5 ways to deal with mixed ability students in secondary classes

Anna Roslaniec
Anna Roslaniec
A teacher stood in front of a classroom of students sat at their desks

No two teenagers are the same. Within all of our classes there tends to be not only a range of English proficiency levels, but also general learning styles, maturity, motivation, and personalities. This diversity can bring some challenges, but also opportunities to vary your classroom activities and teaching methodology.

Here are some ways to help deal with mixed-ability classes and ensure all your students experience success in their language learning journeys.

Privacy and cookies

By watching, you agree app can share your viewership data for marketing and analytics for one year, revocable by deleting your cookies.

1. Invest time in getting to know your students

The first class with your secondary students is an excellent opportunity to get to know them personally. The quicker you build rapport, the easier your job will be. Take the time to ask questions about their strengths, weaknesses, interests and objectives.

A simple questionnaire can provide all the information you need to understand their needs and serve as a fun pair work activity or icebreaker after the holiday break.

Here are some example questions to get you started:

  • Why are you learning English and how will it help you in the future?
  • Do you prefer working individually, in pairs or a larger group?
  • What activities do you like doing in class? For example, role plays, making videos, and using songs.
  • What was the best thing about your previous English lessons? What didn’t you like about it?
  • Have you taken any official exams before? Would you like to?
  • How would you rank these skills in order of strongest to weakest: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, speaking, listening, writing, and reading.
  • What things do you like to do outside of school?
  • What topic would you choose if you had to talk about something for a minute in English?

Teenagers are social and curious creatures - make your needs analysis more interactive by having them interview each other and then write a short report outlining what they discovered about their new classmate. Not only will you find out their interests and they’ll get to know each other, but you’ll also get a writing sample.

By allowing the students to voice their ideas, you demonstrate that you are inclusive of different personalities and receptive to new teaching ideas. You’ll also know exactly what activities and themes your students will respond well to and keep them motivated and focused on personal development.

Note that if your student’s English level is low, this kind of questionnaire will be more effective in their native language.

2. Personalize your aims and objectives

Now you have more of an idea about your learners' strengths and weaknesses - vary your aims in each class to suit the needs of each individual. Start your lesson by explaining your main objective - for example, "learning holiday vocabulary”. Then ask your students to set their own objectives - for example: “How many new words do you want to learn today? Their answers will act as their personal language aims.

As a English teacher and a person who understands their students well, you can also act as a motivator. If you think they are aiming too low, you can give them a much-needed push; if they aim high, you can praise their enthusiasm. But don’t forget to reassure them that it’s OK to have different aims and objectives, as everyone is different.

At the end of the class, have a quiz or game to assess their progress. If they exceed their own objectives, praise them. If they fail, acknowledge their efforts and show them how to succeed next time.

Reducing the pressure imposed on them in this way should keep them motivated and enjoying learning the language.

3. Allow students’ first language (L1)

Occasionally allowing L1 in monolingual classes are becoming more accepted in ELT nowadays, and this can be a great way to help mixed-ability students in the classroom.

Slower students in your class may benefit from access to dictionaries or online translators. This will help them complete certain activities and allow them to keep up with their faster classmates.

L1 also can be used to give weaker students the confidence to express any doubts they may have accurately, and can motivate the stronger ones to consolidate their understanding too.

Moreover, L1 can also be used more actively in class, in translation activities. For example:

Students can work together to write a tourist phrasebook for visitors to their town or city. In this activity, students must brainstorm around 15 phrases in their L1 that would be helpful for visitors and then translate them into English.

  • The activity could then be extended into a fun role-play activity or used as part of a class on tourism and sightseeing.
  • Students can write subtitles in English to a video clip that was originally in their L1 and even extend the script into a play or news story.
  • Students can read a story, watch a video or do some research in their L1 and present their findings in L2.

Bringing the L1 into activities can be fun and motivating, and will help save a lot of time in the planning and research stages. However, remember for many students you are their only source of English and the L1 should not be overused.

4. Vary tasks between individual, group, and pair work

Every classroom will have a range of personalities and this is especially true when it comes to teenagers. Some students will be more confident, while others will be shyer. Unfortunately, quieter students are often labeled as being less able - which is often not the case.

Allowing your students to do frequent pair or group work can help them feel less nervous as they won’t be speaking in front of an entire class. It also allows learners to use more conversational English and be freer when speaking it, which is key to developing confidence in any new language.

Moreover, pair and group work allows students to take on roles and responsibilities, be more accountable for their actions, and experience success as a team. Teamwork can also help students develop different 21st-century skills - such as collaboration, negotiation and creativity.

Depending on the task, learners can be paired with others at a similar level to allow for fluent and comfortable exchanges, or in mixed-ability groups to encourage peer teaching.

5. Fast finishers and extension activities

Having some extra activities lined up for those who finish quickly is always a good idea. It will help keep them focused and allow the rest of the class time to finish the task.

Having engaging extension activities prepared which the students want to be able to move onto is important, so they don’t feel like they’re being punished with mundane exercises for finishing first. If the activities are really fun, it might even motivate those slower students to work a little faster.

Try things like:

  • Writing funny stories or songs using the language from the lesson
  • Creating an audio or video dictionary on their phones with all the new vocabulary they’ve learned
  • Making a quiz using apps like to review the language from the class
  • Playing games like L
  • Keeping a journal in their books or using an app like

More blogs from app

  • Children sat down on the floor reading books, with some looking up at their teacher who is sat with a book

    How to improve literacy in the classroom

    By Katharine Scott
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Katharine Scott is a teacher trainer and educational materials developer with over 20 years’ experience writing English language textbooks. She’s co-author of the app Primary course - English Code and is based in Spain. Katharine outlines a number of practical ways you can help English language learners develop key literacy skills.

    What is literacy?

    Teachers at all stages of education often complain about their students’ reading skills. The students are literate. In other words, they can interpret the graphemes, or letters on the page, into words. But they struggle to identify the purpose of a text or to analyze it in a meaningful way. We could say that the students have poor literacy skills.

    Literacy is a term used to describe an active, critical form of reading. Some of the skills of a critical reader include:

    Checking new information

    A crucial literacy skill involves discerning whether a text is factually true or not. A critical reader always checks new information against existing knowledge. As we read, we have an internal dialogue: Where does that information come from? That’s impossible because ….

    Separating fact from opinion

    This skill is essential for understanding many different types of texts from newspaper articles to scientific research.

    Understanding the purpose of a text

    All pieces of text have a main purpose. This may be entertainment, in the case of a story or persuasion, in the case of advertising. A critical reader will know how to identify the purpose of the text.

    In the classroom, different types of text require different responses from the students. It’s important, as students grow older, that they know how to read and respond appropriately to a piece of written information.

    Identifying key information in a text

    This is an essential skill for summarizing information or following instructions. It is also important when we transform written information into something else, like a chart.

    In many ways, literacy is the key skill that underpins learning at all stages. This may seem like an exaggeration, but consider the importance of the four skills outlined above.

    Strategies to promote literacy

    Many teachers and parents of early learners instinctively develop literacy skills before the children can even read.

    When we read a story out loud to a child, we often ask questions about the narrative as we turn the pages: What is going to happen next? How do you think …. feels? Why is …?

    These questions set the foundations for literacy.

    Working with a reading text

    Too often, the comprehension questions that teachers ask about a text are mechanical. They ask the student to “lift” the information out of the text.

    A tale of two dragons

    "Once upon a time, there was an island in the sea. One day, people were working in the fields. The sun was shining and there was one cloud in the sky. The cloud was a strange shape and moving towards the island. Soon the cloud was very big. Then a small boy looked up."

    Taken from English Code, Unit 4, p. 62

    Typical comprehension questions based on the text would be:

    • Where were the people working?
    • How many clouds were in the sky?

    These questions do not really reflect on the meaning of the text and do not lead to a critical analysis. While these simple questions are a good checking mechanism, they don’t help develop literacy skills.

    If we want to develop critical readers, we need to incorporate a critical analysis of reading texts into class work through a deep reading comprehension. We can organize the comprehension into three types.

    1. Text level

    Comprehension at “text level” is about exploring the meaning of individual words and phrases in a text. Examples for the text above could be:

    • Find words that show the story is a fairy tale.
    • Underline a sentence about the weather.

    Other text-level activities include:

    • Finding words in the text from a definition
    • Identifying opinions in the text
    • Finding verbs of speech
    • Finding and classifying words or phrases

    2. Between the lines

    Comprehension “between the lines” means speculating and making guesses with the information we already have from the text. This type of literacy activity often involves lots of questions and discussions with the students. You should encourage students to give good reasons for their opinions. An example for the text above could be:

    • What do you think the cloud really is?

    Other “Between the lines” activities include:

    • Discussing how characters in a story feel and why
    • Discussing characters’ motivation
    • Identifying the most important moments in a story
    • Speculating about what is going to happen next
    • Identifying possible events from fantasy events

    Literacy activities are not only based on fiction. We need to help students be critical readers of all sorts of texts. The text below is factual and informative:

    What skills do you need for ice hockey?

    "Ice hockey players should be very good skaters. They always have good balance. They change direction very quickly and they shouldn't fall over. Players should also have fast reactions because the puck moves very quickly."

    Taken from English Code, Level 4, p. 96

    “Between the lines” activities for this text could be:

    • What equipment do you need to play ice hockey?
    • What is the purpose of this piece of text?

    3. Behind the lines

    Comprehension “behind the lines” is about the information we, the readers, already have. Our previous knowledge, our age, our social background and many other aspects change the way we understand and interpret a text.

    An example for the text above could be:

    • What countries do you think are famous for ice hockey?

    Sometimes a lack of socio-cultural knowledge can lead to misunderstanding. Look at the text below.

    Is the relationship between Ms Turner and Jack Roberts formal or informal?

    73 Highlands Road Oxbo, Wisconsin 54552
    April 11th

    Dear Ms. Tamer,
    Some people want to destroy the forest and build an airport. This forest is a habitat for many wolves. If they destroy the forest, the wolves will leave the forest. If the wolves leave the forest, there will be more rabbits. This won't be good for our forest.
    Please build the airport in a different place. Please don't destroy the forest.

    Kind regards, Jack Robers

    Taken from English code, Level 4, unit 5, Writing Lab

    If your students are unaware of the convention of using Dear to start a letter in English, they may not answer this question correctly.

    Other “Behind the lines” literacy activities include:

    • Identifying the type of text
    • Imagining extra information based on the readers’ experiences
    • Using existing knowledge to check a factual account
    • Identifying false information

    Examples:

    • What job do you think Ms Turner has?
    • Do you think Jack lives in a village or a city?
    • Do wolves live in forests?

    Literacy is more than reading

    From the activities above, it’s clear that a literacy scheme develops more than reading skills. As students speculate and give their opinions, they talk and listen to each other.

    A literacy scheme can also develop writing skills. The text analysis gives students a model to follow in their writing. In addition, a literacy scheme works on higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, deduction and summary.

    Developing literacy skills so that students become active, critical readers should be a key part of educational programs at all ages. Literacy activities based on a reading text can be especially useful for the foreign language class.

    With literacy activities, we can encourage students:

    • To use the text as a springboard for communicating ideas and opinions
    • To analyze the text as a model for writing activities
    • To see how language is used in context
    • To explore the meanings of words

    More crucially, we are developing critical readers for the future.

  • Two Young children high fiving one another

    The importance of teaching values to young learners

    By Katharine Scott

    Values in education

    The long years children spend at school are not only about acquiring key knowledge and skills. At school, children also learn to work together, share, exchange opinions, disagree, choose fairly, and so on. We could call these abilities social skills as they help children live and flourish in a wider community than their family circle.

    Social skills are not necessarily the same as social values. Children acquire social skills from all kinds of settings. The tools they use to resolve problems will often come from examples. In the playground, children observe each other and notice behavior. They realize what is acceptable to the other children and which strategies are successful. Some of the things they observe will not reflect healthy social values.

    Part of a school’s mission is to help children learn social skills firmly based on a shared set of values. Many schools recognize this and have a program for education in values.

    What values are we talking about?

    Labeling is always tricky when dealing with an abstract concept such as social values. General ideas include:

    • living in a community, collaborating together
    • respecting others in all of human diversity
    • caring for the environment and the surroundings
    • having a sense of self-worth.

    At the root of these values are ethical considerations. While it may seem that primary education is too early for ethics, children from a very young age do have a sense of fairness and a sense of honesty. This doesn’t mean that children never lie or behave unfairly. Of course they do! But from about three years old, children know that this behavior is not correct, and they complain when they come across it in others.

    In the school context, social values are too often reduced to a set of school rules and regulations. Typical examples are:

    • 'Don't be late!'
    • 'Wait your turn!'
    • 'Pick up your rubbish!'
    • 'Don't invent unkind nicknames'.

    While all these statements reflect important social values, if we don’t discuss them with the children, the reasoning behind each statement gets lost. They become boring school rules. And we all know that it can be fun to break school rules if you can get away with it. These regulations are not enough to represent an education in values.

    School strategies

    At a school level, successful programs often focus on a specific area of a values syllabus. These programs involve all members of a school community: students, teachers, parents, and administrative staff.

    Here are some examples of school programs:

    Caring for the environment

    Interest in ecology and climate change has led many schools to implement programs focused on respect for the environment and other ecological issues. Suitable activities could include:

    • a system of recycling
    • a vegetable garden
    • initiatives for transforming to renewable energy
    • a second-hand bookstore.

    Anti-bullying programs

    As,many schools have anti-bullying policies to deal with bullying incidents. However, the most effective programs also have training sessions for teachers and a continuous program for the children to help them identify bullying behavior. Activities include:

    • empathy activities to understand different points of view
    • activities to develop peer responsibility about bullying
    • activities aimed at increasing children’s sense of self-worth.

    Anti-racism programs

    Combating negative racial stereotypes has, until recently, relied mainly on individual teacher initiatives. However, as racial stereotypes are constructed in society, it would be useful to have a school-wide program. This could include:

    • materials focusing on the achievements of ethnic minorities
    • school talks from members of ethnic minority communities
    • empathy activities to understand the difficulties of marginalized groups.
    • study of the culture and history of ethnic minorities.

    As children learn from observed behavior, it’s important that everyone in the school community acts consistently with the values in the program.