PA R T B Coping

CHAPTER 5
Grading tasks

The idea here is that students work on the same basic activity but with different
tasks graded at varying levels of difficulty.

1 An example – Select a text to dictate to the students but give different students a different task
dictation to do:
Give the students in the strongest group (e.g. blue group) a blank piece of
paper.
Give the middle-level group (e.g. green group) a gapped version of the text to
be dictated.
Give the lowest-level group (e.g. yellow group) a complete version of the text
to be dictated with multiple-choice options for some of the words or
expressions.
Dictate the text in the normal way, reading it through once at normal speed
and then dictating it in chunks, pausing to allow the students to complete
their tasks. The students in the strongest group write down everything. Those
in the middle-level group fill in the gaps in their text and those in the lowest-
level group choose the correct word or expression from the choices given.
After reading it out in chunks, read the whole text out again at normal speed
for students to check their work individually.
As an optional task you can get the students who did the same task to check
their work with each other (i.e. blue with blue, green with green, yellow with
yellow).
Then regroup the students into multicoloured groups, i.e. groups of one
yellow, one blue, one green student. The students then check their work
together. They should not show each other their texts but talk through them,
checking that everything is there and words are correctly spelt as they go. You
should monitor and help as necessary.
A whole-class feedback should not actually be necessary but you could, as a
final stage, give students a copy of the original text to compare with or refer
students to their coursebook if the text came from there.
(I first came across this idea in Models and Metaphors in Language Teacher
Training, Tessa Woodward, CUP, 1991.)

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 Grading tasks

Here is an example of a text.

Friday 13th November

What a day. My alarm clock didn’t ring so I overslept. I woke up at ten o’clock with a
terrible toothache. I suddenly remembered I had an appointment with the dentist at
quarter past ten. I ran out of the house and down the street. Then I saw some girls
laughing at me. I looked down. I was still in my pyjama trousers. I was very
embarrassed. I ran back home but then I found I didn’t have my keys. I couldn’t open the
door. I got a ladder from the garage and started to climb up to my bedroom window. But
the ladder was very old and it broke. I fell off and broke my leg. Now I’m in hospital. My
tooth still hurts and my leg hurts, too!

SEE PHOTOCOPIABLE PAGE 10 for the gapped version and the multiple-choice
version.

2 Advantages and What are the advantages?

disadvantages of All students are challenged at an appropriate level of difficulty and can get
using graded tasks involved in doing the task. No one should be left behind or have nothing to do.
All students can succeed in completing the task given to them, and this is
motivating for them.
You can design different tasks for lots of different activity types (e.g. listening,
reading, vocabulary practice).
The multicoloured checking stage empowers the weaker students since they
are the ones who are most likely to have a complete and correct version of the
text. They are therefore in a position to help the stronger students.
This checking stage also promotes student co-operation and tolerance.

Cover the disadvantages below. What are the disadvantages of using graded
T A S K tasks? Can you think of any solutions to these disadvantages?

What are the disadvantages?

There is much more preparation for the teacher.
Students may feel labelled as weak, medium or strong and therefore
embarrassed. The weaker students in particular may feel demotivated.
Stronger students may resent always having to work ‘harder’ (as they see it).
The teacher may get confused about who is doing what, especially in a large
class.

What are the solutions?

It does mean more preparation, but the tasks can be kept and hopefully used
again with other classes and by other teachers. It is worth building up a bank
of this kind of task and keeping them for future use, perhaps with a group of
teachers, maybe even from different schools.
Let the students choose which ‘colour’ activity they want. When you
introduce the system of graded activities, make it lighthearted, e.g. Who’s
feeling tired today? OK, you can do a yellow activity. Colours are better than
numbers or letters since they don’t have grading associations. (You could use
other names, e.g. animals, fruit). You should keep a note of what level of

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Grading tasks

activity each student chooses each time for evaluation purposes. If you use
the same coding system, the students will get to know which activity is most
likely to suit them. Occasionally you may want to intervene if you feel they
are over- or underchallenging themselves.
If the students have a choice, they can perhaps sometimes be allowed to do
an easier task. But it is up to you to ensure they do challenge themselves
sufficiently. Individual counselling may help if necessary.
Good classroom management and organisational skills are crucial here.
The following steps may help:
When preparing the worksheets, write in one corner the colour, or actually
mark each one with a coloured pen/crayon after you’ve copied them.
When asking what colour activity the students want to do, get them to put
their hands up and count them to ensure the groups are roughly equally sized.
Before doing the activity, it may be useful to group the students according to
colour so they can’t see the other groups’ worksheets.
When regrouping the students into multicoloured groups for checking, the
students will have to move. Give clear instructions for them to go round
saying their colour to each other, to find the appropriate partners. They should
sit down as soon as they have found their group of three. You can then add
any extra students to the groups if numbers make it necessary.

Look at the text below, or use a text from your coursebook. Devise a gapped
T A S K text and a multiple-choice text for use with it.

A bug is an insect. So why are mistakes in computer programmes called bugs? It

is because the first computer bug was in fact a real insect. The first computers
were very, very big and filled a whole room. A computer called Mark 1 broke
down one day so technicians looked inside it. They found a dead moth. The
programmer started to call computer errors ‘bugs’ and the name stuck.

3 Picture dictation This is a fun activity and can be adapted to provide practice in many different
lexical and structural areas. This example practises describing people, their
appearance and clothes. The stronger students start with a piece of paper and
have to draw the people from scratch. The middle-level students are given outlines
of the people, and the weaker ones the outlines with some details filled in.
Read out the text below to the students. The stronger students have to listen
and understand everything in order to complete the task, whereas the middle
level and weaker students with the partly drawn pictures do not have to
understand everything.
SEE PHOTOCOPIABLE PAGE 11

This is a picture of my grandfather and grandmother. They are quite strange! My

grandfather is very tall and thin. He’s bald but he’s got thick black eyebrows and
a big thick moustache. He wears glasses on the end of his big nose. He’s got small
bright eyes and he stares hard at you. He always looks very serious; he never
smiles. He looks quite frightening if you don’t know him, I think. He usually
wears an old jacket and trousers which are too long. He uses a walking stick
because he can’t walk very well. Oh and he’s always smoking his pipe of course.

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 Grading tasks

My grandmother, on the other hand, is very short and fat, almost round. She
has short curly hair. She wears glasses on the end of her nose too. She’s very
different from my grandfather; she’s always smiling and happy. She usually
wears a blouse with a high neck and a long skirt. She loves reading so she’s
always got a book in her hand. Oh, and she always wears a big gold heart on a
chain round her neck: it was the first present she got from my grandfather.

4 Vocabulary activities Crazy texts

Read the following text. What do you notice about it?

The day a policeman saw a man walking along the street down a penguin. He
went up to the have and said, ‘Excuse me, sir. Is that big penguin?’
’No,’ replied the man,’ It isn’t mine. I just found street.’
’Well, why don’t that take it to the zoo?’
’That’s a red idea,’ said the cat. ‘I will.’
The next day, the policeman saw the man bad. He zoo very surprised because
the penguin was still with talk.
’Excuse it, sir,’ said the park, ‘but didn’t you take the penguin to out zoo
yesterday?’
’Oh yes, I are,’ replied the man, ‘and we really enjoyed it. Today we’re going to
saw to the cinema.’

This is an example of a crazy text: there are a number of words in it that are
wrong. The most difficult task you can give the students to do with this is to find
the wrong words and replace them with the correct ones. This task would be
suitable for the strongest students.

Cover the ideas below. How could you adjust the task to varying degrees to
T A S K make it easier? Think of as many ways as you can before reading on.

Here are some ways of adjusting the level of difficulty of the task:
Tell the students how many wrong words there are before they begin. They
have to identify them and correct them.
Indicate which lines the wrong words are in (and the number of words in each
line). Students identify and correct them.
Before students go on to correct the wrong words, they receive feedback on
whether they have correctly identified them (e.g. via an answer sheet).
Underline the wrong words before you copy the text. Students correct them.
Give students a jumbled list of the correct words to replace the wrong ones.
Here is the correct version of the text. The words in capitals are the ones that
were wrong in the crazy text:
ONE day a policeman saw a man walking along the street WITH a penguin. He
went up to the MAN and said, ‘Excuse me, sir. Is that YOUR penguin?’
’No,’ replied the man.’It isn’t mine. I just found IT.’
’Well, why don’t YOU take it to the zoo?’
’That’s a GOOD idea,’ said the MAN. ‘I will.’

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Grading tasks

The next day, the policeman saw the man AGAIN. He WAS very surprised
because the penguin was still with HIM.
’Excuse ME, sir,’ said the POLICEMAN, ‘but didn’t you take the penguin to THE
zoo yesterday?’
’Oh yes, I DID,’ replied the man, ‘and we really enjoyed it. Today we’re going to
GO to the cinema.’

Wordsearch
There are ways of making this more or less difficult. Look at this example.

Find the following words in the square (→ and ↓):

bed bookshelf mirror television carpet lamp
sofa cupboard fridge wardrobe armchair cooker
table CD player
S O F A C F E P T A
C W A R D R O B E P
U C B M P I T O L M
P O E C L D A O E I
B O D H A G B K V R
O K M A Y E L S I R
A E Y I E N E H S O
R R U R R G L E I R
D L A M P B I L O F
C A R P E T K F N E

This is a very easy task and only requires the students to recognise the words in
the square.

Cover the list below. How could you adapt this task to make it more difficult?
T A S K See how many ideas you can think of for making it progressively more
challenging. Then compare your ideas with those below.

Ideas to make the task more challenging:

Give students skeleton versions of the words, e.g. s __ __ a, m __ __ r __ r.
Give them the L1 equivalents of the words.
Give them pictures of the words.
Tell them there are 14 things in the word square that they can find in the house.
Tell them to find as many ‘things in the house’ as they can.
Tell them to find as many words connected to one topic as they can and to
identify the topic.
As a follow-up, you should check that students know the meaning of the words.
You could supply the definitions or a translation which the students have to match
to the words. Or you could get the fast finishers to produce these definitions.

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 Grading tasks

5 Reading and listening Students can also be given different tasks for listening and reading comprehension
activities. Look at this text and task.

(From Freeform 2, page 35; Downie, Gray, Jiménez, Richmond English, 1993.)

The task requires the students to absorb information from both texts and identify
how many differences there are between the two, and what the differences are.
This can be made easier for weaker students if you give them a grid (empty or
partly completed) indicating the type of information they are looking for, e.g.

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Grading tasks

Now look at this listening text. Can you devise graded tasks for it?
T A S K
Listening: prices
Tapescript
Well, on our show tonight we are looking at personal stereos for under £50.00.
First there’s the Boots PSX20. Now this is really excellent value for just £7.99. It
looks wonderful ... bright pink and green. Then we have the Philips Moving
Sound AQ6404. A nice personal stereo this, at £27.99, though we didn’t like the
colour much. We also looked at two personal stereos from Sanyo – the
MGP310D at £29.99 and the MGR78 which costs £27.99. The more expensive
model has a better sound, but neither of these is great value. Then of course
there’s the Sony Walkman and here you really are paying for the name – £49.99.
Expensive! But the best value of all the machines we tested was the Panasonic
RQ535V. A really great machine and excellent value at £34.99.
(From Freeform 2, Unit 5, Assignment 3, page 27)
Possible graded activities:
For stronger students, get them to do a very intensive listening task by
completing the following grid:

Model Price Colour Opinion

1
2

Middle-level students can fill in a partially completed grid, as shown in the

previous activity.
Weaker students could be given a grid already completed but with some wrong
information that they have to correct. If you limit the wrong information to the
model numbers and prices this will make it easier still, e.g.

Model Price Colour Opinion

Boots PSX20 £8.99 pink & green excellent value

looks wonderful
Philips Moving £27.99 don’t know nice, but
Sound AQ6499 didn’t like the colour
Sanyo MGP310D £39.99 don’t know better sound than other
not good value

1 Look at your coursebook and select some material that you want to use
T A S K soon with your mixed-ability class.
2 Decide if each task as given in the book is most suitable for the weaker,
middle or stronger students in your class.
3 Decide how you could adapt each of the tasks to make them easier or more
difficult for the other students in your class.

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