“Ming” finished his paragraph before I could finish writing the instructions on the board. He looked up, grinned, and pulled out his phone.
Across the room, “Kawther” had written exactly one sentence. A beautiful sentence with perfect punctuation and zero errors obviously by someone with calligraphy skills, but still. One sentence.
She wasn’t goofing off. She was working as hard as Ming, just slower. She was meticulous in everything. She had no interest in hurrying, and honestly, I didn’t want to rush her. She was taking English for personal enrichment, not to pass a proficiency test.
But what was I supposed to do? Clone myself? Tell Ming to sit there and rot while Kawther finished? Give him busywork that would just widen the gap between them?
That last option is what most teachers do, by the way. Pile more work on the fast finishers. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t help anyone. It just makes your strongest students stronger and leaves everyone else even further behind.
The IEP pressure cooker
Teaching in an Intensive English Program means you’ve got maybe eight weeks to cover an impossible amount of material. Students are paying. Their F-1 visas are ticking down. Missing objectives isn’t an option.
So the urge to keep everyone moving at the same pace is intense. Lock-step instruction. Everyone on the same page at the same time. Now c’mon, let’s GO.
But Ming writes at the speed of light, and Kawther needs time to process. Forcing them into the same rhythm doesn’t work for either of them.
Your fastest student has weak points too.
Ming could write a solid paragraph faster than I could check it. But speaking? That was a different story.
His pronunciation was rough. He’d forget every grammar rule he nailed in writing the second he opened his mouth. And he almost never talked to anyone outside our class.
So I started sending him out of the classroom to do conversational visits!
I’d give him questions to ask or a topic to explore, and he’d practice saying them with me or another student who had strong speaking skills. Then I’d send him to other classes to interview students.
Every class has fast finishers sitting around waiting for everyone else to catch up. Ming would take notes on what they said, come back, and report to our class what he learned.
While he was gone, I could work with Kawther and the students who needed more support. No interruptions. No guilt about ignoring my fast finishers.
But my fast finishers are already strong speakers!
Then find their other weak points.
Pair a struggling reader with someone who needs listening practice. Have strong writers create speeches for students with weak pronunciation to practice delivering. Send students with excellent grammar skills to tutor beginners in another class.
The goal isn’t to keep everyone in your classroom under your direct supervision at all times. That’s not good teaching. That’s control for the sake of control.
Create a framework that gets students what they need, whether that’s in your classroom, someone else’s classroom, the hallway, or the lobby.
Here’s what caught me off guard:
At first, I thought the interviews were just speaking and listening practice for Ming.
Then I started noticing something else.
Before I started sending him out, Ming wasn’t outgoing. He stuck with the other Chinese speakers during breaks. He wasn’t shy or antisocial, just uncomfortable talking to people he didn’t know. Classic Catch-22: to get more comfortable speaking, he needed to speak more. But he wouldn’t speak more because he wasn’t comfortable.
Sending him out to interview students every day changed that. He had to ask their names, make small talk, and practice the grammar and vocabulary we’d been working on…all while taking care to speak as clearly as possible. He got to know students across the program. It gave him a reason to approach strangers.
And if he felt awkward about it? He could always blame me. “My teacher says I have to do this.”
Within a few weeks, I started seeing Ming chatting with students from other countries during break. He’d made friends. His speaking improved because he was using English outside our classroom, not just during the time period I had him.
Meanwhile, back in the classroom…
Kawther got the time she needed to write without feeling like she was holding everyone back.
She wasn’t just dealing with different grammar rules. She was retraining her hand to write left to right instead of right to left. That takes time. Rushing her wouldn’t have helped. It would have just made her anxious and sloppy.
Two months later, her speed had doubled. She was still careful, still meticulous, but wow was she ever faster and more confident.
And Ming? He moved up to the next level because his speaking had finally caught up to his writing.
What this actually does for your class
This strategy helped to level out gaps in my students’ abilities. That made the class more enjoyable for me to teach and for them to learn.
Students moved to higher-level classes when they were ready instead of being held back by one weak skill. And because classes fit better, there was less frustration all around.
And as for me? Well, I stopped feeling guilty about fast finishers sitting there bored.
And my students stopped depending on me for every single thing during every single minute of class. They learned to work with each other, seek out practice opportunities, and take responsibility for their weak areas.
One simple change…sending students out when it benefited them and working with the students who need you most while they’re gone.
Try it. See what happens.
That’s it from me. See you in the next post!
Read more about teaching adult ESL and classroom management!
- Teaching Adult ESL: Real Talk for New Teachers
- 2 Ways to Get Adult ESL Students to Try New Strategies
- “Learn English” Isn’t a Goal: 6 Things Your ESL Students Are Missing
- Stop Teaching English Like It’s Only For Exams
- Linguistic Investigations: Teaching Students to Teach Themselves
