Teachers’ Awareness and Handling of Students’ Individual Differences in English classroom: the case on Mudula Secondary and Preparatory School

Abstract

Individual differences imply distinctive attributes which exist within individual discerning one from another. In academic sphere, the matches or mismatches of instructional practice with the students’ learning preference is usually determined by the awareness teachers held about students’ learning uniqueness. Therefore, this paper reports descriptive survey study assessing teachers’ awareness and handling of students’ individual differences mainly motivation and attitude, ability, personality, learning strategy and gender in English classroom. The researcher employed three instruments: questionnaire, classroom observation and interview as data gathering tools. Questionnaire and observation were used about teachers’ classroom practice but interview for their awareness.170 students randomly and8English Language teachers purposively were selected as sources of data. For the intention of making the data clear for the readers, percentage was used to analyze quantitative data whereas qualitative data were described narrating in words and whose interpretation was done in accordance with the objectives of the study. Findings of the study indicated teachers were not handling their students’ individual differences and aware of them in the classroom. Moreover, teachers also were not providing and addressing learners’ learning differences. Finally, based on the findings, recommendations were pointed for the responsible stakeholders to find solutions.