TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES TO NON-PHILOLOGICAL STUDENTS: A MIXED-METHODS APPROACH TO DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION
Keywords:
differentiated instruction, foreign language teaching, non-philological education, mixed-methods research, communicative competenceAbstract
Students in non-philological degree programmes are often expected to reach a workable level of foreign language competence in far less classroom time than philology students receive, and with far more varied starting points. Some arrive with strong reading skills but little speaking practice; others struggle with grammar but pick up technical vocabulary quickly because it overlaps with their major. This article describes the methodology behind a study that looks at how differentiated instruction can be designed for this specific group. We combined a controlled classroom experiment, involving 171 students split into experimental and control groups, with interviews, lesson observations, and document review. The aim was not just to measure whether differentiation works, but to understand why it works differently depending on a student’s field of study, motivation, and prior exposure to the language. We outline the reasoning behind this combined design, how key terms were defined for the purposes of the study, and the steps taken to keep the data trustworthy
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