TEACHING IN A VARIETY OF CONTEXTS

A glance at the primary schools in our country reveals large variation in the school
and class-size index. Some primary schools are large-sized, while some of them are
medium-sized and others are very small-sized. In the large and medium sized schools,the teacher-pupil ratio is 1:40 or more and teachers teach grade-wise or even sectionwise. In sparsely populated areas very often several grades comprising of 10-15
children make a normal class-size. In this context, the teacher has to combine several
grades and practise multigrade teaching. Also, expanding the educational facilities
for disabled and integrating them into the normal classroom set-up, presents a different
context for teaching. All these situations often create a differential or a variety of
contexts for teaching.
In this unit you will understand and learn about various contexts and also suitable
methodologies/teaching strategies for organizing multigrade teaching, handling largesized class and teaching in integrated class. The instructional strategies can differ
from one context to another, depending on the class size, its objectives, composition,
subject content etc.

OBJECTIVES
This unit will enable you to:
! explain the concept and need for teaching in a variety of contexts i.e. multigrade,
large-sized class and integrated class,
! discuss various strategies of teaching-learning in different contexts,
! learn the various patterns of space and time management in multigrade, large-sized classes and an integrated teaching situation,
! use these instructional strategies in a variety of contexts.

MULTIGRADE TEACHING
As you know that a large number of schools are single teacher, two or three teachers
schools, where a teacher may have to teach more than one class. The situation where
one or more grades are combined and made to sit together in the same classroom and
are taught by a single teacher is called a multigrade class. This situation of combining
more than one class of teaching is called multi grade teaching.
A multigrade class consists of children of different grades/levels, age groups and
ability levels. You may also be familiar with some of the problems of a multigrade
teaching situation. The multigrade teaching situation differs from one school to another
depending on the number of teachers and pupils enroled and the methodology to be
adopted. The traditional approach of teaching cannot be adopted in a multi grade setup, which may disrupt and disorganize the learning process and discipline of different
grades.

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