Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate what significance ability grouped teaching in English les-sons has on students’ social identity, motivation for academic learning and language acquisition.
The investigation comprises statements of 10. graders at a private school which practice up to five different levels of ability grouped classes in the subjects German, math, and English.
To attempt my problem definition, I have chosen a case study. The scientific approach in the thesis is the hermeneutic angle, since it, as a method, allows me to understand the applied texts and to perceive the answers of the interviewed students. In order to obtain the best result from my investigation, I am knowledgeable about not letting my presumptions and understanding influence my compiling and interpretations of my collected data.
The data collection is based on semi-structured interviews with eight students representing the four different levels of ability in the subject English. I have chosen a boy and a girl from each level who does not have any prior experience with ability grouping.
The purpose of the interviews was to gain profound knowledge of the students’ perspective on ability grouping and how significant it has been for their social identity, motivation for academic learning and language acquisition.
Theoretically, I have mainly used Etienne Wenger’s theory of communities of practice. Moreover, to understand the challenges concerning language acquisition I have included Steven Krashen’s theory of the affective filter and comprehensible input. Wenger’s theories are used to analyse the corelation be-tween academical learning and communities of practice. Furthermore, I have compared my findings with an identical investigation of ability grouping made by Steffani Rose Hansen based on Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and social capital

Concisely my findings are that it is the students’ conviction that ability grouping is significant to their social identity, motivation for academic learning and language acquisition. In conclusion the talented students on the higher level proclaim to have benefitted from the enhanced level of academic teaching and increased pace of teaching. In addition to this, the challenged students on the lower level stress how the awareness of them being on the same academic level, as their fellow students in the ability grouped class, has resulted in them feeling safe and participating more frequently in the English les-sons. Due to the higher level of participation the pupils have experienced a higher level of language acquisition.