22 problems that teachers possibly encounter in common mixed-competence classes.
First of all, there is an issue on learning effectiveness when dealing with students who learn and progress at different speeds. While some students find learning
tasks are easy to deal with, others may find it the other way around. Secondly, having a single learning material will probably be ineffective remembering that
learners have diverse needs of topics and contents of the materials. In language speaking class, some of the students find it difficult to speak in the target language
for some reasons such as knowledge, confidence, and proficiency. This raises issues in students’ classroom participation.
Further, Gurgenidze 2012 reports that classroom management becomes another problem occuring in mixed-competence classes. Stronger students can
possibly finish tasks quicker than those weaker students. This will bring consequences for teachers in terms of classroom management. For other students,
it might raise issues in terms of discipline, since discipline is closely associated with boredom and lack of challenge Ur, 2005, as cited in Faleiros, 2009. When
students with faster speed could finish earlier than other peers, it is possible for them to end up committing indiscipline. For weaker students, they might
experience confidence and motivation issues as they feel inferior due to their inability to accomplish tasks within the same speed. The latter issue raises because
motivation is strongly related to achievement in learning the target language Ur, 2005, as cited in Faleiros, 2009.
After all, various problems are reported to have occurred in mixed- competence language classes. Therefore, teachers teaching in this kind of class are
23 faced with challenges to anticipate and minimize the possible problems
occurrence. However, having classes with mixed proficiency students should not be regarded as bad news since there are alternatives of solutions that are going to
be elaborated in the next section.
c. Alternatives for teaching mixed-competence speaking class
There is a popular notion that there is no such perfect homogenous classroom as every learner is unique; they have different learning styles and
preferences. Thus, it is believed that students could be benefited more if they receive teaching strategies that matched their learning style Kuo, Chu, Huang,
2014. Similarly, this applies in heterogeneous EFL speaking classes composed of diverse competences. It, in fact, takes special treatments when dealing with a
mixed-competence class. Some educational experts, therefore, suggest a variety of strategies
teachers can adopt to minimize the difficulty they face when teaching a group of mixed-competence learners. In dealing with the problem of learning effectiveness
caused by different learning speeds, Ur 2005, as cited in Faleiros, 2009 suggested that teachers individualize activities, for example according
to students’ learning pace and preferable form of tasks. Similarly, Harmer 2007, as cited in
Salwa, 2014 argues that providing students with different contents can help facilitate students’ individual needs. This includes giving individual tasks and
lessons with different difficulty levels, or the so- called “tiered lessons”or “tiered
activities” Levy, 2008; Bremner, 2008; Faleiros, 2009. This alternative can also PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
24 be applied to the problem of ineffective learning materials. All academic lessons
and tasks must be matched to students’ readiness levels; otherwise, the impacts
will be negative. Those negative impacts could be the decrease of students’ achievements and feelings of self-worth Tomlinson, et al., 2003. After all, the
challenges given to student s “must be at the proper level of difficulty in order to
be and remain motivating: tasks that are too easy become boring; tasks that are too difficult cause frustration” National Research Council, 1999, p.49, as cited in
Tomlinson et al., 2003. The next problem found in a mixed-competence language class is related
to learners’ minimum participation due to a number of causes, such as minimum confidence, knowledge, and language proficiency. To cope with this problem,
teachers can provide students with open-ended tasks, which are based on communicative-based learning Xanthou Pavlou, 2008. They further explain
that open-ended tasks can facilitate students to achieve the maximum involvement of learners at all levels since they “can work on the same task but at their own
pace” Xanthou Pavlou, 2008, p.6. In line with this, Gurgenidze 2012 also recommends the use of open-ended tasks or questions to teach mixed-competence
students to let students have a variety of possible correct answers. As a result, each student gets the opportunity to perform at hisher own level.
Another way to stimulate students’ participation throughout the lesson is by keeping students’ interest rate. A number of studies have reported the use of
games, qui zzes, competitions as an effective means of ensuring students’ interests
in the lessons Xanthou Pavlou, 2008; Gurgenidze, 2012; Salwa, 2014. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
