One of the main problems with most lesson planning material is adapting it to the specific needs of the classroom. Over the course of several articles, we’ll list the typical problems that typically make activities unusable for a teacher’s specific class, and how to fix the problem by adapting the way the activity is presented. We will identify principles for adapting activities to allow almost any lesson plan to be usable, regardless of your learner profile.

Part II. The problem of the age of the students.

Here are solutions and principles to adapt the activities to the different age problems of the students:

1) Mixed groups of young students and adolescents.

The problem here is that older children do their homework faster and are uncomfortable being paired with a younger student.

Solution: Have the younger students pair up to complete the activity, while the more competent older students work individually. This decreases the effect of younger students on slowing down activity and increases their ability to perform, as two heads are better than one. It also adds to the confidence of the younger learner and can actually increase the individual learner’s production as both tend to ask questions and respond to answers. This is particularly true of information-sharing activities, such as surveys, role-plays, and problem-solving.

Beginning: Make younger students more capable by pairing them up and improving their net skills.

2) The material complies with the target language but is not appropriate for the age group.

Imagine that you are teaching prepositions to adults but you have a picture of a bedroom with toys scattered everywhere and some children playing. Presented in a childish style, it’s not what adults would normally prefer as classroom material!

Solution: Present the material in a way that is relevant to the adult world. In this case, tell them that they are the parents of the children in the picture. This automatically makes the material acceptable as it is a realistic adult situation.

Beginning: Make the material relevant to students by giving them an age-appropriate perspective.

3) Young students who lose attention easily and cannot concentrate on an activity.

“I can’t get them to sit for more than five minutes” is a quote I’ve heard from many teachers I’ve trained, and they usually refer to students as young as 10 years old. This is really a problem if an activity requires students to be confined to a certain area of ​​the classroom for 10-20 minutes. An example of this would be an information gap exercise (where both students and student teams are separated and have to ask questions to get information from each other).

Solution: I found that I can keep children up to 5 years old in one place if I use a “den” made out of tables and chairs. You don’t even need an excuse as to why you’re setting up the class this way. They will happily stay in their area and do their homework while respecting the fact that ‘they’ are there and ‘we’ are here.

Beginning: Use unusual classroom management techniques to make the physical environment stimulating enough for the student to want to stay where they are.

4) An activity is too complex in its execution to be able to explain to the students because they are too young.

I had a group of 10 year old students who needed to practice this simple for likes, dislikes and everyday activities in a ‘free stage’ setting (with minimal interference from the teacher). I found some adult material that needed them to share information from role play cards, then use a kind of preference scale to find their ideal romantic partner. It was going to take a long time and be difficult to explain, and the group was multilingual, so there was no possibility of speaking in the mother tongue. So how to explain?

Solution: Whose! They say a simple picture can save a thousand words, so don’t get caught up in the explanations. I first asked them how old they were and then told them to imagine that they were actually 20 years older. They liked this. It allowed them to identify with the role-play cards. So I did the activity as if I were a student. I brought 2 students to the front of the class as an example, elicited their information by asking questions, and then compared them on the board, using the preference scale. I chose my favorite of the two and said that I was going to be her boyfriend. The penny fell.

Beginning: Do not explain complex activities to young learners. Treat them like a student and let the students ‘see’ what you expect of them.