NGPF fellow and veteran teacher of multilingual learners, Courtney Poquette, shares that pacing is her biggest challenge in the classroom. Read on to learn how she structures her classes to accommodate a range of abilities. This is the fourth in a series of posts with her advice for other teachers of English Language Learners. 

Pacing is my biggest challenge. With such a wide range of student abilities in my classroom, I want to make sure that every student is engaged. 

Typically, I structure my classes where we have a couple of days where we work at the same pace, learning new material and doing some team activities in each class to ensure that students have the “basics.”  Then I have “self-paced” classes. 

On the "self-paced" days, I encourage students to work in teams, but always have a “challenge” or “extra credit” activity for those who finish early. I pull from the NGPF activity bank for additional opportunities to learn and often will design a choice board for students to explore another activity on their own.

These additional activities are optional and I reward students with extra credit if they go above and beyond.  I find that many of my multilingual learner students will also take on those challenges and extra credit with some of them continuing the work outside of class.

Read Courtney's previous posts here: 

4 NGPF Curriculum Tips for Teaching ELLs

6 NGPF Curriculum Adaptation Suggestions for English Language Learners

The 7 Personal Finance Topics Most Relevant for English Language Learners

About the Author

Courtney Poquette

Courtney Poquette has been teaching personal finance at Winooski H.S. in Vermont for more than 17 years. Her school is in a refugee settlement area with over 800 students pre-k to grade 12 speaking around 27 different languages! During that time, she's picked up many insights regarding NGPF curriculum adaptation for English Language Learners, or multilingual learners (MLs).

More posts by Courtney