Introduction

Differentiation has become a central principle in contemporary English Language Teaching (ELT), particularly in learner-centered and inclusive educational contexts. Rather than viewing differentiation as an add-on or a remedial strategy for struggling learners, current pedagogical approaches conceptualize it as a proactive, systematic way of ensuring that all learners can achieve shared learning objectives through varied pathways. The British Council’s TeachingEnglish: Managing Learners and Resources course positions differentiation as a practical classroom reality rather than a theoretical abstraction, illustrating how teachers can adapt tasks, feedback, and participation modes to accommodate learners’ diverse needs (British Council, n.d.). Drawing on this course, classroom examples, and reflective practice, this essay explores differentiation in action, the role of scaffolding and learner choice, and the ethical responsibility teachers have in “owning” student success (Tomlinson et al., 2008).

Differentiation as Planned Pedagogical Action

One of the most significant contributions of the British Council’s framework is its emphasis on planned differentiation, rather than reactive adjustments made only when problems arise. In the lesson example centered on holidays and the seaside included in the British Council’s course, the teacher’s warmer activity demonstrates how differentiation can be embedded from the outset. While all learners are expected to share what they would like to do on holiday, the task is tiered to provide varying degrees of support and challenge. Some learners rely on picture and word prompts, others name items freely, and stronger learners are encouraged to say and write three extra items independently.

This structure reflects the principle that “all learners should achieve the same main aim, but they may do this in different ways” (British Council, n.d.). Importantly, differentiation here does not dilute learning outcomes; instead, it ensures equitable access to them. As my reflective journaling notes, textbook unit openers often serve a diagnostic function, allowing teachers to gauge prior knowledge before introducing new structures (Acuña Solano, 2026). This diagnostic use of warmers aligns with formative assessment practices and reinforces differentiation as a tool for instructional decision-making rather than remediation.

Feedback, Processing Time, and Cognitive Equity

A key moment in the lesson occurs during feedback, when the teacher asks learners to think before responding and to look at visual support around the classroom. This practice provides processing time for all learners, regardless of proficiency level. The British Council (n.d.) highlights that such an approach “gives all learners time to prepare their answer” and allows stronger learners to extend and refine their responses.

From a cognitive perspective, this approach supports learners who may require additional time due to language processing, anxiety, or learning differences. Reflecting upon my own teaching (Acuña Solano. 2026), differentiation through wait time also enables learners to move beyond lower-order thinking. I have also observed that stronger learners can prepare responses that go “beyond the first level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, remembering information,” engaging instead in higher-order thinking processes such as elaboration and justification. When combined with Kolb’s learning cycle, this approach allows learners with different learning preferences, watchers, thinkers, feelers, and doers, to participate meaningfully.

Learner Choice and Modal Flexibility

Another defining feature of effective differentiation is modal flexibility, or allowing learners to demonstrate understanding in different ways. The British Council suggests options such as writing, drawing, speaking, or using images in response to listening or speaking tasks. In adult ELT contexts, this flexibility becomes especially valuable.

Reflecting on my B1 and B1+ working adult learners, I have found  myself allowing learners to respond “the way they feel more comfortable with,” particularly in breakout rooms, as long as they are using the expected grammar and vocabulary (Acuña Solano. 2026). This approach of mine not only respects learner autonomy but also creates opportunities for spontaneous interaction and follow-up questioning. While working with modal flexibility, we must remember that the teacher’s role shifts from evaluator to facilitator, encouraging learners to ask for clarification and expand on peer responses.

Providing written instructions alongside spoken ones further supports inclusivity. Within my own teaching practice, what I have noted is that written scaffolds, such as dialogue frames or sketchpads, help learners who may struggle with oral instructions alone (Acuña Solano, 2026). Instruction-checking questions function as an additional layer of differentiation, ensuring that learners can access the task before being asked to perform it.

Dialogue Frames and Peer Scaffolding

Dialogue frames emerge as a powerful tool for differentiation throughout the British Council’s course. According to British Council (n.d.) feedback, dialogue frames “provide a framework for the discussion, but learners can choose to refer to it or not,” allowing for both support and autonomy. They also promote peer coaching when learners of different proficiency levels are paired together.

Crucially, dialogue frames enable learners to work independently while freeing the teacher to support those who need additional help or scaffolding. This aligns with my personal reflections on scaffolding speaking activities, particularly when teaching complex grammatical structures such as causative verbs (Acuña Solano, 2026). My progression from controlled to semi-controlled to free production tasks mirrors widely accepted ELT methodology and demonstrates how differentiation can be embedded across task stages without fragmenting the lesson.

Differentiation and Learners with Diverse Needs

The British Council’s case studies illustrate how differentiation supports learners with both learning difficulties and behavioral challenges. For learners who find noisy environments overwhelming, adaptations such as working in a quiet corner or practicing with the teacher provide emotional and cognitive safety. For learners who become bored quickly, extension tasks, such as changing the context of the dialogue frame or adding questions, offer intellectual stimulation without disrupting others.

These adaptations reinforce the idea that differentiation is not about lowering expectations but about sustaining engagement. As I tend to argue with colleagues and teaching buddies, extended tasks for high-performing learners can also serve a classroom management function, preventing off-task behavior while maintaining academic rigor (Acuña Solano, 2026).

Challenging Myths About Differentiation

A particularly valuable section of the course addresses common teacher objections to differentiation. These include beliefs that differentiation is only for learners with difficulties, that it promotes laziness, or that it requires individual lesson plans for each student. As a teaching practitioner, I must challenge these misconceptions, emphasizing that differentiation is about “accommodating activities” so all learners can achieve lesson aims (Acuña Solano, 2026), not making it easy for the “low achievers.”

It can be further argued that penalizing learners who demonstrate understanding in different ways contradicts the principles of inclusive education. Differentiation, in this sense, becomes an ethical stance rather than a methodological choice. It reflects a commitment to learner success rather than teacher convenience.

Owning Student Success

The concept of “owning” student success, as articulated by Tomlinson, Brimijoin, and Narvaez (2008), provides a moral and professional foundation for differentiation. When teachers adopt a “whatever it takes” mindset, they refuse to allow learners to “fall through the cracks.” Owning success involves clear expectations, persistent monitoring of progress, adaptive instruction, and meaningful feedback.

This framework resonates strongly with my very personal concluding reflection: “No doubt, we must own the success of our learners to help them achieve lesson, course, and program goals” (Acuña Solano, 2026). Differentiation, viewed through this lens, becomes an expression of professional responsibility and care. Don’t we teachers want students to learn?

Conclusion

Differentiation in ELT is not a peripheral strategy but a core component of effective, ethical teaching. As demonstrated through the British Council’s course and reflective classroom practice, differentiation involves planned scaffolding, learner choice, flexible modalities, and a deep commitment to learner success. By embedding differentiation into lesson design and embracing the responsibility of owning student outcomes, teachers create inclusive environments where all learners can progress within and beyond their zone of proximal development. Ultimately, differentiation is not about making learning easier, it is about making learning possible.

San José, Costa Rica

Friday, February 6, 2026

 

📚 References

Acuña Solano, J. (n.d.). Reflective responses in TeachingEnglish: Managing learners and resources (Module 2, Unit 3).

British Council. (n.d.). TeachingEnglish: Managing learners and resources. https://open.teachingenglish.org.uk/Team/UserProgrammeDetails/676892

Tomlinson, C. A., Brimijoin, K., & Narvaez, L. (2008). The differentiated school: Making revolutionary changes in teaching and learning. ASCD.

Key Takeaways from the Reflective Practice on Differentiation

1.    Differentiation is a proactive planning principle, not a reactive classroom fix. One of the central insights from this reflection is that effective differentiation must be embedded in lesson planning from the outset. Rather than responding only when learners struggle, anticipating diverse needs allows teachers to design tasks, feedback, and participation modes that ensure equitable access to learning objectives for all learners.

2.    Shared learning aims can be achieved through multiple pathways without lowering expectations. Differentiation does not imply simplifying content or reducing academic rigor. Instead, it involves offering varied routes for learners to demonstrate understanding while maintaining a common lesson objective. Learners may reach this aim at different depths or through different modalities, but expectations remain high and consistent.

3.    Processing time and scaffolding are essential for cognitive equity in the classroom. Allowing learners time to think, observe, and prepare responses supports both language development and learner confidence. Scaffolding tools such as dialogue frames, visual support, and staged task progression enable learners to move beyond surface-level responses and engage in higher-order thinking.

4.    Learner choice and modal flexibility foster autonomy and sustained engagement. Providing options for how learners respond—speaking, writing, drawing, or structured dialogue—respects individual strengths and preferences, particularly in adult ELT contexts. When learners feel empowered to participate in ways that suit them, classroom interaction becomes more meaningful and inclusive.

5.    Differentiation is an ethical commitment rooted in owning learner success. Ultimately, differentiation reflects a teacher’s responsibility to ensure that no learner is excluded from meaningful learning opportunities. Adopting a mindset of “owning” student success shifts the focus from teacher convenience to learner progress, reinforcing differentiation as both a pedagogical and moral imperative in ELT.

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Introduction

Ethics curricula in modern universities routinely highlight philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant, Mill, and contemporary moral theorists. Yet Lycurgus, the legendary Spartan lawgiver whom Plutarch credits with reshaping an entire society, rarely appears in ethical discussions, even as a counterexample. This absence is striking because Lycurgus’ reforms are deeply ethical in scope: they governed desire, citizenship, moral education, civic responsibility, and the subordination of self-interest to collective welfare. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus presents a figure who not only redesigned institutions but also engineered a normative code for the Spartan way of life. Despite this, Lycurgus is often excluded from humanities and ethics courses.

This essay (my blog post #522) argues that Lycurgus is absent because (1) modern ethics emphasizes individual autonomy, not collective discipline; (2) contemporary humanistic education avoids valorizing illiberal or militaristic systems; and (3) scholarship questions the historical reliability of Lycurgus, diminishing his value for philosophical instruction. By examining Plutarch’s account and modern scholarship, this blog post demonstrates why Lycurgus’ ideas remain largely undebated in contemporary ethical education.

Lycurgus’ Ethical Project in Plutarch

Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus portrays the Spartan lawgiver as a radical moral architect. His reforms are not merely legal or political; they aim at shaping his countrypeople’s character. Plutarch states that Lycurgus “bent the whole city to obedience, sobriety, and temperance” (Plutarch, trans. 1914, p. 53), signaling a moral, not only political, agenda. Central to this agenda was the suppression of luxury. According to Plutarch, Lycurgus believed that “the city was like a ship whose sailors mutinied when each pursued his own profit” (p. 57). The metaphor is ethical: Moral disorder arises when individual desire overrides collective good.

Lycurgus’ most famous reform, the agōgē, was explicitly an ethical program for the Spartan youths. Plutarch writes that Lycurgus “considered education the greatest and noblest task of the lawgiver” (p. 61). Through training in endurance, discipline, and obedience, Spartans internalized a civic ethic centered on virtue-as-duty. This emphasis on habituation echoes Aristotelian virtue ethics yet differs in its extremity since Aristotle advocates moderation, but Lycurgus enforces austerity and communalism.

Thus, it can be stated that Lycurgus serves as a profound case study in ethical and moral engineering. Yet despite this, he does not appear in mainstream ethics curricula. But why not?

Reason 1: Lycurgus Conflicts with Modern Ethical Emphasis on Individual Autonomy

Modern ethics education privileges frameworks grounded in personal autonomy, rational choice, and the rights of individuals. Philosophers such as Kant and Mill assume that individuals possess moral agency independent of the state or any system of government. Lycurgus represents the opposite pole: he dissolved individuality into collective identity. As Plutarch notes, under Lycurgus, “no one was permitted to live as he pleased” (p. 65). For Kantian educators, this represents heteronomy of the most extreme sort, contrary to personal autonomy and agency.

Contemporary scholars share this same concern. Cartledge (2002) argues that Spartan ethics “subordinate the individual so fully to the polis that the very notion of personal moral agency becomes blurred” (p. 88). For ethics instructors who aim to cultivate critical thinking, freedom of conscience, and reflective autonomy, Lycurgus offers a model fundamentally incompatible with contemporary pedagogical values. But his social engineering can be used as a case study to be debated in an ethics class.

In such a context, teaching Lycurgus risks seeming to legitimize authoritarian virtue. Even if presented critically, his system’s foundational rejection of autonomy limits its usefulness in ethics classrooms centered on rational self-determination. For this very reason, an ethics professor could bring Lycurgus case for debate and identification of its flaws if analyzed from the importance of individual autonomy and citizen agency.

Reason 2: The Moral Problems of Spartan Society Make Lycurgus Pedagogically Difficult

Humanities departments are increasingly attentive to issues of oppression, inequality, and structural violence. Yet Lycurgus’ reforms institutionalized systems that are ethically troubling by contemporary standards: the helot system, militarization of youth, communal spying, infanticide, and near-total state control over family life.

Plutarch describes the helots as being “kept down by force, and treated with arrogant cruelty” (p. 72). He further recounts the infamous krypteia, during which young Spartans were encouraged “to kill any helot they found in the fields” (p. 73). These passages pose severe ethical challenges for instructors, but it is worthwhile to discuss why students must be avoided. While scholars such as Hodkinson (2000) contextualize the helot system as part of archaic Greek socioeconomics, its brutality remains undeniable.

Thus, universities may avoid Lycurgus not out of oversight but out of pedagogical caution with beginning ethics students whose higher order thinking skills may not be fully developed; engaging seriously with his system requires complex discussions of violence, authoritarianism, and collective coercion whose examples can be drawn from current political affairs in various parts of the world. These topics can be valuable, but they conflict with the introductory and normative goals of many ethics courses.