Differentiated Instruction and Pupil Motivation in Language Teaching

A key feature of effective teaching is the ability of teachers to create a positive learning environment for the active participation of pupils. Teachers who support and seek to cultivate pupils' autonomy, tend to motivate the effective engagement of their pupils in and with the learning process and help strengthen their psychosocial adaptation in school. More specifically, curriculum design that help pupils express their valuesand interests is considered a basic prerequisite for creating internal motivations. At the same time, the cultivation of learning motivations, the encouragement of substantial commitment to learning process, the promotion of autonomous action and the encouragement of interaction between pupils, all are characteristics of differentiated teaching. Differentiation of teaching is considered a basic dimension of effective teaching and is an effective teaching model that responds to learners’ needs through the design of multiple and qualitatively different teaching approaches. Effectiveness of teaching is often improved through differentiated teaching techniques. The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss differentiated teaching techniques such as: jigsaw, cubing, learning stations, think-tac-toe, raft, think-pair-share and KWL and highlight how they can be effectively applied to the teaching of language in ways that motivate pupils to take an active participation in teaching and learning. The application of above-mentioned techniques to the teaching of language is illustrated with specific example from secondary education.