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ORGANIZATION
Here is a brief attempt to explain the
several aspects of the class I decided to analyze more deeply.
We have already seen in the quick description of the environmental situation
that the class presents some evident socio-cultural aspects, to which
we must add the behaviours of the children highlighted within the class
and the educational problems linked to the following features:
- countryside background leading to lack of interest in the more formal
aspects of the teaching/learning practice;
- poor families and middle class ones mixture, imlpying a different way
of considering and participating to the work of the school;
- children coming from small different villages, always bringing with
them the conflicts of the different political, social, cultural contexts;
- school mostly regarded as a kindergarten, this leads to lack of collaboration
between families and school, opposition to the new setting of the school
organization, distrust on the positive power of the teachers to change
the wrong behaviours and misconceptions of the community;
- class composed mostly by males ( 8 vs 2 females), that is prevalence
of kind of interactions based on violence, noise, opposition;
- existence of a natural leader that is a very intelligent but unpolite
boy expanding the attitude to avoid teacher's respect and the setting
of proper collaborative rules;
- presence of special educational needs children that makes the situation
more complex regarding the educational and organizative aspects;
- children of the second level are false beginners that is they need to
work on the same units of the first year of English, increasing vocabulary,
structure consciousness, learning skills, socialization of their "given".
I need to improve my tecniques and strategies to manage the learning situation
in this class more effectively.
But, what makes some students seem difficult? Could be attitudes or simply
behaviours or, finally, approaches to learning. The behaviuors I have
stated using the structured diary and the tape recorder are :
-lack of participation;
-domination;
-seeking attention;
-learning difficulties in general.
After having identified what makes me perceive this class as difficult
it is time to analyze the ways of addressing and overcoming difficulties.
The main problem seems to be the fact I have to work into a mixed ability
class. I have to find strategies to get the best from all students in
this class, furthermore, I need to grade the activities so that different
students can work on the same material at their own level because the
low achieving language children must be engaged in the lessons and the
more able students must be challenged, motivated and stretched. I think
also that carefully planned classroom work, including different settings,
changes of pace and negotiated new rules, could have a beneficial effect
on all students in this multi-level class.
At this point I can propound that my main purpose could be to reach the
same level in both groups, considering the class as a whole participating
the same experiences and to avoid to work, as my collegues teaching other
subjects do, separating the two levels. It probably will recquire much
more time to achieve my aims but at the end I could have an only level
class, being although mixed abilities, sharing the same potential skills
and learners able to work together on the same planned activities.
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