The effects of differentiated English language instruction on 7th grade students' academic achievement, higher-order thinking and problem solving skills

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of differentiated instruction in English language lesson on academic achievement, higher-order thinking and problem solving skills. In order to analyze, sixth unit (Celebrations) of seventh grade English language lesson was differentiated in accordance with the attainment targets. Also, the structured problems related to the unit were used for students' higher-order thinking and problem solving skills. In this study, pre-test and post-test experimental design was used. Before the differentiation, learning profiles of all students were analyzed. During the experimental procedure, content, process and product were differentiated for the differentiated group and the other group was taught according to English language curriculum. The differentiated group consists of 27 seventh grade students in Bakımlı Secondary School that is located in Pütürge, Malatya, Turkey, whereas the other group consists of 27 seventh grade students in a secondary school similar to Bakımlı Secondary School in Pütürge. The achievement test and higher-order thinking and problem solving skills control list were applied for both groups as pre-test and post-test. At the end of the study, it was concluded that both differentiated English language instruction and English language curriculum made a significant difference on students' academic achievement, higher-order thinking and problem solving skills in favor of the post-test. However, the differentiated method is more effective than the methods of English language curriculum. In the light of these results, it is suggested that the differentiated method can be used for academic achievement, higher-order thinking and problem solving skills instead of the methods of English language curriculum. Keywords: 7th Grade, Secondary School, English Language Teaching, Differentiated Instruction, Academic Achievement, Higher-Order Thinking Skills, Problem Solving Skills.