(gathering information about the poem, the author) and another group will work with
comprehension activities, debates or grammar analysis (find verbs, adjectives, nouns,
etc)
c- Teachers have to provide the same activities for all the children. But for those that
can solve them quickly and find the classes too easy they have to prepare extra
activities for them in order to let them know that they can continue learning and
teachers are interested in all of them. The extra activities can be crosswords and

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alphabet soups so as to fix vocabulary or more complex ones to solve at home such as
investigate about the topic that are learning in class.
d- Teachers will group students in pairs and let them exchange their papers and
make suggestions to improve them.
B- Small classes
- Role playing
- Board game
- Class exursions
- Big classes
- use worksheets
- use pairwork and groupwork
- use chorus reaction
- use group leaders
1- Teacher’s voice: be audible so that even students at the back can hear clearly-
vary our voice in a lesson so as to avoid students getting bored- look after our
voice
Teacher’s place in the class: walk around- explain at the front so everyone is able to
see
The teacher’s board work/ overhead projector use: use clear and big handwriting- use
the board to explain the tasks, write new vocabulary, check the activities- be organized
in how you use the board (date-title)
Using the tape recorder: the volume should be as loud as necessary- the quality of the
sound should be good (clear pronunciation- not too much background noise)
C- Students keep using their own language.
1- Actions to take if the students use their language all the time:
 Talk to them about the issues: discuss with them how they all should
feel using English or their own language in class. Make them
conscious about the use of their own language and the restricted
possibilities that they would have to put into practice the new
language if they continue speaking in their mother tongue.
 Encourage them to use English appropriately: student’s mother
tongue will be allowed in some circumstances (reading
comprehension exercise- checking that they understood the task).
 Only respond to English use: ignore what students say in other
language.
 Create an English environment: teachers should speak English for the
majority of the time.
 Keep reminding them: teachers should go round the class
encouraging their students to use English.
2- Being happy for students to use their own language:

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c- Students are working in pairs to solve a reading puzzle
d- Students are checking that they understand the instructions for an activity.
f- Students are doing a group writing task.
D- Students do not do homework :
A B Homework task
6
5 Students do a fill in
exercise, choosing
between ‘going to ‘ and
‘will’
5 1 Students interview
residents/tourists in the
street and bring the results
to the next lesson.
2 4 Students prepare a
presentation which they
will give (individually) in
the next lesson.
4 2 Students prepare roles for
next week’s role play.
3 7 Students read a text and
answer multiple-choice
questions.
7 6 Students write six
sentences using the past
continuous.
1
9 Students write a
composition about the
environment.
8 3 Students write a publicity
leaflet based on something
in the coursebook.
9 8 Students learn a list of
words by heart tested by
the teacher in the next
lesson.
E- 1- Students are uncooperative.
Ways of being uncooperative in class:
 blunt refusal to do certain activities.
 constant lateness and even refusal.
 disengagement from what is going on.
 constant chattering in class.
 not listening to the teacher.

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2-
F-Student’s do not want to talk.
Action Consequences
-Join in yourself in order to try to
stimulate discussion.
- Use pairwork or groupwork.
- Provide a short task in which students
have to make a small contribution. For
example, the teacher dictates one
sentence and the students have to
complete it for themselves.
-Use ‘acting out and reading aloud’.
-Use recordings.
-It might relax students: on the other
hand students may end up listening
more than talking.
- It will help to provoke quiet students
into talking and playing their own role
in the group.
-It might make students feel
comfortable with the task just because
the teacher starts the activity breaking
the ice and they do not have the main
role.
- It will represent a challenge for the
students to perform an act in front of
the class. But they will be involved in
the activity just because they will take
on a new identity, one in which they
can behave in uncharacteristic ways.
- In general, students are intimidated by
the presence of strange factors in the
classroom (cameras-tape recorders) and
they tend to misbehave.
F- Students don’t understand the audio track.
1- In general, students have problems to understand and solve listening activities in
class. It is so difficult for them to follow native speakers pronunciation and
speed of delivery. But teachers can help them to overcome those difficulties by
giving students interview questions before they listen (again) or different bits of
the listening text in a ‘jigsaw’ activity. Moreover, teachers can concentrate on
one simple listening task only ( only playing the (first) bit of the recording, use
the audio script in a variety of ways and, finally, get students to predict listening
content by giving them key vocabulary.
CHAPTER 3: Managing the classroom
A- Appearance 1
Audibility 1
Clarity 1

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General Presence in class 1
Movement 3
Vocal Quality 1
Scoring myself
In my opinion, the most relevant features of a teacher in the classroom are
clarity, audibility and general presence in class. Without them, students will not
be engaged in the activities and will tend to misbehaved in the class. In my
practices at school N° 246, clarity is difficult to achieve for me. Sometimes, I
have problems explaining the instructions and I have to look for various ways to
express them. Regarding appearance, movement and vocal quality, it is also
important that teachers have them into account to reach a successful management
of the class. Students, especially girls, love when teachers use make up or
handkerchiefs. Moreover, movement is essential to keep all our students
concentrated, assure that they have understood the task and show commitment
with all of them.
B- Talking to students- Giving instructions
 A
 D
2- A- Change a tyre: park position- you need heavy objects- you need the spare tyre
and a jack- remove the nuts
C- Use a cash machine: register- plug it- batteries- receipt paper-program it-
D- Fry an egg:
1- Place a pan on the stove, heating it on medium heat.
2- Add some oil to the pan as it gets warm.
3- Once the oil is warm, break and egg in the pan.
4- Put some paper in a bowl to drain the egg.
5- Serve it!!!
C- Student and teacher talk:
In relation to student and teacher talk, I think that in a fifty-minute language practice
class of twenty students, each of them can have a two minutes speaking time. It is
essential that teachers foster participation in oral activities such as role playing, oral
presentations (project works- investigation) and game in which they have to put into
practice their language.
D-Using the L1.
“Students and teachers should be discouraged from using the student’s mother tongue
(L1)”

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In many of today’s classrooms around the world, eradicating the use of the mother
tongue is not easy. Students feel more comfortable with their L1, they know how to
express themselves and their vocabulary is extensive. The exposure they have to the
foreign language is very limited (just games and films)and in most cases they are not
aware of how important is to take advantage of language lessons. In my opinion,
teachers should incorporate the use of the new language gradually allowing their
students to use their L1 in some instances such as checking that they understood a task
or translating some new vocabulary. The classroom should have the most stimulating
English environment as possible giving students the possibility to heard and use the new
language in different situations. Last but not least, teachers have to use English as often
as possible just because they are the best providers of comprehensible input that the
students have (pronunciation- information, structures, etc.).
E- Creating lesson stages.
C-1
G-2
B-3
A-4
F-5
E-6
D-7
F- Different seating arrangements:
a- A team game with a class of forty - ORDERLY ROWS
b- A class discussion with fifteen students-CIRCLE
c- Pair work in a group of thirty students-ORDERLY ROWS
d- A reading task in a group of ten-CIRCLE
e- Students design an advertisement in groups- CIRCLE/ SEPARATE TABLES
f- Students all listen on an audio track- ORDERLY ROWS
g- The teacher explains a grammar point- ORDERLY ROWS
G- Different student groupings:
A- S
B- P/G
C- W
D- P
E- S/G
F- W
G- S
H- P/S
I- S
J- W

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