Síndrome de apnea-hipopnea durante el sueño (SAHS)

The quality of teaching is compromised in multi-grade classrooms because the teacher‟s attention is divided between the two groups (Mohlala, 2010:31). Young children want constant individual attention and support but under multi-grade teaching are compromised. In multi-grade classrooms the teacher does not focus on all learners at all times although young children need constant attention. The teacher is unable to give learners individual attention because he or she must focus on learners in different grades with different abilities and different tasks. Vincent (1999d:x) asserts that multi-grade classrooms is labour intensive and requires more planning, collaboration and professional development. The teacher teaching in a multi-grade classroom must plan extensively to meet the needs of learners in different grades in a school day. The teacher must always consult or work together with other teachers who teach in multi-grade classrooms to share good practices which are effective in classrooms. The teacher must attend training on a regular basis although it might take place during school hours and leave learners unattended.

Muthayan (1999:147-150) identifies the disadvantages of multi-grade teaching as:

 Primary and intermediate grade combination. Learners in the Foundation Phase and Intermediate Phase learn in the same class but their needs are different. At some stage learners will not be kept busy but left to idle.

 Increased workload for teachers. Teachers have to teach more grades at the same time and extensive planning is needed.

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 A challenging programme for advanced learners. Advanced learners are unable to get more challenging activities because the teacher focuses on a number of grades.

 Parents‟ concerns and fears. There is concern from parents that learners cannot learn in a class where different grades are combined.

 Children from dysfunctional families. Children carry their family problems to class and the danger is there that the other learners may come to know about a specific problem that might leave the learner vulnerable and embarrassed.

 Teachers may not be specialists in all Learning Areas. Teachers do not master all the subjects because they specialised in certain subjects, but must teach all the subjects in a multi-grade classroom.

According to Mulryan-Kyne (2004:12-16), the disadvantages of multi-grade teaching are time, organisation, instruction, resources and support. Teaching a multi-grade classroom is time consuming because the teacher must plan for learners in different grades and taking different subjects. In order to organise the classroom the teacher must be creative. The teacher must also be able to give instruction in different subjects. The schools also often experience lack of resources and the teachers do not receive regular and relevant support. Song, Spradlin and Plucker (2009:2) and Pancoe (2006:22) note that parents do not find it acceptable that their older children are in the same class with the young ones. Pancoe (2006:22-24) states that parents think that older learners do not learn because they spend more time helping young ones, classes are diverse, older or gifted learners may be neglected, young children may be frustrated, clashes between learners and fellow learners or the teacher can frustrate learners for years, and if the number of learners is small, they might experience difficulty in establishing friendships. Pancoe (2006:22) argues that some of the disadvantages are based on misconceptions, and not on actual practices. In other words, Pancoe highlights an important aspect namely that some of the disadvantages mentioned are not the actual disadvantages found in multi-grade classrooms. The disadvantages can thus be summarised as labour intensive, divided attention of the teacher; possibility that the teacher may not be a specialist in all the subjects and having to create challenging programs for advanced learners. The teacher‟s attention might be divided in class but

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peer tutoring and group-work can overcome this disadvantage because learners will receive the attention of their peers. Multi-grade teaching is labour intensive because the teacher must be prepared for all the grades and all the subjects. The teacher must also prepare Assessment Tasks for all the grades and all the subjects. The teacher who is not a subject specialist can have a problem in Senior Phase (SP) and Further Education and Training bands (FET) because the subjects need to be taught by specialists. In Foundation Phase (FP) and Intermediate Phase (IP) bands the teacher who studied primary teachers‟ qualification can teach the three subjects and six subjects in FP and IP respectively because the subjects done were core to the qualifications. Challenging programs for advanced learners might not be a disadvantage within the band because learners have access to work of higher grades while they are still in lower grades. The challenge might arise when the learners exit from the class.

Multi-grade teaching has more advantages than disadvantages. Some of the disadvantages have been discussed in the above paragraph and a number of possible ways to balance the specific disadvantages were presented. The advantages of multi-grade teaching stated above shows that if multi-grade teaching is implemented properly it has more benefits for learners‟ learning. In the next section teaching in multi-grade classrooms will be discussed.