Unit 1_Classroom Management-8. Discussion topics

[Estefanía]

3. "Every group is a mixed-ability group." Do you agree with this? What are the implications of this statement for teachers?

I agree with this statement. Every group is a mixed-ability group because every student come with a “bag” charged with different “material”, both internal (personality, attitude, aptitude, motivation, learning style…) and external (previous knowledge and learning methods,…). This implies that teachers must work on all the skills (reading, listening, writing, speaking) by using different methods and materials (drilling, translations, communicative activities…) to catch the attention of all the students and make them interested in their learning process. To sum up, teachers will always have to be open-minded and eager to adapt everything and innovate in their classes.


4. Mixed ability is usually considered to be a problem. But is it? Could there be some advantages to having students of different levels and abilities in the same class?

I think mixed-ability isn’t always a problem. It is really useful to group students according to all the things with which they can contribute and make them work on cooperative projects. It is true that sometimes it requires a lot of energy to coordinate all the steps that they must follow, but I think that students learn a lot from their partners and from the learning process and what they create at the end.

[Admin]

Thanks for your thoughtful message Estefanía! I agree with what you say, mixed groups can be hard work but they aren't necessarily a problem.

[Cati]

1- What factors do you consider important in causing mixed ability? Put these in order of importance for you.

Previous exposure, aptitude, attitude, motivation, learning style and personality.

3- 'Every group is a mixed-ability group.' Do you agree with this? What are the implications of this statement for teachers?

I completely agree with this statement. Students' skills are not only determined by their knowledge of the language but also by the different factors that we have been discussing in this unit: previous experience, attitude, learning style, personality, aptitude and motivation. Thus, even if we group students considering their language level, each student will learn at a different speed, will have different interests, will enjoy different ways of approaching the language and so on.
Teachers will have to take into account all this diversity when dealing with the different skills (reading, listening,speaking and writing) and use different methods to help students to develop them.

[Admin]

Excactly, I agree Cati!