Multi-Level Classrooms

Wouldn't it be great if all the students in your class were the same level... or would it. The unique characteristics of people is what makes uniformity impossible. The problem is that there are some classes where the ability spread ranges from basic to intermediate which makes progression really difficult.

Who do you teach? How do you makes your lessons? What level do you tailor them to? Do you make two or three different lesson plans? Do you teach to the middle?

In many cases, teachers of English abroad are teaching in private language classroom which means these schools are businesses. If you lose students you're considered a bad teacher but if students are bored or if they are too overwhelmed with the materials in class they’ll drop out or quit the school. Administration is often concerned with enrollment and want to increase numbers and make sure classes are run at capacity for maximum return and that means levels are often mixed. How do you find a happy medium?

Here are some straight-forward strategies to implement into a multi-level classroom to keep everyone happy and to allow you to devote energy and attention to all your students:

Let the head teacher or administration know about the level spread if it is really big
Build Confidence
- when organizing worksheets for students about specific topics make them so the progressively increase in difficulty. It is important to build confidence. This will also allow you to give attention to the lower level students in the beginning and the higher level students afterward. You may choose to only have the lower level students do the questions that are level specific and let them know that the higher level questions can be challenged if they like.
On-going Class Projects
- when students finish the classwork they need to have something that they can go work on. If you have interesting class projects to work on you will find that students will be much more motivated to do their classwork quickly so they can get to the fun work project. It is important to set aside a little spot in the class to store class projects and is even better if there can be a work space allocated for class projects. Projects need to be interest specific and can range from class collages, to field trip research projects, to Christmas plays and pageants and a host of other ideas.
Know the Students Levels
- When assigning reading or asking questions it is important to challenge students but don’t make the questions impossible for the students. If you know their levels and know what they are capable of make sure your questions and assignment of reading roles or responsibilities correspondence with the student’s capabilities.
Classroom Responsibilities
- It is important to give students mentoring roles, assign helpers for certain people if necessary but make sure that helper doesn’t take over. You can also assign classroom responsibilities to students. If a student finishes class work early all the time you might want to give him or her the responsibility of the recycling corner or the attendance book or some other area of responsibility.
Level the Playing Field
- Make sure you are spreading the participation around the classroom. There is nothing worse than one student monopolizing all the attention of the teacher. It is important to observe what each learner can do in order to plan for learning and teaching
Incorporate strategies from the Multiple Intelligencies approach to teaching
- It is important to provide a variety of learning tasks representing the multiples intelligences and allowing for student choice. To learn more about Multiple Intelligences approaches to teaching please click here.
Plan open ended tasks that can offer different developmentally and culturally appropriate challenges for a range of students