Differentiated Learning in the Foreign Language Classes

Abstract

One of the tendencies manifested in the modernization of education is related to the flexibility of instruction aiming to ensure the development of the capacities and aptitudes of each student in accordance with his/her own possibilities and interests. The means of acquiring knowledge and of constantly and creatively applying it into practice should be made available to the students through the teaching-learning-evaluating process. Differentiated instruction can be identified neither with the strategies used, nor with a certain pattern of teaching. It goes beyond that, being a view of teaching and learning that starts from taking into consideration the students’ interests, needs and styles of learning. Teachers have to adapt the whole educational process to the diversity of individuals, avoiding social marginalization or exclusion. The pedagogy and psychology of education is confronted with the complex issue of differentiating and individualizing instruction, which is the indispensable assumption in ensuring each student’s success in achieving the highest possible intellectual performance. The teacher’s important role is that of designing tasks that correspond to the level of proficiency of the group of students he/she is working with.