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Teaching English to Senior Citizens: Fuss or Fun; The EFL teacher as a course developer and a reflective practitioner BY Elena Xydopoulou- HANDOUT
Citation preview
34th TESOL Conference
Athens, 30-31/3/2013
Hellenic American Union
Contents of speech
How we recognize students with the most common types of learning difficulties (Dyslexia, ADHD, Borderline Mental Retardation, Asperger Syndrome)
A kind of informal assessment (especially for younger students) based on the principles of Special Education
How can our lessons be accessible to all kinds of students and what is the purpose of a differentiated instruction.
Sample lessons and discussion:
1) Phonemic Awareness - We all tend to forget its systematic teaching because we assume that pronunciation is automatically acquired by all kinds of students.
2) Deficits in memory skills and general difficulties especially when it comes to learning new vocabulary.
Dyslexia signs in classroomChildren diagnosed with dyslexia-at school age- have multiple and profound difficulties.
Please remember that we may not be able to determine if a child has dyslexia. We usually
detect early signs that suggest further assessment by a health professional in order to
actually diagnose the disorder. Some of these signs are:
The child appears bright, highly intelligent and articulate but unable to read, write,
or spell at grade level. This is diagnosed when the child goes to the first grade of the
Greek primary school.
They have difficulty separating sounds in words and blending sounds to make words.
Most of the times, teachers tend to label dyslexic students “lazy”, “dumb”,
“careless”, “immature” and so on. Please, think of that next time you say so!
The dyslexic students feel dumb, have poor self-esteem, hide or cover up
weaknesses with ingenious compensatory strategies and get easily frustrated and
emotional about reading or testing, especially at school.
They seem to "zone out" or daydream, get lost easily or lose track of time (especially
in tests).
They face difficulty sustaining attention.
They learn best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation,
observation and visual aids (flashcards).
They confuse letters, numbers, words, sequences.
Their reading or writing shows repetitions, additions, transpositions, omissions,
substitutions and reversals in letters, numbers and/or words.
They seem, at first, to have difficulty with vision, yet eye exams don't reveal a
problem.
They read and reread with little comprehension or even they have difficulty
remembering or understanding what they hear.
They have trouble with writing or copying. Their pencil grip is unusual, their
handwriting varies or is illegible at times.
They often confuse left/right, over/under.
They have difficulty telling time, managing it, learning sequenced information or
tasks, or being on time.
They can be class clowns, trouble-makers or too quiet.
When talking or writing they may use the wrong word or a similar word. Dyslexic
students may know what they want to say but have trouble finding the actual words
to express their thoughts. They are also slow to add new vocabulary words.
They have poor memory skills and complete assigned work more slowly than
expected. At times they cannot even complete it.
ADHD signs in classroomThe behavior of ADHD children is classified into three major groups according to the type of
their behavior; Hyperactivity-Impulsivity ADHD, Inattention ADHD and Combined ADHD.
More specifically, in class students may…
Have difficulty in establishing friendships with the fellow classmates
Have difficulty in communicating with the teachers
Lose their self-esteem
Become over sensitive and/or exhibit short tempers
Ignore necessary rules
Disturb or hurt their classmates deliberately
Have difficulty concentrating during the lesson, focusing and sustaining attention
Have unrelated thoughts
Have poor performance depending on the difficulty of the task given
May have better attention to enjoyed activities
Have difficulty planning, organizing, and completing tasks on time
Have problems learning new things
Seem unable to sit still (e.g. squirming in his/her seat, roaming around the room,
tapping pencil, wiggling feet, and touching everything)
Appear restless and fidgety
Often try to do more than one thing at once
Blurt out an answer before the whole question has been asked. They may also act
and speak without thinking
Avoid or strongly dislike tasks (such as homework or games) that require sustained
mental effort
Lose important things or items needed for tasks and activities, such as toys, school
assignments, pencils, books
Borderline Mental Retardation signs in classroom
There are many different signs of intellectual disability in children. Signs may appear during
infancy, or they may not be noticeable until a child reaches school age. It often depends on
the severity of the disability. Some of the most common signs of intellectual disability are:
Difficulty in remembering things
Inability to connect actions with consequences and difficulty learning social rules
Behavior problems such as explosive tantrums
Difficulty with problem-solving or logical thinking
Delays in oral language development
Deficits in memory skills
Lack of social inhibitors
Inability to meet educational demands at school
Lack of curiosity
Children with borderline mental retardation learn more slowly than a typical child. Children
may take longer to learn language and develop social skills. Learning will take them longer,
require more repetition and skills may need to be adapted to their learning level.
Nevertheless, virtually every child is able to learn, develop and become a participating
member of our class.
Asperger Syndrome signs in classroomAsperger’s Syndrome, a neurobiological disorder on the Autism Spectrum, is one of the
fastest growing disabilities.
Having a student with Asperger syndrome in class can be extremely challenging. It demands
lots of patience and knowledge of the child’s deficiencies in order to treat him/her properly.
More specifically, in class, students may:
Have concrete, literal thinking
Have difficulty differentiating relevant and irrelevant information
Have difficulty engaging in reciprocal conversation
Have difficulty generalizing and applying learned knowledge and skills across
different situations, settings, and people
Have difficulty interpreting others’ nonverbal communication cues
Have difficulty with fine-motor skills, such as handwriting
Show literal interpretation of others’ words
Have narrowly defined interests
Have poor problem-solving and organizational skills
Have the tendency to speak bluntly without regard for impact of words on others
Have academic difficulties
Have poor concentration
Have poor organizational skills
Their vocabulary is usually great but their comprehension is poor
Very often we encounter students with learning difficulties who have been taught the
language for some years, yet they cannot even read words correctly. This is the time when
we begin thinking that something went wrong during their Phonemic Awareness
instruction. And now, a question of major importance to me. Do we really spend enough
time on Phonemic Awareness or we just assume that our students will automatically make
their associations? For example, the student has seen and heard the word “play” a lot of
times. Are we sure that when it comes to reading the words “say”, “pray”, “delay” they
will read them correctly? How many of you believe that?
What do we think or do when we realize that our instruction was poor or even
nonexistent? What do we do? How we go on with these students?
According to numerous studies conducted in England and the States, the key to learning a
language is Phonemic Awareness. Unfortunately, none of the books we use in our
classrooms systematically teach digraphs, blends, how we segment words, isolate,
identify, categorize, delete phonemes, how we substitute sounds and so on. This is a
major gap we are obliged to bridge and something that I have sworn to bridge through my
own book in order to help other teachers as well or through my teaching to help my SEN
students and not only them.
Now, we are going to see samples of exercises that can be given either as exercises
throughout our lessons or can be a kind of informal assessment when we first meet a
student or if we want to assess him at the end of the year.
Phoneme Isolation Exercise
Instruction: Does the /l/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /lemon/? Beginning Middle End
(This exercise can be given orally or in written form if there is great difficulty.)
a) Does the /c/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /cat/? Beginning Middle End
b) Does the /r/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word / jar/? Beginning Middle End
c) Does the /a/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /hat/? Beginning Middle End
d) Does the /n/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /fan/? Beginning Middle End
e) Does the /p/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /pat/? Beginning Middle End
f) Does the /p/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /nap/? Beginning Middle End
g) Does the /t/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word / tiger/? Beginning Middle End
Phoneme Identification Exercise
Instruction: We pronounce the words, students listen to them carefully and then they
write the sounds/ phonemes in the boxes provided below.
These boxes are called Elkonin Boxes.
Variation of this exercise
Instruction: What sound is the same in the words “cap”, “car” and “cat”?
Phoneme Categorization Exercise
Instruction: I will pronounce some words and you must tell me the word that doesn’t belong
in the specific group of words.
sat pan sad
small tall sell
cap mad man
bug pin pan
book cook zoo
lady day Monday
cap nap sit
drink blink brake
Phoneme Blending Exercise
Put the number 1 in the box with the picture that has the sounds … /l/, /e/, /m/, /o/, /n/
Put the number 2 in the box with the picture that has the sounds…/z/, /e/, /b/, /r/, /a/
Put the number 3 in the box with the picture that has the sounds…/c/, /a/, /t/
Put the number 4 in the box with the picture that has the sounds…/d/, /o/, /g/
Put the number 5 in the box with the picture that has the sounds…/n/, /e/, /s/, /t/
Put the number 6 in the box with the picture that has the sounds… /h/, /a/, /t/
Put the number 7 in the box with the picture that has sounds… /f/, /i/, /sh/
Put the number 8 in the box with the picture that has sounds… /c/, /a/, /r/
CORRESPONDING PICTURE CORRESPONDING PICTURE
___ ___
___ ___
___ ___
___ ___
And now, what happens if a child is ready to read, write, faces learning difficulties and also
has severe memory deficits? What do you think? And do we all know what vocabulary is?
Vocabulary refers to the words we must understand to communicate effectively. Most
often, some teachers think that vocabulary is just a matter of the student’s everyday
dictation and the grades he obtained!
Let me show you some methods that have helped me throughout my lessons.
First and foremost, we should not forget that students with LD are greatly helped by the
use of pictures. By using the picture-association technique students are easily able to
access words and their as they discover their meaning. For example, look at the following
pictures. Can the student infer the double meaning of the word “help” here?
Also, have your students look at the word to be learned. Tell them they must first make an
association or connection with that word. Since we know from medical research that our
brains actually learn and recall through pictures and associations, it is very important that
students create this connection first.
You can also have students make flashcards and highlight the difficult spots on the word.
Then try to teach words by spelling patterns teach "cake," "bake," "take," etc. in one
lesson. Hang words from the ceiling during study time or posting them on the board or
wall as constant visual cues. If possible provide a tactile/kinesthetic aid for spelling. For
example, use these flashcards and have your students step on them in order to write the
words correctly.