Strategies Used by Instructors to Teach EFL Diverse Students in Public and Private Universities

Abstract

Diversity influences students' learning experiences, and in certain situations, this diversity can hinder the educational process. Therefore, College Instructors of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) must implement a range of teaching diversity strategies to support and cater to all kinds of learners. This study is an exploratory study that aims at investigating instructors’ awareness concerning diversity teaching strategies in terms of five types of diversity including (cognitive ability, learning style, cultural background, socio economic status, and gender diversity), in Morphology module, present in EFL classrooms in both public and private universities in Erbil city in Iraqi Kurdistan. The study also targets taking students’ perceptions to check the strategies that are employed by EFL instructors to meet the individual needs of diverse students. Concerning the tools, Students’ questionnaire and observation checklist are used. In order to a achieve the aims of the study, The perceptions of (57) students from both public (Soran university) and private (Cihan university) in a grammar related Module (Morphology) is taken. 27students, from 3rd stage, at Cihan University, and (30) students from 3rd stage of Soran University participated in filling a questionnaire to detect their perceptions. Concerning the observation checklist, the same classes, that participated in filling in the questionnaire at both universities are observed by the researchers to detect the use of such strategies by their instructors. The results of the students’ perceptions reveal that EFL students in Morphology Module from both Universities have a moderate satisfactory towards their instructors in the implementation of diversity strategies achieving (68%) for each. Concerning the results of the observation checklist reveal that in Morphology Module both Universities have recorded close results with (67%) for Cihan University and (64%) for Soran University. This indicates that the instructors in both Universities in Morphology Module to a moderate extent are aware of using diversity strategies in EFL diverse classes. No significant differences are noticed between the two universities in employing the strategies of diversity in EFL diverse classes. However, the 60% is regarded to be moderate and instructors need to use diverse strategies to improve the academic results at EFL Diverse classes.