It’s Different

(journal entry dtd 24/4/2010)

Providing for differentiationin the classroom is what we learnt today. I can think of two instances where differentiation worked.

One was with my tuition group (grade 8, third language French students). There was this one boy who just couldn’t remember the gender of nouns, so finally I found a pac-man kind of car-chase game online where the concept was re-enforced in a visual, kinaesthetic manner and hallelujah he finally learnt! The other students meanwhile continued with their work (though I’m sure they were secretly wishing they hadn’t got the concept, since this boy was apparently having so much funJ)

The other example of how differentiation worked was in the Advanced level spoken English class (18-25yr olds) where learners’ put their linguistic and musical ability to use by creating a commercial for a given product. All learners had to participate in groups of five each. Each group had to take part but had the choice of any one or all of the criteria listed had to be employed:

a) A tag-line

b) A jingle set to music

c) A role-play

Two groups actually tried out all the options and one group was so good, I think they’re re-thinking becoming cabin-crewJ