Differentiated Instruction: Adapting Teacher Practices and Materials for Individual Groups of Students

Sammanfattning: There is a requirement for English teachers in Sweden to adapt their teaching to align with the policy documents advocating to foster the students' continuous and lifelong learning. This study aims to address in what way the participating teachers work to create engaging learning environments and lessons that promote communication and cooperation. Furthermore, the study explores which methods the participating teachers use to differentiate instructions and make adaptations to teacher practices and materials to successfully reach each individual student. The data was gathered by conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews with four 7-9 English teachers. The interviews were focused on four main themes: (1) Adaptations for differentiated learning through multi-modality, (2) Adaptations for differentiated learning through the bi-lingual approach, (3) Adaptations for differentiated learning through cooperative learning and (4) Adaptations for differentiated learning through other practices. Based on the guidelines provided by The Swedish National Agency for Education, findings from previous research, and the data collected in this study, it becomes evident that teachers must adopt their teaching in various ways. The adaptation of teaching strategies and practices include ways to effectively engage all of their individual groups of students, as well as the utilization of visual aids, bi-lingual instructional practices, comprehensible input and output, and cooperative learning methods. The results show that these are important ways to differentiate instruction and enhance learning to support the students’ academic and cognitive growth. The presented teacher practices can aid teachers to use differentiated instruction in accordance with the needs of their individual groups of students, both in terms of classes and the individual students within those classes.