Foreign language teaching to children with special needs

The definition and main characteristics of children with special needs have been presented in Section 2.2.2. Now the focus is on language pedagogy issues as several studies identify disadvantage as a special need or disability. In accordance with the European Union language policy, every EU citizen is required to be able to speak at least two other languages besides their mother tongue as indicated in the document Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity: An Action Plan 2004-2006 (Commission of the European Communities, 2003). Therefore it has been suggested recently that keeping children with special needs from learning a foreign language equals depriving them of equal opportunities as EU citizens. Students with learning disabilities often have difficulties in learning certain aspects of their first language as a result of which they often ask for a waiver of foreign language requirements, which is usually granted (Battle, 2002).

Involving learners with special needs in foreign language education requires teachers trained in appropriate methodology. The professional training of teachers who work with children with disabilities is usually completely different from the training of teachers who work with typically developing, mainstream children (Wilson, 1998).

Special needs educators generally go to a specific college or take special courses where they become familiar with specific methodologies and programmes designed for those with special needs or disabilities. These methods are less well-known to general

teachers and educators. The curriculum for language teacher education contains insufficient information on children with disabilities.

The above mentioned the two-track professional model (that is to say, one track for special need educators and another track for regular teachers) is reported to be inappropriate (Wilson, 1998). Wilson states: “recommended practices call for a merger of the two disciplines in teacher preparation programmes. This merger should retain the best of both disciplines and should go beyond the team teaching or multidisciplinary approach (i.e., where both an early childhood educator and early childhood special educator work side by side within the same classroom)” (p. 15). This methodology could also work appropriately in foreign language education; however, school’s financial difficulties do not make it possible.

A common area of concern in research studies is that the identification of potential language learning difficulties is difficult for language teachers without any special training in this field. Furthermore, the necessary compensatory strategies which aim at building and strengthening skills to acquire learning are not widespread. McColl (2002) draws attention to special inclusive strategies and problem-solving approaches to differentiation which should be adopted. Tánczos (2006) claims that problems of cognitive process should be taken into account when teaching a foreign language to children with special needs.

The findings of the survey study of Kontráné Hegybíró and Kormos (2007) also assert that Hungarian language teachers do not receive any kind of special training about learning disabilities during their university or college training and can hardly cope with the special needs of children. They often hesitate to teach children with special needs, saying they have not received any special education or speech therapy training.

Research studies have been carried out to find associations between children’s native language and foreign language skills. Sparks, Ganschow and Javorsky (1992) found that difficulties in native language phonology and syntax are crucial to foreign language learning, whereas semantics appeared to be insignificant. Ferrari and Palladino (2007) investigated whether foreign language learning difficulties were connected to other learning difficulties. Native language reading comprehension seemed constantly poor in low-achieving foreign language students, while their reading speed and accuracy was only slightly poorer or average when compared to high-achieving foreign language students.

Difficulties in learning a foreign language might be connected to a special foreign language learning disability as the research of Dinklage (1971) suggests when investigating low-performing language learners. However, Sparks (2006) concludes that there is no empirical evidence to maintain a separate disability for foreign language learning because assessment tools do not distinguish students who are capable or incapable of learning a foreign language correctly. He adds that “there is no empirical basis on which a diagnostician or disability service provider could approve course substitutions or waivers for students with foreign language learning problems who are classified as having learning disability but deny access to substitutions for students who are not classified as having learning disability” (Sparks, 2006, p. 552). He also stresses the importance of effective methods appropriate for low-achieving students, concentrating explicitly on skills related to foreign language learning.

The inclusion of special needs learners in mainstream schools and meeting individual learners’ needs is a key issue on the European agenda as described in the Charter of Luxembourg (European Commission, 1996) with the concept of School for all. This initiative has promoted several research studies in recent years. In this

framework, various aspects of teaching foreign languages were summarized in the volume Special Educational Needs in Europe - The Teaching and Learning of Languages: Insights & Innovation (Marsh, 2005) describing learning, emotional, behavioural, social, communication, sensory and physical difficulties. Methodological approaches of good practice in the report recommend an eclectic approach for language teachers who work in mixed ability classes to adapt a variety of learning methods to the individual needs and learning styles of each child

The situation and needs of special needs language learners in Hungary have been thoroughly investigated in a research project ‘Equal opportunity in the language learning’ (‘Esélyegyenlıség a nyelvtanulásban’) at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. The research concentrates on the language learning challenges of students with dyslexia or other reading disabilities, specific learning disabilities (for instance attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), or students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Most research studies in the area of foreign language teaching to children with special needs focus on dyslexia, which indicates the importance of this topic and the necessity of a deeper account of methodological considerations. Children with dyslexia seem to have a large number of difficulties in foreign language learning. Phonological awareness – found important in both first and second language literacy – is a significant factor in dyslexia. It is defined as a metalinguistic skill involving knowledge about the sounds that constitute words; and this umbrella term involves the abilities to segment spoken words into sounds, to identify similarities and differences in speech sounds, and to perceive and produce alliteration and rhyme (Nicolson and Fawcett, 2008). Goswami (2006) asserts that dyslexic children have difficulties with counting syllables or deleting sounds from the beginnings of words. Due to these phonological processing troubles,

students cannot repeat words and link sounds to letters; they often pronounce foreign words applying the rules of their mother tongue.

Other frequent difficulties of dyslexic foreign language learners may include inability to repeat words after the teacher, vocabulary problems (especially with words of complex morphology or multi-syllable words), incorrect decoding when reading, slow pace of reading, interpretation and use of grammar rules, poor listening comprehension (Schneider, Ganschow, Sparks and Miller, 2007). The research conducted by Kormos and Mikó (2010) also emphasizes that dyslexic foreign language learners have the most severe difficulties in writing and spelling (for example they cannot copy from the blackboard, especially long words), they often mix the spelling of first and second language and this is why some language teachers disregard spelling mistakes when marking their papers. When learning foreign vocabulary, they have difficulties in memorizing and retrieving words, and they often confuse similarly sounding lexical items. Many of the above described factors can be seen as a continuum of difficulties from mild to severe; however, these factors have a serious impact on foreign language learning performance.

Several techniques and strategies for teaching a foreign language to children with dyslexia have been recommended. Such an effective method, the multisensory structured teaching approach was found to be highly successful among students with foreign language learning difficulties (Sparks, Artzer, Patton, Ganschow, Miller, Hordubay and Walsh, 1998). This is based on the assumption that the use of more modalities increases the efficiency of the learning process. “Teaching reading and spelling with the help of multisensory methods is realized by the integration of visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and tactile stimuli and involves simultaneous presentation of information coming from various senses. Thus, multisensory teaching is based on the

constant use of the following: what a letter or a word looks like, how it sounds and how the speech organs and hand feel when producing it” (Nijakowska, 2010, p.125). The use of multisensory methods helps struggling foreign language learners to reach the levels of average learners. Dyslexic foreign language learners also reported the usefulness of multisensory techniques in Kormos, Csizér and Sarkadi (2009).

Schneider and Crombie (2003) list other strategies for effective foreign language teaching. These are summarized as follows: making language patterns explicit, over-learning, inspiring metacognition, reducing the pace of presentation and activating children’s personal strengths and interests and offering them individual space. They stress the importance of repetitive and long enough opportunities of practice. Language concepts should be taught in an explicit and direct way, with lots of graphic representations, sheets or semantic maps, and metacognitive explanations are also recommended, which seems to contradict the principles of communicative language teaching (Sarkadi, 2006). Reading and listening comprehension should be promoted with visuals (Kohlmann, 2010). She also suggests using rhymes, songs or poems to aid the memorization of words, or even grammar rules.

The qualitative study of Kormos, Csizér and Sarkadi (2009) claims that the majority of foreign language teachers have difficulties in dealing with the special needs of dyslexic students for three reasons. Firstly, language teachers do not have enough information about the students’ special educational needs. Secondly, they do not know

“the affective and cognitive strategies which disadvantaged students use to overcome the difficulties that language learning poses for them” (p. 116). Thirdly, language teachers are not familiar with suitable language teaching techniques, methods, tasks and teaching materials. They also claim that language teacher education should be modified

in order to involve an introduction of special needs (with special focus on dyslexia) and appropriate assessment methods.

Students with dyslexia often have problems mastering their first language, therefore the general recommendation issued by Hungarian pedagogical advisory centres and the stipulations of the educational law say that dyslexic students should either be exempted from learning languages or that their performance in a foreign language should not be evaluated (Kontráné Hegybíró and Kormos, 2010). This process of exemption seems to be similar to the exemption of Roma children from foreign language learning mentioned in Section 2.7 and can be considered as discriminative and is not in accordance with the principles of equal opportunities in education. Moreover, case studies (for example Ormos, 2004) prove that dyslexic language learners can achieve good results in foreign language learning with the use of efficient methods and high motivation.

Dyslexia may also affect the language choice of children, as certain languages are reported to present more or less difficulties for children. Goswami (2006) argues that the degree of sound-symbol correspondence and the complexity of syllabic structures have an effect on the manifestations of dyslexia. English is usually not recommended for dyslexic learners because of its spelling inconsistencies. Languages with a simple consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel structure in the onset and rime of each syllable (like Spanish or Italian) are more suitable for dyslexic learners. The complex consonant clusters of the English and German language may cause further difficulties.

However, Sarkadi (2006) stresses that the language choice is rather influenced by potential advantages in the labour market, therefore the English language is preferred even in the case of dyslexic learners.

Finally, the phenomenon of differential dyslexia should be mentioned. It refers to cases when signs of dyslexia can be observed in one language but not in another (Smythe, 2004). Language teachers have to be cautious of different manifestations of dyslexia across languages. Nijakowska (2010) adds that phonological processing abilities in one language, regardless of whether first language or second, can predict individual differences in word recognition skills within and cross-linguistically, which may refer to underlying cognitive deficits.

2.7.2 Foreign language teaching to children with low socioeconomic