Deniz Şalli-Çopur (Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, 2003) made a concern on this issue stating that a teacher is supposed to be aware of the sources of problems and solutions to them. According to his point of view, it is up to a teacher to meet the students’ needs by monitoring each of them through various methods of teaching. For example: choosing the material considering the students background and interests, appealing to all learning styles, using extra exercises or activities/homework for quicker students, personalizing the tasks according to students’ personalities, providing a group or a pair work to enable a weaker student to cooperate with a stronger one. He believes that these methods are keys to effective teaching.
With this very issue Sue Swift (www.eslbase.com/articles/mixed-levels)offers a teacher to work intensively by dividing the groups into sub-groups, give the tasks or handouts covering the same theme according to the students’ level and circulate, monitor, facilitate by giving directions or explanations. In this situation the weaker students work together with a teacher while the stronger ones work independently of him/her. At the end each group will present their job. By this method a teacher can make all the students work and meet their needs.
Tim Bowen(www.onestopenglish.com/.../classroom...) points out that it will be a mistake if there is a single solution to this problem; that is why, he suggests different methods to solve it. One of recommended ideas of his is setting the home assignment: an easier task for weaker students and a more challenging to stronger ones. He, also, declares that it will be an extra or overloading job for teachers, but the results will be productive. The next way he offers is a diplomatic questioning and attentive listening. He recommends to avoid questioning a weaker student first, for he/she may be shy or lose self-esteem in case s/he doesn’t know the answer. In this situation he proposes to ask a stronger student first and, then, a weaker student repeats the answer.
Dr. R. Naryanan is lecturer of English at University College of Engineering (Anna University Constitution College) Arni, India believes that creating an encouraging, collaborating atmosphere for mixed ability classes is vitally important and it depends on the teacher to create such an environment. According to his/her point of view, a teacher should identify the problem which hinders to establish such a sphere try to tackle them. The most common problems s/he points out are lack of motivation, attention, interaction, and turn-taking. In order to solve these problems, a teacher should take the responsibility to monitor, to take control of the class so that there should not be dominators, lack of goal or interest to the target language and s/he promote a learner autonomy. Harmer, J.1991. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Longman Penny, Ur 2005. A course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: London
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