Challenges in Managing Mixed Ability Students in ELT Classes

Abstract

The present study entitled ‘Challenges in Managing Mixed Ability Students in ELT Classes’is an attempt to identify the challenges of managing mixed ability students in ELT classes faced by secondary level ELT teachers and to explore the ways of managing mixed ability students in ELT classes.The data were collected from the 30 secondary level English language teachers working in private schools of Lalitpur district. The samples were selected using non-random purposive sampling procedure. Questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection in this study.The collected data were analyzed descriptively and statistically. The findings of the study showed that dealing with the weak students and homework;controlling students’ different behaviour; learners’disinterest and discipline problems;correcting dailyassignments;devisingdifferent techniques, tasks and materials for the learners;teachers’ negative attitudes towards learners;students’ different language levels, backgrounds and intelligences were found to be the major challenges faced by the secondary level ELT teachers while managing mixed ability students in ELT classes.Similarly, conducting pair work and group work; giving more focus on weakstudents; teaching through project work and collaboration;providing open-ended exercises to the students;making the classroom interesting; encouraging bright to help the weak in the class were found as the good ways of managing mixed ability students in ELT classes. Likewise,textbook was not found as a best tool to deal with the mixed ability students in ELT classes.In the same way,almost all the teachers took their mixed ability classes as an opportunity. This thesis is organized into five chapters. The first chapter deals with the background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study,research questions, significance of the study, delimitations of the study and operational definition of the key terms. The second chapter includes review of related theoretical and empirical literature, implications of the review for the study and conceptual framework. Similarly,the third chapter includes design and method of the study, population, sample and sampling strategy, study ix area/field, data collection tools and techniques, data collection procedures and data analysis and interpretation procedures. Likewise, the fourth chapter contains the analysis of data and interpretation of results and summary/discussion of findings. Finally, the fifth chapter includes conclusions and policy related, practice related and further research related recommendations.