The Effect of Differentiated Instruction on EFL Learners: Teachers’ Perspective

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of differentiated instruction implementation on students’ learning and the challenges that face its implementation. The sample consisted of 60 grade 6 respondents randomly distributed into two groups. The experimental group N =(30) was taught English following differentiated instruction strategies of flexible grouping, tiered assignment and tiered instruction in the areas of content, process and product. However, the control group N=(30) was taught English traditionally following the one-size-fits-all method. Moreover, 42 English teachers who were teaching elementary grades from grades 1-9 in one of Irbid districts which is called, Taibeh, distributed in 14 schools, formed the population of the study. Fourteen teachers were interviewed to answer the two questions of the study. The researchers followed a mixed-method design in which both a quantitative method which was a pretest/ posttest and a qualitative method which was a semi-structured open- ended interview with teachers were used to answer the questions of the study. T-test results revealed that there was a statistical significant difference between the two groups favoring the experimental group. Planning for differentiated activities, the lack of resources and the lack of administration’s support were the most common challenges of differentiated instruction’s implementation. Keywords: