Differentiated Learning

As we will be looking at differentiated / mixed ability learning and teaching next year as a part of Core Input here are a few thoughts to wet the appetite. (The cartoon above has been with me for many years and I have lost the source).

Richards, S. (1998). ELT Spectrum, 6. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.1 - "Every class we ever teach is mixed ability".

Rinvolucri, M. (1986). Strategies for a mixed ability group. Practical English Teaching, 7/1, p.17 - "We do not teach a group, but thirty separate people. Because of this, the problem of mixed abilities in the same room seems absolutely natural, and it is the idea of teaching a unitary lesson that seems odd."

Sukhnandan, L. & Lee, B. (1998). Streaming, Setting and Grouping by Ability. National Foundation for Educational Research. United Kingdom - would support this observation: "Streaming and setting have been said to deprive low ability pupils of peer support and positive role models outside their own ability group."

Hemingway, P. (1986). Teaching a Mixed-Level Class. Practical English Teaching, 7/1, p.22 - "Any strategy that enables the whole class to work together is useful . . . The use of the mother tongue may be an advantage, not a distraction, if it involves all students in the lesson, avoids frustrating misunderstandings, and encourages collaboration."

The gap between the students is not skill-specific, though individuals do perform better in some skills than in others, supporting the notion that learners usually have a variable rather than a uniform linguistic competence. But there is more to the learner than just language...

Prodromou, L. (1992). Mixed Ability Classes. London: Macmillan p.7 - "Every learner brings into the classroom a whole complex of personal characteristics which influence their approach to what is happening there. They carry with them a world of experience and knowledge, feeling and ideology, which may help or hinder, the acquisition of a foreign language."

These "characteristics" form an inherent and fundamental part of any methodological equation...

Prodromou, L. (1992). Mixed Ability Classes. London: Macmillan p.1 - "It is difficult to talk about the mixed ability class without seeming to subscribe to a kind of fatalism about the abilities of the less confident, outspoken or high-achieving." And in doing so, there is always a danger of thinking about them in terms of their weaknesses rather than their strengths.