Differentiating for multilingual students’ needs in a psychology class- room with English as a medium instruction

Differentiation is a well-known concept that aims at responding to the learning needs of all students in the classroom. However, its realisation can be challenging, especially in highly heterogeneous classes, where students’ needs are diverse. Consequently, examples of the practical application of the concept are still scarce in the literature. This case study, therefore, presents how differentiated instruction can be employed in a classroom of students with various linguistic backgrounds and a multi-level proficiency of the language of instruction. Four multilingual students of one British curriculum-based school in Warsaw, Poland, for whom English was not the first language, participated in the study. The students took a psychology course in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme where English was a medium instruction. The study aimed at investigating the effect of differentiated instruction in summary writing. The findings drawn from quantitative and qualitative data, which included the participants’ written expressions and interviews, indicated a benefi- cial effect of the instruction. However, the effect varied due to specific individual characteristics of the par- ticipants. Pedagogical implications are discussed.