1999: 134. Commonly, the participants are difficult to control, they get bored, they do not have an effective learning, they do not get the right materials, not all
of the participants are active in the class, and the trainer cannot check the progress of each participants. Ur 1999: 135 also offers some solution to
overcome those problems. They are by varying the topics, methods, and texts, making the activities interesting, encouraging collaboration, allowing the
participants to choose the activities, adapting activities to meet the participant s’
needs, using compulsory plus optional instructions, and using open-ended cues. Meanwhile, there are also some benefits and challenges of the existence of
multilevel language classroom. Some advantages of Multi-level classrooms are that participants are able to learn at their own pace, participants learn to work
well in a group, participants become independent learners, participants develop strong relationships with their peers, and participants become partners in learning.
In addition, multi-level classrooms have also some challenges. They are: finding appropriate teaching resources and material, organizing some groups within the
class, building an effective self-access centre in the classroom, determining the individual needs of each participant, ensuring that all participants are challenged
and interested, and enforcing English only policies when trainer is occupied and participants are working in small groups or pairs.
Every participant has his own learning style, linguistic background knowledge or individual pace of learning. Hence, the majority of foreign
language classes involve participants with various abilities. So, trainers should be able to develop good activities for the participants.
4. Tiered Activity
a. Definitions of Tiered Activity
Tiered activity is defined as a wedding cake which has three tiers, Bowler and Parminter in Richards and Renandya 2002: 59-60. The top tier of the
wedding cake gives the most support the most layer of supporting pillars and the least freedom for error the smallest area of cake to move around on. This is
a good activity for weaker participants. The bottom tier gives the least support no pillars and the most freedom to experiment the largest area of cake to move
around on. This is a good activity for stronger participants. Tiered activity produces the same or similar results for all participants.
In this case, every participant has their own challenge as they can individually choose the level of the activity provided by the trainer without being
underestimated. They choose which activity that they think is appropriate with them. Lower participants get the easier activity. This is in line with what Ur
1999: 136 mentions, ’compulsory’ + „optional’ tasks. All participants do the compulsory tasks and for the higher participants, optional tasks are available.
This is conducive to the convenience of class environment.
As there are some differences in multilevel classroom, tiered activity can be also based on the differences that occur in that class. Heacox 2002: 91-94
mentions some bases of tiering. They are tiering by challenge level, by complexity, by resources, by process, and by product.
In tiering by challenge level, trainer should use bloom’s taxonomy as a
guide in designing the most appropriate activities. Tiering by complexity is to differentiate the lower to the higher level learners. The more advanced
participants have the more complicated materials. For tiering by resources, the differentiated material is based on different resources although the activity is the
same. In this case, trainer is to look for some resources which are different in complexity. Or, trainer may also offer two different but related sources.
In tiering by outcome, trainer may have exactly the same source for the participants but the activity should be different. In this part, participants are
demanded to have different outcome based on their English proficiency level. Tiering by process requires participants to work on the same outcomes with
various processes to result them. The last is tiering by product. Trainer may group the participant
s based on learning preference, using Gardner’s multiple intelligences.
