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IN MY SECOND YEAR OF TEACHING

I was working on comprehensive High School in West London. The school had over 1200 students and at least one third of these students come from a non-English speaking background. The literacy levels in the school were low and only 2-3 students in a class of 30 pupils would have been classified as "independent readers". The school had no programme to deal with its literacy problems and there was only one special education teacher. An ESL teacher was appointed half-way through the year.

No one in the History faculty had made any effort to create programmes of interest for the Year 8 and 9 students or design work that catered for the variety of literacy levels and abilities found in each class. The Year 9 'programme' (I don't think one actually existed) for one teacher was to present his class with a new worksheet each lesson. The worksheet consisted of some written information and then questions relating to that information. The class would read through the sheet together and then the students were left to answer the questions themselves.

These worksheets had been designed 15 years ago. The French Revolution, for instance, was covered in 2 lessons and the students would be unable to define 'revolution' for you by the end. Added to this was the fact that we only saw the students for one 60 minute per week.

The following year the National Curriculum for Education was to begin in all schools in England and Wales. With the assistance of the ESL teacher, 2 members of the History Faculty and myself set about writing programmes for Years 8 and 9 designing lessons and worksheets specifically aimed at the abilities of the students at our school. It was also our opportunity to teach and evaluate the programme before the requirements of reporting and profiling were introduced.

The outline of study in the syllabus and the outcomes were well defined and there were a large range of texts available. However, these were not a consideration because of the cost and also the literacy levels of our students.

Therefore, worksheets were designed for each lesson written information was kept to a minimum and key words were highlighted. Teaching the vocabulary is essential part of creating understanding and thus learning. Activities would always be included on the worksheets that related to vocabulary development, such as finding the meaning of words, matching words with their meanings, or as a group, determining the meanings of words from the text.

A range of activities employed in teaching mired ability classes were used e.g. heads and tails, cloze passages, labeling, review questions and empathy activities. The activities on the worksheet would also be graded. The students with the lowest literacy levels would be able to answer only 2-3 questions but they would still be gaining a degree of the knowledge and skills needed to fulfill the outcome of the syllabus.

Group work activities were also undertaken by students were independent learning and peer tutoring were encouraged. This worked effectively were group members were given a particular role in their group, instructions were clear and each person had a specific task to complete.

I was not at the school to see the long term effects of these changes, but there were some immediate effects.

Classes were less disruptive and discipline problems were reduced. Students who had difficulty with the work before were able to accomplish some of the tasks. Their confidence increased as did their knowledge of skills. The worksheets also provided a structure to the lessons for the students.

As a teacher, the 1 lesson per week was not just an hour of classroom control learning was occurring.

IN MY FIRST YEAR OF TEACHING

I had the bottom Year 9 Commerce class. The class contained 30 students and I was also replacing a teacher on maternity leave, so I had the added pressure of filling someone else's shoes.

Even within streamed classes there is a range of abilities. I had capable student who placed no value on gaining an education, ESL students, and students with low literacy levels. Many of these students had been part of the Special Education classes in Years 7 and 8.

I had never encountered a class like this before and my own experiences of education as a student were completely different to what I was experiencing.

My head teacher was supportive in respect to the discipline problems in the class, but I was given no assistance with teaching resources for this class or methods of presentation that catered for the class. We had a seminar on Training and Development day or mixed ability teaching but it was until I was working in England and working closely with the ESL teacher that I learnt how to develop work that was appropriate for a mixed ability class.

Because, I didn't have problems with other classes I feel that I was 'abandoned' with this class, and no one took the time to show me where I was going wrong in teaching the class and also in handling the discipline problems that were arising because the students were struggling with the work.

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