The heterogeneity in the large EFL Classes in Mozambique: Analyzing teachers’ Challenges and Strategies for successful English Language teaching and Learning at Mozambique Island Secondary School, 2022

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to analyse the challenges faced by the teachers in teaching in the large heterogeneous classes and the strategies used by them for successful teaching and learning of English Language. The study was conducted at Mozambique Secondary School. To achieve the objective, two data collection instruments were used, namely: Interview and observation. The study had five (5) subjects, of which were teachers of English language, who were interviewed and observed as teaching. Thus, the study employed interpretative philosophy, qualitative approach and exploratory design. The study’s findings reveal that as challenges, teachers find it difficult to project their voice to all students, specifically, to those siting at back desks, it is timeconsuming to give individual attention in a situation where there are weak and advanced students together, for being of highly different levels. Additionally, it is hard to check if all the students understood the lesson, apart from that there is so much noisy and the majority of students speak mother tongue during the classes, and finally there is ineffectiveness of the curriculum and teaching aids to handle such kind of classes. Thus, study provided the following recommendation: Implementation of the teaching of English from grade 1st; grade 7th students upward should be submitted to a placement test before setting them in a English class to avoid great level of differentiation in language proficiency, the building of more schools with classroom well equipped with language teaching aids, each classroom should have 25 to 30 students maximum with highly qualified teachers and finally reform the curriculum to be taught English as language, not as subject.