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Teaching classes with students who have mixed ability can be a challenge. Often the best way to avoid this is before the actual class sessions begin. Placement test are often used to ensure that students are sectioned into their appropriate class. Also, having different class level options available can help deter students from settling for just any class. However, there will be times where teaching students with different skill levels will be unavoidable. I had this problem arise while I was teaching beginner Korean as well as when I was a chemistry tutor. The main reason I had this reason while teaching beginner Korean is because there was no cutoff date to apply for the class. Each one of my students were true beginners, but because there wasn’t a cutoff date students would join class 3 weeks in or even halfway through. The same thing happened when I tutored chemistry in groups. Often students got extra credit if they received tutoring but they didn’t realize they needed it until halfway through the semester so they would join our tutoring group quite late. Although it is not the same as teaching English I believe the idea of having a cutoff date for admission can be transferred over to teaching English. Even though having different level students can be stressful for the teacher, we have to remember the stress that is put on the students as well. Lower level students can often feel left out and self-conscious of their lack of understanding. Because of this they may become too discouraged to speak or participate in class. Naturally in these cases I try to give students different variations of the same exercise or task in hopes to make everyone feel comfortable. However, I find that the best way to help lower level students is through the higher-level students. Students often understand where each other are coming from so having a higher-level student explain a concept to a lower level student helps in many ways. The lower level student becomes more comfortable in the classroom and the higher-level students’ understanding of the explained concept is strengthened because they are able to articulate it to others. Even so, we must keep in mind higher-level students have their own struggles when place in a mixed ability class. Often, they are aware of how much further advanced they are. They may become bored in the class, lose interest, and stop participating. In my experience, higher level students become self-conscious of their language ability. They are unsure of how much language to use in front of their peers because they don’t want anyone to feel isolated. This is common if the students already have a relationship outside the classroom. The higher-level student may not want to use English for fear that they may sound demeaning to others or look like they are showing off. In this case, I think it is best to have office hours. If we attempt to change the course without first speaking to the students it may make things more awkward. By having office hours, you can establish rapport which makes the students more comfortable, as well as discuss ways that you can make lesson plans suitable for everybody without making anyone uncomfortable.
