I consider these factors to be important in a group of mixed abilities following this order:
1. Motivation
2. Previous exposure
3. Attitude
4. Aptitude
5. Learning style
6. Personality
The teachers' suggestions are right, because I have lived sometimes these situations in my daily work and the opinion of another teacher of foreign language thinks and acts like me, I encourage to continue in this teaching task.
I learned with some authors about “cooperative learning” and experienced teachers in front of a group at the secondary level, an easy way to work in teams to get a cooperative work and so students learn from the most expert according to Vigotsky. I form teams by learning styles and by level of knowledge, but in a heterogeneous way, that way I have a leader who supports me with some specific tasks in the team and also he can support his teammates. So that I can detect the lower level students in each team and dedicate more attention and time.
In each group there is a variety of human potential, that is the wealth of a school group or work. Therefore the fact that as teachers we have students with different learning style, temperament, intelligence, level of knowledge of the subject and different skills, gives us the opportunity to learn from each other and support each other.
SINCERELY, I believe that there is only one disadvantage in my groups of 500 hundred students per week with mixed ability and it is for the high level, because they can stop their learning, because I can not prepare special activities and review them, but for the majority of the students I consider that it has advantages in all the learning in the classroom