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My students have drastically different capabilities. How can I teach so many different levels in the same classroom at the same time?
There are several strategies to do this, some more successful than others. Most Kenyan teachers teach everyone at the same level, same speed, same amount of information and same work requirements. This is usually done by writing information on the board and requiring students to copy it into their exercise books. Using this system (at best) only meets the needs of the average student. Below-average students copy the "gibberish" into their books and above-average students are quickly bored and never engaged in higher-level thinking skills.
You can try to break your class into ability groups teaching similar material to each group at their own learning level. This is difficult because you probably do not have materials to keep the other group occupied. You can give one group some copy work while you teach another group. You can try asking for an older student to come and be an assistant during part of your day. However, this will impact their learning because they will miss the information presented in their class.
If you have a large class, you can talk to your headmaster/headmistress about the BOG hiring an assistant for your classroom. You can encourage the BOG to hire a deaf person if that option exists in your area.
You can try a center-based approach to your teaching where you have stations set up in your room. While one group works independently on math problems, you can teach another group some new vocabulary. I found this to be difficult because the students are "programmed" to work on the same subject at the same time. Also, the lack of resources makes this difficult. You might not have enough pencils and papers to put in a writing station. You might even have a difficult time locating a table for a writing station.
You can teach the same information to the class and write work on the board, but have different expectations for their work depending on individual ability. Some students benefit from direct interactions with the teacher instead of written work.
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