[Eric]

all of my classes are multi-level. they range from not being able to answer "what's your name" to having the ability to carry on an indepth conversation. during pairwork i try to pair off stronger students with weaker students.

what else can i do so everyone is being engaged and challenged?

eric

[fishead soup]

On the games and activities I've listed two activities Beehive activities and question weaving. Both of these activities would work in your situation.

[Eric]

thanks, i'll check them out.

[little sage]

Although I think it's a good idea to sometimes pair high & low students together, I don't think it's a great to use this system 100% of the time. It benefits the lower level student far more than the higher level student. I think 2 low level students can still get through pair work, as much as they can handle in a given time and 2 high level students together could challenge themselves much more, get more done, in the same given time.

Multi-level listening activity
Another type of activity you could try would be to read something out loud (a short anecdote, say) or play something from a cassette (a short conversation, let's say) and have all students write down 3 important facts/ ideas that they have heard. Anything at all, but 3 things each. Lower level student will catch some simple points, higher level student will catch more details. Then students could pair off to compare their notes, then the pairs could join up...

Anyway, the point is that you can have one source of language and think of activities to allow open answers through a range of levels (as opposed to closed correct/incorrect answers).

Hope this helps.