Reflection+on+Differentiation+in+Language+Teaching

= **DIFFERENTIATION IN LANGUAGE TEACHING ** =  I attended a conference called “Differentiate” held by Yüce College. That conference was just perfect as a whole and included very beneficial and practical information for us as prospective teachers.

 The first session I attended was presented by Dr. Anna Maria Pinter. She is Associate Professor of ELT/ Applied Linguistics at the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK. She is a programmer leader for the MA in Teaching English to Young Learners. The topic was “Differentiation in Language Teaching” for that session.

The topic called my attention as I have not heard such a concept before. She presented us differentiation concept which is a new approach in an informative way. According to her, differentiated learning or instruction involves providing students with different opportunities to acquire the lesson content and to make sense of what is happening in the class so that every student in the class can learn efficiently regardless of student differences in ability. She suggests that students may do their choices of 2 or at most 3 activities. A teacher must have good classroom management, clear expectations and rubrics. The activities can have more depth (complexity) for some, while they are not for others. Thus, differentiated teaching provides students to do activities according to themselves.

Differentiation supports multiple intelligences theory, actually. Differentiated learning emphasizes that children may have different intelligence, therefore teachers provide different opportunities for children to enable and encourage each student to realize their abilities and full potential in these abilities. Since each student has different intelligence type, you cannot an activity to all students or you cannot expect from all students to do it perfectly. That is, you need to differentiate the lesson according to students. A differentiated classroom is student-centered as it supplies students’ needs. And the teacher is just the guide on the side.

A teacher can differentiate one part of a lesson or a unit as it is not possible to apply it to all sessions. With the right strategies, ever student can learn anything easily. She defines differentiation in 3 steps: Content-Process-Product.

Dr. Anna Maria Pinter mentioned about another topic called autonomy in that session.. According to her, autonomy means understanding what learning, understanding about self, resources and evaluating outcomes; therefore, it is very important. The most important reason is that autonomous learners are very motivated learners as well. These children begin to enjoy what they are doing in the class and they begin to have a lot of fun. In this way, teaching and learning happen more easily in terms of both teacher and students. Another reason why autonomy is very important is that autonomous learners begin to take responsibilities, take charge and be aware about learning and learning processes. These make learning and teaching easier, as well.
 * Differentiate by content: weather maps, ads/magazines/photos, web searches, menus.
 * Differentiate by process: using learning centers, by compacting
 * Differentiate by product: assessment (tic-tac-toe or grids)

To sum up, it was very informative session for me and I learned a lot of things from the speaker Anna Maria Pinter. And the other sessions were also informative and enjoyable, too. The other ones were like workshops. I agree with that topic and I will try to apply it as much as possible in future.

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= = =**Comment by Gulnara Pirliyeva** =

To begin with, I liked the concept differentiation within educational view. Being supportive to multiple intelligences theory makes it more reliable to be implemented in the lessons. In addition, I totally agree with the idea that a teacher must have good classroom management skills, clear expectations and rubrics. It is essential in order to carry effective and useful course. Lastly, I liked a differentiated classroom being student-centered as it supplies students with their needs. I believe I would implement this type of teaching in my future teaching career.