Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) students who perform at different levels requires you to differentiate your instruction to meet each student's educational needs. While teaching a multilevel class sounds daunting at first, it is no different from teaching any class in any subject since teachers are expected to tailor their instruction to accommodate many kinds of students.

Assess student levels. Even if some students clearly have a better grasp of English than others, you still need to formally assess your students to determine each student's appropriate level. You can give a reading comprehension quiz, or ask your students to construct a written response. Use error frequency to determine how well each of your students understands and can use the English language. You should give several different types of assessments to provide enough data to determine an overall pattern for student levels.

Group students by levels. Once you have determined each student's level, group students by level. Regardless of how many students are in your class, you should have a minimum of two groups: the higher-level students and the lower-level ones. You may choose to further stratify these groupings by including mid-level students or other designations. Too few groups does not allow you to differentiate instruction, but too many groups makes it more difficult to teach all of your students.

Set goals. Since each group of students understands English at a different level, you cannot reasonably expect all of your students to perform equally. Each group must have its own goals that you create based on how much English they know and how much you feel they are able to achieve by the end of the course. Goals should be reasonably challenging but not impossible to meet. Students will become frustrated if the goals you set are too high, and disinterested if the goals are too low.

Differentiate instruction. Since each group's goal is tailored to the students' individual abilities, your instruction should also meet each student's needs. When planning your lessons, make sure that you distinguish between how you will teach the higher-level ESL students and how you will teach the lower-level ESL ones. All of the students can work on learning the same material, but the strategies you use to teach each group should differ based on the group's abilities and educational objectives.

Mix students. Your ESL students will improve their English abilities faster if they are exposed to higher-level speakers. While your students should remain in their ability groups during instructional time, you can rotate students into mixed-ability groups for in-class assignments or group work so that they may learn from one another.