Young Learners

Teaching English to Elementary School Children

Should all children be treated the same in class regardless of ability and confidence or should we adapt the tasks given to the needs of the students?

In a recent teacher training session I suggested to one teacher that they should adapt their worksheets based on the ability and confidence of the student. The teacher was concerned that it wasn't fair if one student had to do a more difficult writing task than the other students despite being a stronger (and older) student.

I have used the strategy of giving the same worksheet to all students in a class but filling it in to differing degrees, based on the ability and confidence of each child, for quite a long time now. In my view, that is fairer than expecting stronger and weaker students to do exactly the same task. Sometimes I pre-fill parts of the worksheets before the lesson and sometimes I ask the students how many hints they want. The stronger students generally don't want any hints or choose a low number. The weak students choose a high number. If the students choose a number I think is too high for their ability/confidence I bargain with them until we reach an agreement. All students have always seemed happy with this. Occasionally a stronger student momentarily complains if they see other students have part-completed worksheets but if I jokingly pretend to grab their worksheet and start filling it in they grab it back and want to do it themselves. One thing that almost all students have in common, in my experience, is that they don't want help that they feel they don't need. Similarly, virtually no students want to be given a task that is too easy or too difficult for their level.

I think giving weaker students in the class a written task that is too difficult can do a great deal of damage. They become discouraged. They feel that English is too difficult for them. They lose motivation. They lose confidence. Giving stronger students a task that is too easy is not so damaging I believe but still doesn't really benefit the student a great deal and may do damage to their motivation. I think of it like crosswords. If I start doing a crossword and find it is too easy, I may complete it all but I may put it down halfway through. Either way I have a distinct feeling of dissatisfaction. If I start doing a crossword and can't get even get one answer after 20 minutes I am likely to lose motivation for continuing. The most satisfying and motivating crossword is one that is challenging but not impossible, and that I can, with a lot of thinking, finally complete. We can be the perfect crossword-setter for all our students by providing them with written tasks that are at the right level. Providing level-appropriate tasks seems to me to be fairer than having all students do exactly the same task regardless of how suitable it is for their ability.

« Four Skills or Two? | Main | Bingo »

• Ensuring fairness between boys and girls
• Spot the Difference
• Lesson Balance - One Year Later

• Four Skills or Two?
    - Jeana Schieffer
    - LW
    - David Borgeson
    - Suzi
    - Betsy Hahn
  
• Looking Back, Looking Forward
    - Travis Ruetenik
    - Emily Wilson
    - manijeh
  
• Introducing Foreign Languages into UK Primary Schools
    - Language expert
    - steve
    - mfl co ordinator
  
• Homework Checking (1)
    - Alan Miesch
  
• A Quick Analysis of Lesson Balance
    - Greg Crawford
    - Mari Nakamura
    - Margaret Otake
    - Jem
  
• Using concentration cards in large classes
    - Alan Miesch
  
• How important are full sentences when answering questions?
    - Ryan Hagglund
  
• A Plea for Peripheral English
    - Les Smith
    - Mary
    - sammie
  
• Bingo
    - online bingo
  

• Curriculum (3)
• English in Elementary Schools (5)
• Games and Activities (11)
• Teacher Development (4)
• The Four Skills (9)