TIERED INSTRUCTIONS AS A STRATEGY OF DIFFERENTIATED APPROACH IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Abstract

 The article focuses on issue of differentiation in the classroom. Differentiation is a powerful education tool for teachers who understand diverse student academic needs, interests, readiness level and respond them positively. The implementation of differentiation strategy is aimed at maintenance of students’ potentials and educational achievements.  The present paper outlines the benefits of differentiation in the classroom, methods for differentiating instructions and assessment. One of the differentiating strategies is tiered assignments. It is based on main stages: pre-assessment, flexible grouping formation, tired instructions and final assessment. Each tier carries the same workload and learning objective but the nature of the task varies. Tiered instructions are tasks at varied levels of complexity and with various degrees of scaffolding. Six ways to tier a lesson are described in the article: by challenge level, by complexity, by resources, by outcome, by process, by product. This strategy helps teachers to achieve learning objectives and encourage studying for all students without exception. The tiered strategy proves that students are more successful when they are taught based on their own readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles.