Innovation in Language Learning

It is a utopian view to think that our classes are homogeneous in terms of gender, motivation, aptitude, learning strategies, learning styles, language background or level, culture and personality. Extensive research also supports the belief that every student has a different way of learning and progresses at different speeds. Considering the increased learner variance and the failure of the ‘one-size-fits-all’ delivery system, technology differentiated instruction seems to be an ideal solution. The teaching philosophy of differentiated instruction enables educators to modify curricula, resources, learning tasks and products so as to meet students’ needs and abilities. Adding to that, integrating technology in the foreign language classroom is considered beneficial for the development of students’ receptive skills; listening and reading comprehension. This study aims at presenting a systematic research conducted in a foreign language school in northern Greece. 100 students, aged 9-11, participated in the research, half of whom received differentiated instruction assisted with technology and constituted the experimental group and the other half, called control group, received traditional, non–differentiated instruction without integrating technology. The level of the students was A1-A2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Data were collected through a needs analysis questionnaire, an interest inventory, a learning style inventory, a pre-, while-, and post- test. Test results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of their reading and listening scores.

Keywords: Differentiated instruction, technology, EFL classroom, Reading comprehension, Listening comprehension;