Speaker
Description
Over the past years, first-year English-majored students tend to vary greatly in terms of their levels of English language proficiency. This is due to the availability of different enrolment schemes. Therefore, streaming students according to their levels seems to be a solution to group students appropriately. Streaming has been popularly used in English language teaching; however, its effectiveness remains highly debated (Mansor et al, 2016; Joyce, 2010). This study was carried out at a university in Hanoi, Vietnam. The subjects of the study were first-year English-majored students who were streamed into different classes, based on their levels of language proficiency. The study aims (a) to explore the student and teacher perceptions of the current streaming practice and (b)to find out the advantages and disadvantages of streaming. A survey was distributed to 52 students from two groups of first-year English-majored students to explore their perceptions about the streaming. Interviews with three other teachers were also exploited to get a deeper understanding. The findings have revealed that both teachers and students found streaming was beneficial for both learning and teaching. Even in a streamed class, students also learned a lot from their peers. Teachers also found their teaching more effective when delivering their lesson plans to groups of students who didn’t differ too much in their levels of language proficiency.
Keywords: streaming, streaming practice
