1 Introduction

Effective teaching and learning are complex activities. This is challenging to teachers, who have to ensure they use a variety of strategies to maximise each pupil’s potential. The complexity arises as pupils are all individuals with different backgrounds, differing personal experiences and different interests and needs. As mentioned by Capel et al (1995: 157) “The teacher must take account of personal interest, ability and motivation to design learning which challenges and interests pupils but, at the same time, ensures for each a large measure of success”. For Honey and Mumford, people have preferred styles of learning and it is in understanding those preferred styles that teachers can “help students to feel comfortable with learning and have opportunities to achieve some measure of success relatively easily” (Harkin, 2000: 42). Enabling pupils to maximise their potential and develop the 3 skills of the Programme of Study (PoS) within the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Curriculum requires teachers to have to use “a variety of strategies giving pupils different opportunities” (MFL NC, 2008: 12).

The assignment requires that we plan a sequence of four lessons from a topic taken from one of the National Curriculum Areas of Experience. To do this we chose a year 8 group of mixed ability as “mixed ability teaching forces teachers to recognise the problems of having to stretch the brightest students and having to cater for the less able students” (Cohen et al, 1996: 202) and year 8 are known to the school, with some assessment having already taken place. Using this group we shall firstly discuss differentiation and its implementation in the classroom and then use the sequence of lessons to explain the importance of progression in pupils’ learning and outline how this can be achieved.

2 Differentiation

Teachers have “to provide an effective learning environment” (Convery & Coyle, 1999: 4) and therefore have to get to know their pupils and