High School Students’ Perceptions Towards EFL Teachers’ Differentiated Instructional Practices at Higher 23 Secondary School, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Teachers do have a common responsibility and/or goal of meeting the diverse learning needs of all students with different readiness levels (current knowledge, skills, or performance) that likely affects their learning. This can be achieved through a differentiated instructional approach due to its potential benefits in promoting learning for all. However, the students' perceptions towards their teachers' efforts in differentiated instructional practices remained unknown in Ethiopia, especially at high school levels as the very few local studies focused on the teachers' perspective, missing students' voices that may likely affect learning. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to assess and describe students' perceptions towards the EFL teachers' efforts in facilitating learning for all making use of differentiated instructions. The study adopted a descriptive research design. To achieve this purpose, 120 grade 12 students were randomly selected to fill a five-point liker scale questionnaire designed to elicit data about their EFL teachers' instructional practices in maximizing learning for all through DI. 114 of them with 95% response rate fully completed and returned the questionnaires. The data was then entered into the SPSS software version 24 and analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics (mean values emphasized). The study found that the great majority of the students reported their EFL teachers are predominantly following the one-size-fits-all mode of teaching that no longer sufficiently meet the diverse needs of students in the contemporary classrooms' situations. Thus, it was concluded that, overall, the high school students had unfavorable perceptions towards the EFL teachers efforts in differentiate instructions in promoting learning for all students. Accordingly, it was suggested that EFL teachers should get awareness training to integrate differentiated instructions into the regular EFL classes so that they will be able to promote learning for all using differentiated instructional strategies.