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Teacher’s
Resource File

Introduction
Successful mixed language-level teaching page 2
Practical tips page 3
Graded worksheets – description page 7

Graded worksheets
STARTER UNIT page 8
UNIT 1 page 19
UNIT 2 page 30
UNIT 3 page 41
UNIT 4 page 52
UNIT 5 page 63
UNIT 6 page 74
Extra Vocabulary page 85
Festivals page 91
Answers page 94
Audioscript page 99

Roisin O’Farrell
with Barbara Bednarczyk
Successful mixed
language-level
teaching
Very few classes consist of pupils who have the same
level of language proficiency or learn at the same
pace. In an average classroom, it’s common to have
pupils ranging from new arrivals with little or no prior
knowledge of English to pupils who have an aptitude
for language learning and pupils who use English in
their home environment. The challenge for teachers is to
keep all these pupils engaged, motivated and advancing
in their learning while ensuring no pupil falls behind.
Research shows that the key to successful mixed
language-level teaching in the classroom takes place
when teachers:
• establish an inclusive and supportive
classroom climate;
• have and communicate expectations of all
learners;
• avoid having fixed, ‘single-ability’ groups within
a class;
• make content meaningful and engaging for
learners;
• build flexibility and integrate elements of choice
into lessons.
In the section below, we’ll address two key areas of
research that are shaping practice in ELT and non-ELT
classrooms: the role of classroom culture and teacher /
pupil beliefs, and the inclusion of learner needs in
lesson planning.
The importance of classroom culture
Factors such as the way teachers promote pupils’
behaviour in the classroom, the interaction patterns
and classroom management styles, as well as the
teacher’s language and the subtle expectations teachers
may convey to their pupils, all have an impact on
classroom culture.
Fixed-ability thinking is an example of a common
practice which persists in many classrooms (Marks, 2013)
and which has a negative effect in classroom culture.
Fixed-ability is a term used to explain the discredited
belief that ability or intelligence is fixed from birth,
e.g. that a child is inherently a high or low-level pupil,
or a strong or weak learner.
Fixed-ability thinking in the classroom can be found
in the following behaviours, interaction patterns
and beliefs:
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The potential for transforming and increasing young people’s capacity to learn both in the present and in the future.
• Class grouping: Grouping pupils within the same
‘single-ability’ groups. Research has shown the
negative impact on learners of this type of grouping
as it can demotivate pupils by installing the idea that
their ability or potential to learn is fixed (Francis et al.
2018; Tomlinson 2017).
Flexible grouping, on the other hand, allows children
to be appropriately challenged and avoids labelling
a child’s current language level as static. Pupils also
benefit from exposure to the various strengths and
perspectives of different classmates.
• Teacher / pupils’ beliefs and expectations: Teachers
and pupils often think and ‘act as if individuals come
hard-wired with a fixed-ability, adjusting – and often
limiting – experiences and expectations accordingly’
(Marks, 2013).
The author describes the way teachers can construct
‘high-ability identities’ for some pupils, leading them
to interact with them with a more academic focus,
and ‘low-ability identities’ for others, where interactions
focus mainly on behaviour.
Teachers should have and communicate high
expectations to all learners. Rather than teaching to
the middle level, it’s more effective to teach to the
top and then make the planned learning objectives
accessible for all the students (Francis et al. 2018).
• Pupils’ fixed ability thinking: Pupils’ own beliefs
about their abilities and identities, that is, the
way pupils see themselves as learners, could have
a positive or negative impact in the classroom and
the pupils’ perceptions of their own capabilities.
Adopting a growth mindset
Research shows that teachers can help overcome
the negative consequences that this type of mindset
brings into the classroom culture by adopting a different
and more positive attitude or growth mindset with
regard to their teaching practices.
Learning without Limits (Dixon et al. 2004 in Yarmer,
2004) explores the concept of transformability1 by
proposing the three pedagogical principles of trust,
co-agency and the ethic of everybody.
• Trust: This principle refers to the fact that all pupils
can be trusted to learn and make good choices if
conditions are right.
• Co-agency: This principle prompts the teacher to
collaborate with the pupils to create a positive and
supportive classroom environment and involves every
pupil in their own learning. It gives pupils a voice.
• The ethic of everybody: This principle foments
teachers’ commitment to the view that everyone
can learn and that by working together learners can
strengthen their capacities. All pupils are valued for
their unique contributions.
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Making a lesson work for everyone:
Universal Design for Learning
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an inclusive
approach to teaching and learning which aims at giving
pupils equal opportunities to succeed. UDL offers
flexibility in the ways pupils access and engage with
the materials and offers teachers an opportunity to
address not only what the children will learn but also
how they will learn it. The ultimate goal of UDL is to
build flexible lessons that can adapt to all learners.
According to Allison Posey in Universal Design for
Learning (UDL): A Teacher’s Guide, teachers can
incorporate the principles of UDL through:
• Providing multiple means of engagement: Giving
choice and autonomy to the pupils. Teachers can do
this by incorporating the pupils’ interests, strengths
and needs into lessons, using choice menus for
working towards goals, and having clear and relevant
learning goals.
• Providing multiple means of representation:
Considering different ways of presenting information
to our learners, e.g. by employing different ways of
displaying texts, pictures and charts.
• Providing multiple means of action and
expression: Allowing flexibility with timing and
pacing of tasks and allowing pupils to show what
they know through a variety of formats.
Other key elements to take into consideration when
planning inclusive lessons include:
• All learners knowing the goal: The goals can be
different for each pupil, depending on their level,
but realising the goals will give the same sense of
achievement to all.
• Pupils building and internalising their own
learning: Harris and Snow (2004) recommend giving
pupils more ownership of their learning. Focusing
on helping pupils become more effective learners
can benefit all pupils on the road to becoming
independent learners but, in particular, can make
a big difference to those who are struggling to keep
up with the level of the group.
References
• Francis, B., Taylor, B., Hodgen, J., Tereshchenko,
A. & Archer, L. (2018). Dos and don’ts of attainment
grouping. London: UCL Institute of Education.
• Harris, V., & Snow, D. (2004). Doing it for themselves:
focus on learning strategies and vocabulary
building. London: CILT.
• Hart, S., Dixon, A., Drummond, M.J. and McIntyre, D.
(2004) Learning without Limits. Maidenhead: Open
University Press
• Marks, Rachel. (2013). ‘The Blue Table Means You
Don’t Have a Clue’: the persistence of fixed-ability
thinking and practices in primary mathematics
in English schools. Forum. 55. 31-44. 10.2304/
forum.2013.55.1.31.
• Posey, A (2020) Universal Design for Learning (UDL):
A teacher’s guide. https://www.understood.org/en/
school-learning/for-educators/universal-design-for-
learning/understanding-universal-design-for-learning
• Tomlinson, C (2017). How to differentiate instruction
in academically diverse classrooms (3rd ed.).
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.
Practical tips
Five steps to creating an inclusive
classroom environment
1 Teach cooperative learning skills
Teaching pupils how to work together and support each
other is an essential step towards creating an inclusive
classroom environment. Skills such as listening, turn-
taking and responding positively to peers will facilitate
group work across all levels.
• Model active listening by greeting children individually
at the beginning of each session. Encourage children
to be good listeners in class. Explain that when working
with a partner they should turn and face them and
make eye contact.
• Demonstrate turn-taking by using a puppet or
a volunteer from the class. Have pupils pass an object
such as a softball to and fro indicating that it’s their
turn to speak. Introduce turn-taking language It’s my
turn, It’s your turn for them to use.
• Encourage pupils to respond positively by introducing
short phrases that they can use. Good idea! Well done!
That’s nice! etc.
2 Rotate pairs and groups regularly
Regularly changing groups allows pupils to develop
relationships and connections with all their classmates.
• Establish a Talk Partner routine so that pupils are given
the opportunity to discuss questions with a partner
before answering.
• To initiate the routine, ask pupils to turn to the person
next to them and say Hello. Have them ask each other
a simple question, such as How are you?. Once they
have both asked and answered the question introduce
the term Talk Partner.
• Allow individual thinking time.
• Alternate between same-level pairs and mixed-level
pairs, making sure pairs rotate regularly.
• Extra thinking time can be especially beneficial
for those learners who need more time to process
what they know.
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3 Make sure everyone has a role
In group work, assigning individual roles to our
learners means that each learner has a responsibility,
so there’s less likelihood of one individual taking
over and completing the task while others stay in
the background.
Allowing groups to allocate their own roles gives pupils
choice and opportunity to take responsibility for their
own learning allowing them to select a role that is best
suited to their skills.
• Coordinator: leads the discussion, makes sure
everyone is on task, ensures turn taking.
• Spokesperson: presents the group’s ideas
to the class.
• The Encourager: praises and affirms.
• Materials manager: collects and returns supplies
and materials.
• Timekeeper: monitors time and helps to keep
the group on task.
• Recorder: writes down ideas and thoughts decided
on by everyone.
Another way to give pupils a role is to have a classroom
chores chart, e.g. for wiping the board. Rotate who does
the task weekly, making sure everyone has a turn.
4 Challenge your own fixed
ability thinking
• Think back to your own school experience.
Were you ever grouped according to your ‘ability’?
Was this grouping obvious or more subtle? Were you
ever labelled as ‘slow’, ‘gifted’, ‘creative’ or ‘lazy’? How
did it affect you at the time? Do you still identify with
that label?
• Think about the conscious and unconscious beliefs
that you may be holding about the ability of different
pupils in your class. Reflect on the kind of language
you use when referring to different types of pupils.
Are there any surprises? Do these beliefs have any
effect on your choices in the classroom?
5 Commit to maximising engagement,
comprehension and participation
FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions
1 How can I give clear instructions?
Using mime, visuals such as symbols for speaking
and writing to support meaning, and breaking down
instructions into steps can help all the members of
the class understand the task. You can put these steps
on the board and tick them off as you go to help pupils
who are lost or distracted quickly see what they should
be doing.
2 How can I check that everyone has
understood the content?
Assessment for Learning (AFL) techniques such as
whole-class surveys of hands quickly help you to see
who may need some extra support and who may be
ready for a ‘reach higher’ challenge. These work well with
both face-to-face and online classes. The class can give
their answers through:
• raising their hands;
• standing up vs remaining seated;
• doing fun poses, such as Stand like Superman if you
think the answer is A, Fly like Superman if you think
the answer is B;
• writing their answers in their notebooks.
You can use the Thumbs up strategy to see at a glance if
the class has understood the instructions for the task.
Ask pupils to close their eyes when responding so they
are not swayed by the answers of their classmates.
I understand I’m not sure
I don’t understand
3 How can I make sure the whole class
is engaged?
Numbered heads together
This is a cooperative learning strategy which maximises
whole-class engagement.
• Organise the class into groups of four and have pupils
number themselves from one to four. Grouping
pupils allows lower-level learners to feedback to
the class with ideas that they may not have thought
of themselves leading to increased participation and
raised self-esteem.
• Pose the question, allowing individual thinking
time for pupils to note down their answers.
• The group takes turns to state their answers and one
person is called on to share the whole group’s ideas.
Choose numbers at random to ensure everyone has
a chance to participate.
Four corners
Learners discuss ideas in ‘expert groups’ and then
return to their ‘home group’ to share their findings.
The two-tiered approach to this activity allows lower-
level learners to be supported within the expert group
and participate actively in the home group.
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• Choose four aspects of the topic you are focusing on.
• Assign each aspect to a corner of the classroom.
• Allow learners to choose which corner they go to.
• Learners return to the home group and
share information.
Attention signals
After a group activity, it can be useful to have
an effective tool that can be used to gain the attention
of the class and bring the activity to a close.
‘Call and Response’ statements are a quick and effective
way of transitioning between activities and focusing
pupils’ attention in order to move on.
For the technique, the teacher makes a statement and
the pupils reply with a pre-determined response.
Teacher Hocus Macaroni 1, 2, 3 eyes, Ready to
says: pocus cheese on me Listen
Pupils Everybody Everybody 1, 2, 3 eyes, Ready to
reply: focus freeze on you Learn
4 How can I (re)present content in
multiple ways?
Varying the teaching approach to include whole class,
small groups, pair and individual activities allows pupils
to interact with material in different ways. Alternatives to
reading a story text could be to read and listen to audio
simultaneously, watch a video of the story, read with
a partner or act it out.
Visual Support
• Create a picture dictionary on a wall or window
using the flashcards and word cards from the unit for
lower-level pupils to use as reference.
• Build up a bank of word mats. These consist of
illustrated key words arranged on a single sheet
of paper for pupils to use as reference in written
work. Include sentence beginnings to help scaffold
pupils’ work. For example, a word mat for personal
description work would contain labelled facial
features and the sentence stems She’s got …
He’s got …
• Keep the word mats in an easily accessible box and
allow pupils to use them if and when needed.
Incorporating other senses
• Clapping can be used to demonstrate things such as
word stress (loud and soft claps) and sentence rhythm.
• Skywriting, where pupils write a word in the air with
their finger at the same time as saying it, can be
a useful tool for many learners.
Multisensory grammar
• To help pupils focus on sentence structure in a more
tactile way, cut up sentences you are teaching and
allow pupils to order them in pairs.
• Cut up whole texts for pupils to order manually and
focus on the structure of the text type.
5 How can I provide flexible options for
my class to express themselves?
Open-ended activities allow pupils the opportunity
to select the way of working that best suits them
for a task. They might be more comfortable
showing understanding in the following ways:
• a drawing
• a diagram
• a written text
• a video
A brainstorming activity could offer the following options:
• In pairs pupils take turns to name animals.
• In pairs pupils use a sentence structure for their ideas.
• In pairs pupils write a list of animals together.
• In pairs pupils categorise the animals they name using
different criteria, e.g. number of legs, wild or domestic,
where they live, etc.
• Individually pupils write sentences on a whiteboard.
The daily challenge
Another way of giving pupils flexible options is to
provide a menu of different activities that they can
choose from. On finishing a task, pupils can access the
menu and choose the activity that best suits them at
that moment.
Pupils can:
• choose a learning to learn activity.
• make a Venn diagram to classify information learnt in
the lesson.
• categorise information from the lesson, e.g. if the topic
is animals, pupils can chose to categorise them as wild
or domestic, according to habitat, number or legs, etc.
• write five sentences about the topic.
• write a list adding to the key vocabulary introduced in
the unit, e.g. a shopping list, sports activities, etc.
• play Check your spelling with a partner.
• play I spy with your pupil’s book.
• play Draw and guess or Describe and guess with
a partner.
• practise a Mindfulness exercise.
6 How can I adapt my questions
to support and challenge
different learners?
Using a variety of question types allows teachers to
provide more support to those pupils who need it while
at the same time stretching higher-level pupils.
• Closed questions: often require only a Yes / No
or one-word answer and are useful for checking
comprehension and recall. Questions such as who,
what, where, when are open to all the members of
the class.
• Open-ended questions: require a longer response
and promote higher-order thinking, and allow pupils
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 with a higher language level to give a more elaborate
response. Asking questions such as why and how lead
on from knowledge and understanding to application,
analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
Balance the use of open and closed questions to allow
pupils to express understanding at the level in which
they feel the most comfortable.
7 How can I best share learning
objectives with my class?
Stating learning objectives at the beginning of
the lesson allows all pupils to have a clear idea of what’s
expected of them. Write the objectives on the board and
return to them at the end of the session so that pupils
can confirm that they have achieved them.
Share success criteria with learners
Learners need to know what good work is to you and
how to achieve it. Sharing success criteria with learners
helps them know what they need to do and gives them
confidence in their work. Use positive statements in
the form of a checklist that pupils can use to evaluate
their work.
An example of success criteria for writing a recipe could be:
I can list the ingredients.
I can write the instructions in order.
I include the materials.
I illustrate my recipe.
Learning to learn activities menu
Write sentences I spy
Describe and guess Practise mindfulness
8 How can I encourage my pupils to
take responsibility for their own
learning?
Giving pupils choice allows them to make decisions about
their own learning and lets them choose activities suited
to their current level.
Introduce learning strategies to help pupils build
up skills as well as knowledge. Providing a range of
strategies keeps the activity open-ended, giving pupils
the opportunity to choose the activity they feel most
comfortable with at that moment, without limiting them
to choosing the same strategy in the future.
Suggested strategies
• Definitions: Writing a definition for a new word can
help pupils recall vocabulary. Allowing pupils to create
their own definitions can aid long-term memory.
• Picture dictionary: Pupils make a picture dictionary
in a notebook by illustrating new vocabulary.
• Alphabetical order: Encourage pupils to list words in
alphabetical order in a notebook.
• Mind map: Show pupils how to organise information in
a mind map helping them visualise ideas more clearly.
• Look, copy, cover and write: Help learners visualise
the overall shape of new words. Pupils read a word,
copy it, then cover the word and write it again. They
check the word is correctly spelt before continuing.
• Read it, make it, write it, use it: Set up a spelling
station with magnetic letters. Pupils read a word from
a word card, make it with magnetic letters, write it and
then use it in a sentence.
Spell check Venn diagram
Make a list
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Graded Tips on how to use the graded worksheets:
• Use them as extra practice, revision or homework

worksheets after each section or each unit.

• Hand out the same worksheets for everyone,

– description or different worksheets depending on the pupils’ level

and needs.
• Try the Support worksheets first with your group and
Graded worksheets have been created to address check how it goes before choosing the higher levels.
the challenges of teaching mixed-ability classes and to
• If you see your students can do more, go for
enable learners to work at their own pace, considering
the Standard and then Challenge worksheets.
their language proficiency.
• From time to time, allow students to choose the level
There are Vocabulary, Grammar, and Skills sections for
of worksheets on their own, for their own reasons.
each unit at three levels of difficulty: Support, Standard
It could be a chance for them to reflect on their own
and Challenge. This division reflects the amount of
progress, reach higher to prove themselves, or pick an
learners’ language input and their reading and writing
easier option to take care of their individual needs.
skills required to complete the tasks. All the graded
worksheets in each section are similar visually and in the • Make mixed-ability groups and use the worksheets for
types if exercises they offer to make it possible to use games (pupils can decide which worksheets they want
the chosen ones with the whole class or to use different and at which level; they can get more points for more
ones with individual students at the same time. There advanced worksheets).
is also a Speaking section on the Standard level with • Use higher-level worksheets in pairs or groups so
notes for teachers on how to adjust the tasks for less or lower-level learners can get the support they need
more advanced students. Lastly, teachers are able to get from their partners and learn more.
students into practising pronunciation in the Phonics • Collect worksheets to check and monitor your pupils’
section. progress.
Support worksheets could be used with those students
who work at a slower pace, need more guidance,
experience difficulties reading and writing, may have
special education needs and/or are foreigners. In this
section, the exercises are much easier. They are closed,
have simplified instructions and less task items. The
sentences are shorter, and the key words are always
accompanied by pictures.
Standard worksheets are for those learners who work
at a standard pace, do well enough in reading and
writing, tend to acquire new elements of the language
quite well and/or already have some knowledge of
English. In this section, the exercises are a bit more
complex than in the Support section. They are still
mainly closed, but include more task items, with more
words to trace and longer texts to read.
Challenge worksheets are for those students who
work at a faster pace, read and write quite well,
acquire the new material quickly and/or may have
better knowledge of English than others in the class.
At this level, there are more and more open exercises,
which enables pupils to become more creative and
independent. The tasks are more complicated, with
a greater number of task items, words or sentences
to write and with longer texts to read.