Abstract

Assessing teachers’ beliefs and efficacy in adopting pedagogical strategies supporting multilingual learners is imperative as linguistic diversity continues to grow in the twenty-first-century classroom. Teachers differentiating their instruction can address the needs of multilingual learners and produce better learner motivation and outcomes. However, local and international studies investigating teachers’ beliefs and efficacy in practicing differentiated instruction (DI) in a multilingual setting are scarce. Thus, this study intends to determine preservice English teachers’ teaching beliefs and efficacy when differentiating instruction for multilingual students. Findings from a survey questionnaire adapted from previous related studies and administered to 164 preservice English teachers of a Teacher Education Institution (TEI) enrolled as respondents/participants in the present study revealed their positive beliefs and high self-efficacy toward practicing DI in order to support linguistically diverse students. Furthermore, the findings from study’s attempt to determine whether a significant relationship existed between teaching beliefs and efficacy showed a significant correlation between them. Although findings showed respondents’ good disposition toward DI practices in general, there is still scope for improving TEI curriculum through corpus-based studies to determine and work on areas needing development and impart continuous training in order for teaching professionals to enhance their skills in DI practice in multilingual classrooms.