Strategies for Teaching Linguistically Gifted Students

     On 14 February, I participated in a roundtable in Lutsk, the topic of which was “Methods and Strategies for Teaching Gifted Students”. 

     As my students showed great results (1^st and 3^rd places) at the Regional Olympiad this year, I was invited to share my insights and expertise on this question.  Here is my speech:

Strategies for Teaching Linguistically Gifted Students

     Linguistically gifted students stand out from their peers. They are curious about how the language works, think creatively, show flair and flexibility, and have exceptional communication skills.

    Of course, when you have linguistically gifted students in your classroom or even just one gifted student, you have to be equipped with the right tools to support and them and maximize their progress.

     Although I am not a novice when it comes to preparing students for Olympiads, to me, there is still no one formula that I can use to teach gifted students, because what works for one student may not work for another.

     However, I can use some strategies, which help me provide challenge. Challenge matters considerably because by giving  our students work that makes them struggle, we move them beyond what they know and can do now.

     So, let me share what strategies I use to teach more able students.

·            Extension tasks can provide more forms of practice because they set work that is more demanding. For example, during one of English lessons, my students discussed the question of whether there are more advantages than disadvantages of being famous and whether celebrities always make good role models. Besides this, the most able learners were given one more question: What's the difference between Internet fame and real world fame? Questions of this type are thought-provoking and related to real life, thus stretching and extending students’ thinking. By considering such questions, gifted students learn to take a little step beyond what is discussed and learnt by the whole class.

·            Another aspect is that gifted students often finish their work sooner than other students do. However, it is not a good idea to give them extra work of the same type when they finish early, because by giving gifted students more of the same type of work, we might overload them with boring work and they might think they are punished for being fast.

     Instead, we should provide students with activities which differ from what they have finished doing.  For instance, if the class is required to read a text and fill in the gaps with correct words, I provide early finishers with activities that enable students to work on their language development. Higher achievers  are supposed to think of as many synonyms as they can to the adjectives or verbs in the text / to replace  phrasal verbs given in the text by their  more formal equivalents / to pick out metaphors in the text and explain what they stand for / to choose words that they know are used in idioms, etc. This activity is what I call “killing a bird with two stones” because first, gifted students are still busy and involved even when they have finished the first task, and second, they learn to be adventurous with the language and never to be at a loss for words.

·            A lot of very able students love problem-solving. For example, if I have my students think of reasons for doing something,   I have the most able students  think of the ways and methods of  putting something into practice.

     I often allow my students to choose how they present the final version of their work. If they choose the format that they know they are strong in, they demonstrate brilliant results. For example, while teaching about crime, I had my students think of some effective solutions to the problem of shoplifting. The students gave a short oral presentation about how to deal with this problem, but one of the students chose another format, she chose to write a letter to the authorities. Her ideas and the way she expressed her thoughts stood out from all the rest.

·            One more thing that surely works is extra-curricular activities and events outside the school, in terms of language learning. Additional options beyond the school provide a window to student’s abilities and skills, like participating in Language Days, or Foreign Language Weeks, or English Clubs.        

     I encourage my students to attend   language summer camps, not necessarily private and expensive. In Ukraine, there are camps organized by Peace Corps volunteers. These camps are affordable and provide face-to-face interaction with native speakers.

      To conclude, although teaching gifted students is demanding and time-consuming to some extent, the results are highly rewarding and inspiring.