Teaching 

Mixed‐Ability 
Classes Successfully
Verissimo Toste, 21 October 2014
Our goals for today’s webinar

1) To gain a better understanding of the 
concepts of mixed‐ability and differentiation
Our goals for today’s webinar

2) To understand strategies of dealing with 
mixed‐ability classes
Our goals for today’s webinar

3) To present a variety of group activities 
that involve the entire class 
Our goals for today’s webinar

4) To present a variety of differentiated activities 
that address the needs of below‐level, at‐
level, and above‐level students
 Warm‐up time!

Put up your ‘hand’ if you know how many syllables 
the word kinasthetic has.
 Warm‐up time!

Put up your ‘hand’ if you know which syllable is 
stressed in the word kinasthetic.
 Warm‐up time!

Put up your ‘hand’ if you know what kinasthetic
means.
 Warm‐up time!

Put up your ‘hand’ if you know the different  
spelling of kinasthetic in British and American 
English!
 Warm‐up time!

How many people put up their hands for every 
question?

How many people put up their hands for at least 
one or two of those questions?
Our goals for today’s webinar

1) To gain a better understanding of the 
concepts of mixed‐ability and differentiation
 Mixed‐Ability

What is it?
A mixed‐ability class consists of a range of abilities, 
learning styles and preferences.  All classes contain 
mixed‐abilities because all learners are different!
 Differentiation

What is it?
Differentiation is the way we approach 
mixed ability. 

But differentiation can also include…
 Differentiation

• Age
• Motivation
• Learning experience
• Gender
• Learning speed
• Interests
• Specific learning difficulties 
 How to differentiate

• Differentiation by task
• Differentiation by support
• Differentiation by outcome
 Differentiation by task

Setting different tasks for students of 
different abilities.
Differentiation by task

Oxford Discover Student Book 2

 Differentiation by support

Giving more help to certain individuals within 
the group.  
This can include scaffolding tasks or providing 
more hands‐on guidance.
 Differentiation by support

Zone of Proximal Development
The ZPD is the gap between a student’s current 
ability and potential ability – which is determined 
by problem solving with guidance or peer 
collaboration.

For more information on this:  see Vygotsky and ZPD.
Differentiation by support

Oxford Discover Student Book 3

 Differentiation by outcome

Setting tasks which are open‐ended 
and encouraging students to respond 
at different levels.
Differentiation by outcome

Oxford Discover Student Book 5

'We have seen that instruction and development do 
not coincide. They are two different processes with 
very complex interrelationships. Instruction is only 
useful when it moves ahead of development. When 
it does it impels or wakens a whole series of 
functions that are in a state of maturation lying in 
the zone of proximal development'
Lev Vygotsky

Presentation name Presenter Name

23
and Date
Our goals for today’s webinar

2) To understand strategies of dealing with 
mixed‐ability classes
 Strategies

• Self awareness
• Work groupings
• Range of tasks
• Negotiation and preparation
• Error correction
• Homework
 Self awareness

Help students be aware of their own strengths 
and weaknesses through:

• Diaries
• Self assessment
• Portfolios or record of things learned
 Work groupings

Set up different types of work groupings, 
including:
• Pairs – mixed or similar

• Groups – mixed or similar
 Range of tasks

Differentiate tasks for students by:
• Creating different levels of complexity
• Creating activities of different length
• Having ‘up your sleeve’ tasks
 Negotiation and preparation

Help less confident students by giving them 
time before they need to produce language in 
front of the class.
• Negotiation of meaning
• Task preparation
 Error correction

Differentiate with error correction:
• Encourage fluency with less confident 
students
• Focus on accuracy with more confident 
students
 Homework

Differentiate with homework:
• Set different amount of homework
• Set different tasks
Our goals for today’s webinar

3) To present a variety of group activities 
that involve the entire class 
 Whole‐class activities

It is possible to conduct activities which involve 
every student, but allow for different abilities.  In 
this way all students can be involved, and can 
learn, but do so within a supportive environment 
which takes into account their needs.
Songs

Oxford Discover Student Book 1

Songs

Oxford Discover Student Book 2

Role plays

Oxford
Discover
Student
Book 2
 Role plays

Method 1
• Put students into differentiated groups
• Have them act out the story according to their 
language level, utilising their creativity
• More confident students will include more 
words, and less confident groups will include 
more actions
 Role plays

Method 2
• Put students into mixed ability groups
• Have them assign roles and characters
• More confident students will take the bigger 
speaking parts and less confident students will 
take parts with less speaking
• Monitor to make sure less confident students 
still stretch their abilities and aren’t over‐
shadowed
Dialogues

Oxford Discover Student Book 3

Projects

Oxford Discover Student Book 4

Our goals for today’s webinar

4) To present a variety of differentiated activities 
that address the needs of below‐level, at‐
level, and above‐level students
Activity 1

Oxford Discover Student Book 1

Activity 1

Oxford Discover Integrated Teaching Toolkit 1

Activity 2

Oxford Discover Student Book 3

Activity 2

Oxford Discover Integrated Teaching Toolkit 3

Activity 3

Oxford Discover Student Book 4

Activity 3

Oxford Discover Integrated Teaching Toolkit 4

Any questions?
 A final thought

‘Each person's map of the world is as unique as their 
thumbprint. There are no two people alike ... no two 
people who understand the same sentence the 
same way ... So in dealing with people try not to fit 
them to your concept of what they should be.’

Milton Erickson

Presentation name Presenter Name

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and Date