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The reality of learning a language is that students are diverse in terms of capability to grasp the language lessons given. Cognitive development, socio-cultural background, gender, motivation are a few factors that affect their ability to learn a target language. Thus, this paper is concerned about the effectiveness of Differentiated Instructions (DI) in catering low proficiency students so that they could excel in their ESL writing tasks and their perceptions of DI in improving their writing skills. A study was conducted in a sub urban primary school in Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. There were 29 respondents altogether from a class of Standard 4 which are categorized as low proficiency students based on their LINUS results in the previous year. The data were collected using mixed methods and, an analysis and discussion about the effectiveness of DI were done by comparing students’ pre-test and post-test scores and their perceptions towards DI were concluded from the interview and observations throughout the study. A questionnaire adapted from VARK questionnaire version 7.0 was used to determine students’ learning preferences before they were divided into three groups to undergone the DI strategies. The results of the study show there are some improvements in students’ writing as shown in the post-test results. Their behaviours in writing classes also have changed from being anxious to being confident at the end of the study. In general, it seems that DI could be used as one of the approach to help primary schools’ students to excel their ESL writing lessons. Besides, teachers should also take into consideration of implementing DI not only for writing skills but also other language skills.

Background: Globally, Closures of schools to mitigate the increase of COVID-19 have caused unprecedented disruption for nearly 1.6 billion school going children across the globe. Those affected the most are adolescent girls extremely in developing countries and the poorest households. Methods: Cross-sectional, quasi-representative survey of pre-post analysis, using a randomized sample from the adolescent girls in public primary schools. In total, 48 school administrators (24 head teachers and 24 deputy head teachers) and 14,917 pupils from 24 public primary schools in north rift region of Kenya. Therefore, the study population will be 30 administrators and 2378 adolescent girls in public primary schools in Uasin Gishu County of Kenya in 2021 and 2022. A sample size of 343 was assumed as the proportion suitable for this study using stratified random sampling techniques. Results: Majority were in the age bracket of 11-14 years old accounting for 174 (74.0%) compared to 61 (26.0%). Those in class 7 were the majority represented by 100 (42.6%); class 6 accounted for 87 (22.2%) while class 8 accounted for 48 (20.4%). The COVID- 19 containment guidelines were largely violated among the adolescent girls, which is a confirmation of behaviour change and lack of observation of prevention and control measures. not able to have increased access to economic opportunities, better health outcomes or useful, empowering knowledge, attitude and skills due to COVID- 19 Pandemic disruptions to key socioeconomic factors that support various families with composite mean score of (1.58, S,D .858) indicating strong disagreement with all the fifteen items that measured state of COVID- 19 outbreak impacts on wellbeing of adolescent girls. The findings showed that the Pearson’s correlation between COVID- 19 pandemic containment guidelines and the wellbeing of adolescent girls is [R =-0.624, p = 0.000], wellbeing and lockdown measure [R = 0.966, p = 0.000], stay at home measure [R = 0.921, p = 0.000], group gathering restrictions measure [R = 0.926, p = 0.000] and COVID- 19 Pandemic [R = 0.832, p = 0.000], showing a statistically significant bivariate association between the independent and dependent variables. Increased COVID- 19 Pandemic containment guidelines led to greater disruptions of basics of wellbeing environment. School closure had -0.718; Lockdown measure indicated -0.802; stay at home -0.679; while group gathering restrictions showed -0.812 all revealing significant bivariate associations with wellbeing of adolescent girls all explaining 53.2% of the wellbeing dimensions in this paper [R2 = 0.532, p = 0.000, ß = 0.615, t =5.857, ?= 0.000]. Therefore, the hypothesis that “hypothesis that COVID-19 pandemic restriction guidelines do not affect wellbeing of adolescent girls” is rejected and concluded that there is an effect of COVID -19 pandemic restriction guidelines on wellbeing of adolescent girls among the public primary schools. Conclusions: COVID -19 pandemic restriction guidelines has greater negative effects on wellbeing of adolescent girls among the public primary schools. Adolescent girls experienced disrupted fundamental acquisition, access, distribution and delivery of education, health, economic empowerment, all gender-based-violence forms, water-sanitation-hygiene, conflicts-emergency-humanitarian-settings, as well as adolescent girls’ intersecting needs leading to declining state of wellbeing.