Gifted & teacher-friendly strategies

Balanced research and practice

It is vital to consider how those at the forefront can be supported with ideas and strategies that are beneficial for their gifted and talented learners and have shown to raise the standards for all children. The aim of this paper is to bridge the gap between research-based practices in gifted education as examined in the literature review and research pertaining to current gifted friendly practices of secondary teachers of EFL in Portugal. What is happening and what does best practice literature suggest should be done?Both quantitative and qualitative data allowed for the analysis of strategies being used by 110 schoolteachers of English. Classroom observations and semi-structured interviews also helped shed light on counterproductive practices taking place and misconceptions teachers harbour.To help lessen the achievement gap between what is currently happening within classrooms and what needs to happen, a comprehensive synthesis of gifted and teacher-friendly strategies is presented.