Филологические науки/ 1.Методика
преподавания языка и литературы
Olga Klymenko
National Technical University of Ukraine “KPI”
How
to cope with a large multilevel class
During his professional experience every
teacher encounters with classes that consist of multilevel students. The ones
who have so different language skills that a general activity in the class is
hard to perform properly. That is why planning a lesson often becomes a
challenge for the teacher, especially if he must train a large class.
The main thing
that the teacher is worry about is how to control and manage the large class
and encourage all the students to participate in activities, and not to remain
advanced level students boring and low leveled students feeling lost.
According to Jim
Scrivener teaching large classes poses the following problems:
a)
a teacher cannot give attention to every student;
b)
interaction tends to be restricted to those closest to
the front;
c)
the seats at the back often attract people who want to
do something other than learn English;
d)
there is often a very wide range of abilities;
e)
discipline seems to be a problem;
f)
lecturing seems to be the only workable lesson type.
g)
the teacher
has to find appropriate teaching materials that could be interesting both for
advanced students and for “weak” ones. [7]
However, there are
advantages of teaching large classes. The most
important of them is opportunity to improve teacher’s professional skills. Students
in large classes often possess different level of knowledge and have their own
learning styles, such as diverging (feeling and watching), assimilating
(watching and thinking), converging (doing and thinking), accommodating (doing
and feeling) [8], so the teacher must constantly look for ways to make his
lessons not only useful but interesting, implementing many challenging and fun
activities.
Furthermore, studying in a
large class is also useful for students: they develop communication skills;
learn to work independently and in groups.
To achieve effective results, it is
important to organize the cooperation between students. Pair, group, whole class activities are excellent solutions
involving high and low leveled students to work together.
Pair work gives each student the greatest
opportunity for training speaking skills. Any task that students can perform
individually becomes more effective if it is done with a partner. Students with
strong speaking skills can make pairs with weak students. A grouping of two is
also small enough to allow for collaboration on grammar exercises or written
exercises. Students can check each other's pronunciation or test each other on
vocabulary.
It is also appropriate to use interviews,
board games, competitions, brainstorming, projects, presentations, problem –
solving tasks, etc.
Group work involves all the students to
perform the task, helps the teacher to control a class and bring
competitiveness, that is very
important for low leveled students to become motivated and be eager to
participate in classroom activities. Drama, role-plays, simulations, projects,
debates, quizzes etc. These activities are appropriate as well as for the whole
class.
Using ideas
mentioned above can help the teacher to cope with large multilevel class, but
there are no perfect recipes. A teacher should match his class and its needs,
but knowing the advantages of it and knowing some of the activities and
different ways of grouping the students in these types of classes will help him
manage it better.
References:
1. English Teacher Training ― Electron resource: http://www.moluch.ru/archive/34/3908/
2. ESL Multilevel Activities ― Electron resource: www.teachingenglishgames.com/Articles/ESL_Multilevel_Activities.htm
3. Melinda Roberts. (2007). Monograph. Teaching in the Multilevel
Classroom. Pearson Education
4. Multilevel Groups ― Electron resource: http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/esl/multilevel.cfm
5. Practical Tips For Teaching Large Classes
Embracing Diversity: Toolkit For Creating Inclusive, Learning-Friendly
Environments Specialized Booklet 2 A Teacher’s Guide, Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok, 2006
6. Teaching Multi-Level Classes ― Electron resource: www.englishclub.com/teaching-tips/teaching-multi-level-classes.htm
7.
Scrivener
J., Classroom Management Techniques, Cambridge University Press, 2012
8.
Treko N.
“The Big Challenge: Teaching Large Multi-Level Classes.
Academic Journal of
Interdisciplinary Studies”, Published by MCSER-CEMAS-Sapienza, University of
Rome, Vol 2, No 4, May 2013