Abstract

Today, English courses are part of most syllabuses in higher education, and the mastery of this language is a requisite for graduates, because of the relevance that English has as a lingua franca at an international level. Nevertheless, teaching English is a difficult task for university teachers, due to the different abilities and characteristics that students have. The student population of English courses in higher education, is very diverse in terms of their proficiency level due to a wide range of factors (academic and non-academic previous experiences, motivation and interest etc.), as well as the differences regarding their profile and learning preferences, and the learning needs of each student. That is why Differentiated Teaching (D.T) or Differentiated Instruction (D.I.) is a useful and plausible option to teach a foreign language, because it takes into consideration these factors in the learning and teaching process. This document contains a theoretical review of the principal tenets and strategies of this teaching approach, highlighting it as an alternative for working on the English subject in higher education. In addition, a biographical review of recent literature is conducted, both in the Latin American context and internationally, regarding the studies that have documented the implementation of this methodology in teaching the foreign language at universities. Among the most relevant results highlighted by this research is that there are still few studies documenting the implementation of this methodology in the higher education context, particularly in Latin America.

Keywords:
Second language instruction; English; higher education; teaching methods