What factors do you consider important in causing mixed ability?
1) Previous exposure
2) Personality
3) Learning style
4) Aptitude
5) Motivation
6) Attitude
For me, the main factor causing mixed ability in my groups of a public secondary school is the previous exposure. I have students with different level of knowledge because of the lack of english classes during their elementary education. Some students had english only during their last school year and most of my students only had english during two or three years.
Mixed ability is usually considered to be a problem. But is it?
It´s harder to work with a mixed ability group because the teacher has to find the correct way to involve all the students in the language point (using different strategies and trying to all the students participate to check understanding)