Stages of implementing differentiated instruction in the English language classroom

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Stages of implementing differentiated instruction in the English language classroom

Zulpukarova A.

Abstract

Educators understand that every student has unique gifts and challenges, interests, talents and learning styles. Differentiation and individualization of learning have repeatedly become the subject of research in pedagogy. Differentiated instruction is a practice that helps teachers understand how each child learns best. The article is devoted to the problem of gradual use of differentiated approach in teaching a foreign language. The authors describe the main stages of implementation of differentiated approach. The article also describes the history of this approach. Advantages and disadvantages of using this approach were also presented.

Keywords: differentiated instruction, implementation, lessons, teaching approach, learning abilities, learning styles.

Этапы внедрения дифференцированного обучения в классе английского языка

Зулпукарова А.К.

Аннотация

Педагоги понимают, что каждый ученик обладает уникальными способностями и проблемами, интересами, талантами и стилями обучения. Дифференциация и индивидуализация обучения неоднократно становились предметом исследований в педагогике. Дифференцированное обучение -- это практика, которая помогает учителям понять, как каждый ребенок учится лучше всего. Статья посвящена проблеме поэтапного использования дифференцированного подхода в обучении иностранному языку. Авторы описывают основные этапы внедрения дифференцированного подхода. Также в статье описывается история возникновения данного подхода. Также представлены преимущества и недостатки использования данного подхода.

Ключевые слова: дифференцированное обучение, внедрение, уроки, подход к обучению, учебные способности, стили обучения.

The creation of policies, curricula and methodologies that promote the differentiation and individualization of students' education in the 21st century education in our country will ensure the efficiency and sustainability of the educational transformation process. The means of solving the problem of educational input would be the strength of such an action. Therefore, in accordance with the new educational theories of intelligence, the restoration of humanism in didactic practice could be the shifting of the focus to the influence exerted on the living person, rooted in a specific cultural and axiological background.

It is necessary that each young student is able to choose the way of individual growth that leads to development of individual psychological potential of each student in conformity with the information obtained from educational activities in school, real life and so on, and to find individual solutions to succeed. This is possible only if all the components that influence their development - teachers, students, parents, community, educational practice - promote the use of a wide range of didactic activities that correspond to different levels of knowledge and skills, needs, interests and motivations of students.

Just like every person has a unique fingerprint, every student has an individual learning style. Chances are, not all of your students are going to understand or be able to perform at the same level. All students come to class with different strengths and different areas that need to be improved. Students might have similar grade levels, but they might not have similar levels of reading, mathematics, and writing. Differentiation allows educators to reach students at different levels when teaching the same skill or concept. Differentiation, or differentiated instruction, refers to the teacher's scaffolding and extension of the instructional skill being taught in order to meet each student at his or her own level.

Every person has varying cognitive and emotional capacities to relate to and access varied, complex and innovative information in order to solve the problems that confront them in their everyday lives. All educational institutions should promote that teaching-learning-evaluating process which provides students with the necessary means to acquire the knowledge and skills specified in the syllabus, and which enables them to apply the theoretical knowledge they acquire creatively and continuously to everyday practice. The important role of the teacher in the foreign language class is to design different teaching activities and different teaching and learning resources adapted to the level of the language.

While the term was coined in the late 20th century by renowned education expert Carol Tomlinson, the concept was in practice long before. Most children were educated at home or in one- room schoolhouses before the current structure of schools by grade. In this environment, the teacher had to do planning and teaching for children of a wide range of ages and ability levels. This is essentially what the theory of differentiated instruction is about, the idea of tailoring instruction to the individual needs of students. Other theories have also contributed to what is now thought of as differentiation, such as Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences and Robert Glaser's process of individually prescribed instruction [3].

Differentiated instruction has its roots in one-room schools, where a single teacher had students of different ages in a single room. It was assumed that children of the same age learned similarly as the educational system moved to grade schools. In 1912, however, achievement tests were introduced. The results revealed the differences in students' abilities within grade levels.

In 1975, to ensure that children with disabilities had equal access to public education, Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Many educators used differentiated instruction strategies to reach this student population. In 2000, No Child Left Behind was passed, adding even more emphasis on differentiated and competency-based education. Research by educator Leslie Owen Wilson supports the use of differentiated instruction in the classroom, finding that lecture is the least effective instructional strategy, with only a 5 to 10 percent retention rate after 24 hours. Much more effective ways to ensure retention are discussion, practice after exposure, and teaching others [4].

Carol Ann Tomlinson, a professor of educational leadership, foundations, and policy at the University of Virginia, is a leader in the field of differentiated learning. Tomlinson describes differentiated instruction as: "Taking into account students' individual learning styles and readiness levels before designing a lesson plan. Research on the effectiveness of differentiation indicates that it is beneficial for students ranging from struggling learners to students identified as gifted [3].

Differentiated instruction can involve teaching the same material to all students in different ways, or can require the teacher to vary the difficulty depending on the students' abilities.

Teachers who practice differentiation in the classroom are able to do the following: Design lessons on the basis of students' learning styles; Group students together for assignments based on common interests, topics, or abilities; Evaluate student learning through formative assessment; Lead classrooms to create a safe and supportive environment; Continuously evaluate and adjust instruction to meet student needs.

All components of the curriculum, including the interactions between them, must be brought together to manage differentiation and individualization. A new paradigm is emerging that responds to students' interests and pace of learning: "Teachers can differentiate content, process, and product through a variety of management and pedagogical strategies.

Differentiation refers to the teaching-learning process in which instructional strategies are adapted to each learner's abilities, comprehension, and task completion [5]. Designing tasks that correspond to the level of the group of students with whom the teacher is working is an important role of the teacher. Individualization and use of different didactic activities is the only way to take into account students' needs and interests, to motivate and stimulate them to reach the full potential of their abilities and skills.

Since the foreign language classroom is typically a diverse mix of learners with varying levels of language ability, the instructor must provide a variety of teaching and learning tools to meet the needs of the learners. The less able students should be involved in the activities of the class by being paired with the more able students or by being assigned roles that they can take on. If assignments are too difficult, there is a loss of face and frustration, and if assignments are too easy, there is a loss of satisfaction and persistence.

Teachers should create a positive atmosphere in which learning encounters take place in a constructive way and in which students are constantly encouraged to engage in the tasks at hand. Teachers can only get students to relate to each other and to cooperate in carrying out the didactic activities they have designed through differentiated learning activities that take into account the particularities of the students as well as their needs and interests.

In the foreign language classes of the Military Academy, the individualization of the students' learning activities is not only a necessity, but a basic strategy used to adapt the teaching tasks to the different learning abilities of the students, to the specific abilities of understanding reality, to the individual learning rhythm of each student.

Our goal is to develop each student into someone who is able to create material and intellectual assets, understand today's complexities, and find his or her own path to military success. The student is the starting point for designing and planning lessons. The student is where he or she is at a given moment in development.

There are some specific aspects that characterize differentiated instruction: planning and organizing activities according to students' developmental needs, focusing on students' individual characteristics, creating learning opportunities for students that are adapted to their needs and interests; using pair and group work teaching methods; teachers taking on new roles; a wide range of didactic materials and flexibility in their use.

Differentiated instruction can be implemented in four ways: 1) content, 2) process, 3) product, and 4) learning environment.

As you know, basic instructional content should meet the learning standards established by the school district or state educational standards. However, some students in your class will have no knowledge of the concepts in a unit, some will have partial knowledge, and some will have knowledge before the unit starts.

One way to do this is to differentiate the content by designing activities for groups of students that cover different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, a classification of intellectual functioning from lower-order to higher-order thinking skills. The six levels are: recall, comprehension, application, analysis, evaluation, and creation. Students who are unfamiliar with a lesson could be asked to complete tasks at the lower levels of remembering and comprehending. Students who are at some level of mastery could be asked to do application and analysis tasks, and students at a high level of mastery could be asked to do evaluation and creation tasks. Here are examples of differentiating activities:

- Matching vocabulary words with their definitions.

- Read a passage. Answer questions about the passage.

- Think of a situation that happened to a character and imagine how different this turned out.

- Distinguish between fact and opinion in the story.

- Identify an author's point of view and cite evidence in support of that point of view.

- Summarize the lesson in a PowerPoint presentation.

Every student has a preferred learning style, and successful differentiation involves delivering the material in a way that addresses each style: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, as well as through words. This process-based method also takes into account the fact that not all students will need the same amount of support from the teacher, and students can choose to work in pairs, in small groups, or on their own. And while some students may benefit from individual interaction with you or the teacher, others can move forward on their own. By providing support based on individual needs, teachers can enhance student learning. Differentiation process examples:

- Make textbooks available to visual and word learners.

- Give auditory learners the opportunity to listen to audio books.

- Allow kinaesthetic learners to complete an interactive assignment online.

Product. This will be a final piece of work to demonstrate that you have mastered what you have learnt. This could be in the form of a test, a project, a report, or some other activity. Based on a student's learning style, you can assign students to complete activities that demonstrate mastery of an instructional concept in a way that the student prefers. Examples of how to differentiate the final product:

- Reading and writing learners write a report about a book.

- A graphic organizer of the story is created by visual learners.

- Oral report by auditory learners.

- Kinaesthetic students build a diorama to illustrate the story.

Learning environment. Both physical and psychological elements contribute to optimal learning conditions. A flexible classroom layout is key. This should include different types of furniture and arrangements to support both individual and group work. From a psychological point of view, teachers should use classroom management techniques that support a safe and supportive learning environment. Examples of how to differentiate the environment:

- To discuss the assignment, divide some students into reading groups.

- If students prefer, allow them to read individually.

- Provide a quiet place where they are not distracted [1].

Differentiation of teaching is diversifying the organization of the educational process according to the age and individual characteristics of students, as well as according to the peculiarities of sociocultural conditions. Several basic rights and principles underlie the theory of differentiated teaching:

- To be different is a fundamental right;

- There are significant differences between students in terms of pace of learning, breadth and depth of knowledge/information, learning style;

- Recognizing and respecting the differences between students' innate and acquired abilities provides equal opportunities in education;

- Equal access to education does not mean "school for all", but school adapted to the aptitudes and needs of each student.

More than ever, the teacher is faced with the decision to differentiate and personalize his formative intervention. This requires him to develop the cognitive and evaluative competencies of the students that lead to their social success. "The permanent challenge of the classroom is nothing other than an opportunity for the expression of his or her didactic craftsmanship.

Since the emphasis is on fluency rather than accuracy in the development of speaking skills in the heterogeneous groups with which the foreign language teacher works, the teacher should give the learners more freedom to communicate. In order to gain confidence in using the language independently, the less proficient students are allowed to make some mistakes. Pair and group work activities, with the teacher playing the role of facilitator, are often used to develop speaking skills. The needs and interests of the students must be taken into account when designing communication activities (problem solving, mini-speeches, transferring information to tables and diagrams, playing different roles, controlled conversation). Students should be encouraged to talk about themselves and share their own life experiences with their partners. It is not so easy for the teacher, who has to "supervise the different steps of the project work, set guidelines, help students to make decisions and provide language instruction", to integrate mini-speeches in a foreign language classroom.

Teachers should create opportunities for students to express what they want to say, in addition to communication activities. All attempts, even if not completely accurate, to use natural language should be encouraged. In other words, language teaching should be personalized and students should be motivated to express their thoughts and opinions about the things that interest them. These opportunities demonstrate to them that 'the language they are learning is a way of talking about something personal'. In the development of writing skills, there are some requirements that should be met by teachers in order to achieve the goals of the learners:

- Writing exercises should be appropriate to the students' level, both in terms of lexis and grammatical patterns; in fact, they should reinforce the vocabulary and grammatical patterns that the students have recently learned;

- Writing assignments should be short and as frequent as possible. Many fruitful exercises are very short assignments that teachers devise to give students a chance to reinforce their vocabulary and grammar acquisition;

- Writing tasks should be relevant to students and most often emerge naturally from other classroom activities. In order to consolidate the other objectives of the curriculum, teachers should integrate writing exercises with didactic activities for the development of other language skills.

In the foreign language classroom, a situation is created and an activity is set in motion. However, it is the students themselves who get involved and actively participate in the interactions and learning encounters designed by the teacher. Often there are several groups or pairs working at the same time, without the constant supervision of the teacher. Many students may initially find the transition to undirected activity challenging and tense as they become accustomed to this responsibility. Teachers should not ignore this and be prepared to gradually wean students away from relying on their own control.

Often the downside of differentiation is increased workload in the classroom. Here are some factors to consider. Advantages: research shows that both high-ability students and students with mild to severe disabilities benefit from differentiated instruction; -students take more responsibility for their own learning when given more choices about how to learn material; -students seem to be more engaged in learning, and there have been reports of fewer discipline problems in classrooms where teachers use differentiated instruction.

Disadvantages: differentiating instruction requires more effort when scheduling, and many teachers have difficulty finding the extra time; teachers may face steep learning curves, and some schools lack professional development resources; critics argue that there isn't enough research to show that the benefits of differentiated instruction outweigh the extra time it takes to prepare [5].

Conclusion

Traditional education, based on the transmission of knowledge alone, is no longer sufficient because today's society requires students to be able to deal with a wide range of complex situations.

The contemporary education system is characterised by the fact that students are able to take responsibility for the acquisition of competences. Teachers are organisers of learning experiences for each individual student, fighting against the uniformity of learning conditions.

Review: Differentiated instruction, or differentiation, allows for providing instruction and learning opportunities for students of different abilities throughout the classroom. To create a differentiated classroom, there are a variety of strategies and methods. The content, process, product and/or learning environment can be differentiated by the teacher. Different strategies will be most effective depending on how the students need and want to learn. As differentiation can be difficult for the teacher, it is important not to try to implement all strategies at once.

Among the many advantages of personalized teaching, we can mention the following: all students participate in the activities that take place in class and are committed to carrying out all the tasks assigned by the teacher; every student is involved in an activity; the teacher knows when and how to support the students who need help so that every student manages to complete the didactic activity; the curricular objectives are correlated with the students' needs and interests; the teaching strategies are adapted to the different learning styles.

References

differentiated approach english

1. Duvanaeva, K. T. (2019). Differentiated approach to the organization of independent work of students in teaching of practical english course. Vestnik Oshskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, (2), 88-93. (in Russian).

2. Minner, S. (1990). Teacher evaluations of case descriptions of LD gifted children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 34(1), 37-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/001698629003400108

3. Tomlinson, C. A. (2014). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Ascd.

4. Tomlinson, C. A. (2003). Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom: Strategies and tools for responsive teaching. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

5. Tomlinson, C. A., Callahan, C. M., Tomchin, E. M., Eiss, N., Imbeau, M., & Landrum, M. (1997). Becoming architects of communities of learning: Addressing academic diversity in contemporary classrooms. Exceptional children, 63(2), 269-282. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440299706300210

Список литературы

1. Дуванаева К. Т. Differentiated approach to the organization of independent work of students in teaching of practical english course // Вестник Ошского государственного университета. 2019. №2. С. 88-93.

2. Minner S. Teacher evaluations of case descriptions of LD gifted children // Gifted Child Quarterly. 1990. V. 34. №1. P. 37-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/001698629003400108

3. Tomlinson C. A. The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Ascd, 2014.

4. Tomlinson C. A. Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom: Strategies and tools for responsive teaching. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003.

5. Tomlinson C. A., Callahan C. M., Tomchin E. M., Eiss N., Imbeau M., Landrum M. Becoming architects of communities of learning: Addressing academic diversity in contemporary classrooms // Exceptional children. 1997. V. 63. №2. P. 269-282.

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