Abstract:
Teaching English as a second language to all
Sri Lanka children, irrespective of their social, economical background has been a major
educational policy of successive governments in Sri Lanka since the early 1950*s. A
challenge that the Sri Lanka teachers have to face specially in the National schools is how
to differentiate or adapt instructions to respond to the diverse student needs found in mixed
ability classrooms. The classroom heterogeneity was recorded as a problem from the time
of independence. Heterogeneous class is likely to include students who can read and
comprehend as well as students who could barely decode words, comprehend meaning or
apply basic information and students who fall somewhere between these extremes.
Students" heterogeneity is a problem in teaching any subject. However, this problem is
more complex in the ESL classroom as exposure to second language differs depending on
the students' background.
Although this problem has been identified, not
much research has been done in Sri Lanka to find solutions.
Therefore the issues and problems that are
there in a Sri Lankan National School is discussed in the dissertation, with a view to
alleviating this problem at least to some extent.
As it was observed during the research most of
the teachers did not have any idea as how to handle a mixed ability class. Unfortunately, the
average classroom in the school is not the ideal place, and the teachers do no1: find
differentiation easy to implement. There is a need to train the teachers as teaching leads to
effective learning; teachers need to help their students to find a sense of personal
meaningfulness in the learning process.
Thus to make second language teaching, more
effective in the classroom, group activities and differentiated learning should be encouraged
as a way to minimize the heterogeneity problem as discussed.
