How do I pick students for my high-level 'extra' class?

[complex303]

My coteacher told me I can pick students from 5th and 6th grade to be in my high-level 'extra' class.  Since I'm teaching the class alone I like the idea of choosing my students.  The problem is there are tons of students who excel at English.  6th grade just took an English test and the majority did great.  The test was probably too easy.

Last year the homeroom teachers picked the students...

Any ideas?

[k-honey]

I would recommend talking to the kids, ask them if they want to be in the class and go from there.  Most of the time the kids don’t want to do it and if they don’t want to be there they will not want to participate. You will also know where they are at an English specking level. 

[Brian]

Yep, see if you can arrange for interviews during a free period or over a couple lunches.  These can double as a speaking test so you can get the levels you want, and can also allow you to see who would actually be interested in doing it. 

My coteachers always based the rosters off grammar and written tests and picked 20 to 30 students that way, but of course none of them really wanted to do it so only three to five ever showed up. 

[jrwhite82]

I am doing an after school class with 3rd-6th graders.  I was wondering if anyone knew of any resources I could use to place them in levels.  I'd rather group them by ability than age when we do some activities. 

Basically, I'd like to rank them by conversation ability and grammar and vocab knowledge. 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Orange_Thief]

There is no simple solution to your question. If it was a group of 4 students you could probably determine their level fairly quickly just by having a conversation with each one or observing them doing some task. The whole "what level is the student" is not a perfect science, although you could certainly find a list a linguist made that details what language skills the student should possess to be at a certain level and categorize them accordingly. I don't know many teachers that do this, usually there are simple cut offs like, is the student conversational, can they perform basic tasks and understand directions in the target language, etc. If we are talking about a classroom of 20-35+ students (the norm in Korean public schools) then there is just too much disparity in the students ability and you will have to get to know your students over-time and eventually you will be able to decide what they can handle and what they can't handle. I think the best thing to strive for is making groups that are of mixed ability and letting the high level students assist the low level students, but not do the work for them.   

[jrwhite82]

Thanks for the reply. 

I know whereabouts they should fall in terms of levels from talking to them...I was just hoping to do it scientifically.  I thought someone might have created or come across a reliable test, because often, the students can be a bit shy and don't let on that they know as much as they do.