Employing Multimedia Case Studies to Investigate Taiwanese EFL Teachers’ Beliefs about Differentiated Instruction

The goals of this research aims to report the advantages of using a multimedia case to help Taiwanese EFL teachers reflect upon their beliefs about best practices of differentiated instructions through employing a multimedia. Numerous studies indicate that multimedia cases can be powerful platform to promote teacher self-reflection, foster faculty development, and demonstrate model. A total of eight EFL middle school teachers in Taiwan were presented with a multimedia case, featuring a teacher’s struggle with students’ performances on standardized tests. Each teacher participant was invited to answer a 15-item questionnaire by writing a short essay. Using the content analysis method, teacher essay responses were analyzed to explore Taiwanese teachers’ thoughts about case-method teaching and learning—the primary mechanism to generate data collection in this study.
In addition, replication logic was used to see whether there were common salient issues represented in participants’ answers. The results showed that multimedia case study can be a valuable medium for EFL teachers to reflect upon their effectiveness in the classroom. Since language learning and language teaching are dynamic processes, the results of the study expect to provide teachers, administers, and policymakers with another perspective to understand teachers’ beliefs and thus reinforce teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom.