1. What factors do you consider important in causing mixed ability? Put these in order of importance for you:
2 previous exposure
3 attitude
6 learning style
5 personality
1 aptitude
4 motivation
2. Look again at the classroom scenarios in exercise 1 and the solutions suggested by teachers. What do you think of the teachers' suggestions? What else would you do in these situations?
I think that all the suggestions make sense and they could be put into practice. Maybe in a situation of getting feedback after the listening activity I would ask strong students (“who always call the answers”) to provide some extra information and detail for each particular answer.
3. "Every group is a mixed-ability group." Do you agree with this? What are the implications of this statement for teachers?
I would go along with that. It is always a challenge in terms of lesson planning, preparing a variety of graded activities, being patient and accept students` personal learning style and aptitude.
4. Mixed ability is usually considered to be a problem. But is it? Could there be some advantages to having students of different levels and abilities in the same class?
On the one hand, strong students can motivate the weaker students to learn by demonstrating that these results are achievable and by giving a helping hand in different classroom situations. On the other hand, strong students can get bored and become demotiated.