Students come into our classrooms with varied levels of knowledge, experience, and motivation. With differentiated instruction, the teacher plans and carries out varied levels of instruction in response to this variety of needs.
Much of the research and information about differentiated instruction centers around K-12 education. However, many of the recommendations are applicable to the adult ESL classroom.
In summary, there are two key points about differentiated instruction:
Teacher uses a variety of instructional methods and activities to meet the needs of all of the students.
Teacher uses a variety of assessments to evaluate knowledge, instruction, and learning.
Here are some links that include academic research, classroom strategies, and approaches, specific to ESL.
This link has specific recommendations for differentiated instruction in the classroom. Although it is geared toward K-12 education, the activities and ideas are applicable to the adult classroom.
This article obviously is targeted towards the secondary level teacher, but there are many strategies included here that apply to adult learners. It includes specific examples of differentiated activities.
Differentiating Reading and Writing Strategies for the Classroom
shorten a lengthy text
Provide visuals along with the text
Simplify text
Write words instead of complete sentences
Write a fewer number of sentences
Create an illustration to demonstrate comprehension
Use a word bank for cloze activities
For a dictation activity, (lower level), have students write the beginning letter of the word, while the higher level students write the complete word
Differentiated Learning Stations
Open ended activity. Example: Students draw a picture to illustrate a story. Beginners can write key words, other students can write sentences. The video demonstrates using thought bubbles for this activity.
From simple to complex. For example, in the Memory Game, the higher students use vocabulary words, while the beginner students use pictures and letters.
