Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi all,

I am teaching an extracurricular english class, in which the students' age gap is relatively big (from 9 to 14). And I find it very difficult to balance the needs for all students when it comes to classroom activities and games. For example, chanting and scrabble works fine among younger students, while older ones find them boring and "childish"; mini-debate is quite popular with older students, but the younger have a major problem in logic and reasoning. And sometimes it is NOT the students' english command that divides them into different interest groups, but their psychological state that matters.

Do you have any suggestion as to how to organize class activities under such circumstance? Or what games do you think are proper for all students?

Thank you.

This is a tricky one, but here are two ideas:

1. For the older kids explain how the game helps them learn the language. (Some kids are mature enough to handle that idea)

2. Get the older kids to help design games for the younger ones, that way they'll be keener to participate if they had some hand in creating or setting up the game.

I've got a lot of fillers on my site at, I've tried them all with adults, but your kids maybe at the stage that they don't want to do anything perceived as childish: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/intermediate/fillers.html

James