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by oshieroo » 15 May 2008, 06:27
I had a private group lesson of about 8 students. The students ranged in ages from 6 to 12, with varying degrees of language ability. The first two lessons I had with them I was at a loss for words. With the wide range of levels, it was hard to decide on an activity or lesson to do with them. At the end of my second lesson I felt like they hated English and the class. The activities I were doing were either too easy for the higher level kids, or too high for the lower level kids.
In my third lesson I changed it up. When I was planning for the lesson, I focused less on actual teaching of English, and more on thinking about what are fun games we can play? The key was to think about games that even if the lower level students couldn't understand ALL the English, they were still picking up a few words here and there and the older students were still getting some review. But more importantly all the students were involved in the class. When they are all involved, questions and mistakes may arise with the younger students, and I had the older students try to answer them before I jumped in.
For example, a few simple games I used all involved teaching basic adjectives. Teaching all the students basic adjectives like big, small, fast, slow, etc, and then playing a game like 20 questions with them. Students like the guessing aspect of it, and I had the higher level students form questions, and the lower level students answer. Even if the lower level students didn't understand the whole sentence, they were getting exposure to the sentence pattern while the higher level students were getting practice forming full sentences.
In the end, thinking about what would get the students interested in the lesson, and then thinking of how to mix in an English lesson worked for me. Not always the best approach but it can help in some situations.
Hope that helps in some way. Good Luck!
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