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Learner Differences

• Learners differ in various features, including:
  • age
  • socio-cultural background
  • economic capital
  • gender and sexual orientation
  • language repertoire
  • strategic repertoire
  • experiences
  • aptitude
  • affective stage (emotions in the course of acquiring a foreign language)
  • attitudes towards foreign languages
  • beliefs about language acquisition and favorable conditions of the language classroom
  • motivation
  • cognitive style
  • special needs
• These features are complex, not fixed, and can be influenced by teaching.
• Considering these features helps in managing specific classrooms and drawing practical conclusions.
• These features affect school achievements, leading to hierarchies and unequal chances.

Implications for Teachers

• Pygmalion effect (self-fulfilling prophecy) should be avoided.
• Teachers should be aware of different backgrounds.
• Diversity should be seen as a challenge and a resource, not a problem.

Dealing with Diversity in Class

• Create a safe space (build trust).
• Give positive and appreciative feedback.
• Use cooperative learning (group work) or buddy system (pair work).
• Incorporate creative activities (topics students can relate to).
• Use project work (intercultural, multilingual, mediation tasks).
• Make diversity a topic (include different perspectives and sources).
• Use experience-oriented learning.
• Foster learner autonomy with respect to its functional and critical aspects.

Education in the 21st Century: Paradigm Shift

• Shift from teacher-centered to learner-centered approach.
• Focus changed from product-oriented to process-oriented.
• Emphasis shifted from knowledge and comprehension to analysis and synthesis.
• From textbook-driven to project-driven.
• From receptive and isolated to productive and collaborative.
• From fragmented curriculum to interdisciplinary curriculum.
• From teacher assessment to self- and peer-assessment.
• From homogenizing to diversifying.
• From fragmented literacies to multiliteracies.

Teaching and Learning Approaches and Methods

• Learner Orientation:
  • Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
  • Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL)
  • Collaboratives and Participatory Methods
• Other approaches:
  • Grammar-Translation Method
  • Direct Method
  • Audiolingual/Audiovisual Method

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

• Rooted in the 1970s and 1980s.
• Paradigm shift in foreign language learning: learning a language by using it actively.
• Highlights real-life interaction as the goal of language learning.
• Input hypothesis: authentic, meaningful, and age-appropriate.
• Output hypothesis: learners' output and interaction matter.
• Basic principles of CLT:
  • Teaching should be oriented around authentic situations of language in use and functional contexts.
  • Creating opportunities for learners to interact with others, to focus on meaning, and to negotiate meaning.

Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL)

• Rooted since the 1980s.
• Action-oriented.
• Focus on language as a means of communication to solve a problem or work on a product.
• Involvement (relevant content).
• Interaction (cooperative learning).
• Holistic tasks with a focus on meaning.
• Process- and product-oriented performances.
• Form/structure is integrated through clarifying feedback or certain activities.
• Scaffolding to help learners work on the task.

Differentiation and Individualisation

• Definition: pedagogic-didactic response to the heterogeneity of learners in classrooms.
• Differentiation refers to the adaptation of teaching objectives, contents, support, social forms, and methods to individual learner needs.

Types of Differentiation

• External differentiation:
  • Differentiation in school types.
  • Differentiation into courses.
  • Differentiation by school profile.
• Internal differentiation:
  • Located on the level of didactic decisions made for the classroom.
  • Teaching the same content/competences while taking individual factors into account.
  • Offers but also requires a high degree of flexibility and openness (autonomy).

Elements of Teaching That Can Be Differentiated and Individualised

• Quantitative differentiation:
  • Reduction of activities and material.
  • Expansion of activities and material.
• Qualitative differentiation:
  • Making the same task more accessible for weaker students.
  • Examples: less complex sentences, smaller range of vocabulary, more task and language support.
• Other examples:
  • Themes and content.
  • Tasks.
  • Social arrangements.
  • Teaching methods.
  • Material.
  • Media.
  • Procedures.
  • Learning objectives.
  • Product types (as the outcome of a task).
  • Time given.
  • Scaffolding resources.
  • Level of guidance.
  • Assessment.
  • Learning strategies.
  • Setting and space.

Scaffolding

• Planned and intentional provision of linguistic resources.
• Scaffolding to structure learning opportunities.
• Scaffolding based on text types/genre.
• Mainly a qualitative differentiation measure.