ABSTRACT
There are 30 children in a class. A third have spoken English all their lives and speak English at home. Two-thirds speak a different language at home and only speak English at school. Most of the latter pupils have a limited vocabulary and poor grammatically structured sentences. Five of these pupils have recently arrived in the country, they hardly understand anything the teacher says, they can’t spell their names, and as a result of the language barrier and huge change in life circumstances, they are very easily distracted from tasks. Through differentiation, the class teacher has the very difficult job of providing the national curriculum for every child in this class.
