Promoting EFL Students’ Agency for Learning (AfL) Through Differentiated Instruction: Experiences, Challenges, and Strategies

Abstract

English Language Teaching (ELT) boosts students in developing 21st century skills to ensure they are qualified for the future and global competition (Anggraeny & Kongput, 2022; Ç inar, 2021; Halverson, 2018; Idrees, 2023; Plucker et al., 2016). The students’ agency for learning (AfL) equips and shapes them with these crucial competences during the language learning process (Harris et al., 2018; Little & Erickson, 2015; Xiao, 2014; Xu & Kim, 2022). Code (2020) mentions that the four aspects of AfL namely intention, self- efficacy, self-regulated learning, and forethought are directly linked to the student's performance. Thus, agency, a theoretical construct in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) that emphasizes learners’ ability to Differentiated instruction (DI) is reportedly one of the classroom efforts to achieve an agentic situation in the teaching and learning processes due to its adaptability (Tomlinson, 2005). By facilitating students' diversity and puts their needs, characteristics, and interests as the main orientation of the learning process (Ortega et al., 2018; Stanford & Reeves, 2009; Tomlinson, 2014), DI adjusts the content, process, and product to maximize all students’ abilities and potentials (Tomlinson, 2000; Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010). The benefit of interplaying DI and students’ individual uniqueness at some points showed it correlates with the shaping of students’ agency in classroom settings that can be captured comprehensively through classroom curriculum, groupings, interactions, and assessment (Coubergs et al., 2017). Classroom curriculum in DI promotes student agency as it involves learners’ voice in a collaborative curriculum design, in which diverse students' perspectives are inclusively enhanced (Andrzejewski et al., 2019; Mbati, 2021). DI’s flexible groupings that celebrate diversity can enhance students' agency in the sense of ownership and responsibility while promoting social values, unity, and cooperation (Balungaya, 2018; Brulles & Brown, 2018). Classroom interactions in DI foster a dynamic learning environment, empowering students by acknowledging personal voices, promoting active participation, and fostering a collaborative and make thoughtful decisions, exercise influence, oppose, or submit to social pressures (Duff, 2012), in which it is crucial to be established in the educational context and pedagogical practices