Scarica Language Teaching Accessibility: Theory and Application - Prof. Daloiso e più Appunti in PDF di Didattica generale e speciale solo su Docsity!
Lesson 1 - Inclusion in Language Education: A Change of Perspective
Having learning issues does not coincide with the learners’ social beings, therefore we should not connotate them in a negative way. If the goal is to be more inclusive teachers, how we conceptualize students is highly important because if we look at them negatively, we ultimately tend to underestimate them and to have lower expectations. Teacher cognition = area of study that analyses the collection of ideas and reflexions of teachers to understand their attitudes and teaching approaches. In educational environments we can find multiple conceptual and concrete barriers that prevent the educational context to be inclusive. They involve the learner, the educational environment, how language is conceived, and what is the teachers’ idea behind language proficiency. When we approach learners with learning disorders, we see them separated from the environment. In fact, teachers tend to draw portraits above their students based on their characteristics, but they often miss a lot of things. For example, the background (family, ethnicity, economic status…) is often disregarded. There are two main ways to conceptualize disabilities:
- Bio-medical view = is the dominant approach that has been used until 10 years ago. According to this view, disabilities are biological conditions that are inside the person. So, the approach is to make a list of the weaknesses/characteristics of the person and understand why the person does not function properly, then make an intervention to adapt them to the environment and make them learn how to cope. However, the external environment is never called into question. For instance, giving extra time to dyslexic students or exempt them from reading aloud instead of questioning the activities per se is very similar to the bio- medical approach and is also discriminatory.
- Bio-psycho-social view = Starting from the beginning of the century, a new framework to conceptualise disabilities was conceived called ICF (international classification of functioning). In this approach, disabilities are conceptualized as a result of a non-optimal interaction between the person and the environment. Therefore, personal variables are as important as environmental variables. In this way, the environment is called into question; the turning point is to adapt the person to the environment and vice versa. Learners cannot be separated from the environments, whether they are social/ private or educational, in which they operate. The bio-psycho-social view led to the conceptualisation of the “language teaching accessibility theory”. It is a framework of reference to redesign learning environment in a more inclusive and accessible way. For example, one way is to investigate the barriers that prevent students from being autonomous. The assumption behind this theory is that educational segregation should be banned
altogether in order to embrace inclusion. The Language Teaching Accessibility Theory offers language educators a theoretical framework for redesigning the learning environment in order to render it more accessible to learners with specific or generic language learning difficulties, was developed by applying a bio-psycho-social prospective to language teaching. One of the postulates of language teaching accessibility is that the acquisition of any language comes about in a series of contexts within which a person interacts, often with the support of adults that exercise a tutorial role. When this process of acquisition takes place in a formal educational context, such as the classroom or after-school activities, the educational figure assumes a fundamental role of structuring the learning environment, through their choices of learning aims, methods and types of interaction and evaluation. From this point of view, a learner’s difficulties with language learning must always be interpreted as a suboptimal blend of personal and environmental variables. Even when their language learning difficulties are caused by a clinically diagnosed disorder, the learning environment can aggravate or reduce the obstacles that the learner will face during the process of language development. The bio-psycho-social prospective that we have embraced here prompts us to highlight the fact that in the presence of learning difficulties or language disorders, we should be careful not to adopt an essentialist approach, concentrating only on the learner’s personal problems and any compensatory measures that aim to adapt their performance to the requests of the learning environment. Language teaching accessibility should be instead understood as a much wider process that aims to optimise the interactions between a person’s characteristics and the environment in which they find themselves, in order to promote effective language learning: the environment will provide the necessary support, thanks to the educator’s actions, while the learner will gradually develop the competences necessary for the acquisition of an individual autonomy. Language competence is made of a lot of things, that can be learned both inside and outside the classroom. Teachers must provide alternative solutions to overcome barriers and reconceptualize students to alleviate the mismatch between person and environment. In the text, other subjects are mentioned in fact, although we are focused on language learning, we should interrogate ourselves on how they interact with each other. In fact, all education takes place through the medium of language. This is relevant because there are some cases in schools where language is the substance of learning, but other cases in which language is the tool used to convey notions. Therefore, language education should care for in all classes since in a lot of cases the difficulties experienced by learners in practical subjects are linguistic issues. Example: math problems are reduced-content texts so
- strategic competence or knowing how to deal with potential obstacles that can arise in communication, through the recognition, activation and evaluation of strategies. If we don’t take into consideration all three aspects of language proficiency, we are not inclusive.
Lesson 2: Learning a language – Constants and variables.
The “Language Learning Cycle” is a model inspired by research on language processing which synthesises the cognitive processes which lead to the acquisition of a linguistic construction. This approach is based on the concept of interlanguage, which is the linguistic system that learners build step by step. It is a system that does not always reflect the target language, but more the mother language. It can be also conceptualized as a lagune because the parts of the language that you master the most emerge, while other parts that we are about to learn are emerging but not fully, and finally there is high water which symbolises the parts of language that we have difficulties in. In order for the interlanguage to develop we need to be exposed to linguistic input, which in some cases can be overwhelming. Input must gradually become intake, i.e. a part of the interlanguage. Intake is not competence yet, but it makes us notice that there is something new to learn. This diagram shows that language learning always occurs in a specific cultural and communicative context, in the presence of communication partners (adults and other learners) who, at differing levels of competence, offer learners opportunity to hear and use a language. These figures support the process of learning either intentionally (such as a student who helps a classmate with an activity) or incidentally (such as a foreign pen-pal who chats with us online). The fundamental steps are:
- Focusing = In most educational contexts, we are exposed to a great quantity of linguistic input. This input is made up of linguistic constructions, some which may be already familiar to learners, while
others may be unknown; the learners, moreover, could also only have a partial competence as regards certain constructions. In order for the Language Learning Cycle of a given construction to take place, two conditions are necessary: Firstly, learners must have the opportunity to hear the construction frequently. Secondly, they must recognise that the construction is unfamiliar, in order to focus their attention on this unknown element. To use a technical term, the input must become intake: it must be noticed by learners and undergo an initial elaboration of its form (linguistic decoding, which can be phonological or orthographic, depending on whether the learner is listening or reading) and its meaning (conceptual decoding, the connection between form and the concept that it represents).
- Internalisation = it does not correspond to the simple memorisation of a linguistic construction. Often at school, much attention is given to the characteristics of the language being taught and there is the tendency to evaluate learners’ performances based on their similarity to the way native speakers express themselves. This vision leads to the misconception of learners’ linguistic production as a jumble of errors to untangle, neglecting the value of the developmental process that they are undertaking. The concept of interlanguage aims to combat this misconception, which indicates “a separate linguistic system based on the observable output which results from a learner's attempted production of a target language norm”. Interlanguage is not a collection of errors, but a linguistic system with a certain regularity and creativity, that the learner develops in time through continuous interaction with other people. Moreover, interlanguage is dynamic and constantly changing, as newly learned information interacts with and modifies our prior knowledge. A linguistic construction, therefore, is internalised not only when its meaning is understood, but when connections are made with other associated meanings or constructions, which in turn will be re- elaborated, modified and integrated. If we think that a linguistic construction contains many different aspects (form, meaning, various contexts of use, etc.), it is clear that a learner cannot internalise them all instantaneously, but will have to come back to them repeatedly, activating specific strategies.
- Use = As the construction is progressively internalised, learners begin to produce output containing it. In this case, they perform the opposite mental process to that illustrated in the focusing stage: they begin from the meaning of what they intend to express (conceptual encoding) and choose the most context- and goal-appropriate construction in order to do so (linguistic encoding). The use stage is not the end point of the learning cycle, but rather a moment that occurs concurrently with the internalisation of the construction itself. Because we normally use language to interact with others, a learner’s linguistic production is often
- Highly developed executive functions (procedural memory)
- Gradual and not linear acquisition since some aspects are acquired earlier than others.
- Ortographic aspects require explicit instruction less effective and accessible.
- Materials are designed as a sequence of contents.
- Explicit instruction all the time.
- Self-exposure to the language might lead to implicit learning Output - Constant opportunities for output in real-life situations
- Few opportunities for language use outside the classroom
- Output is usually intended as “practice” rather than real use of the language (but there are cases of more real- life situations when the teacher is a native speaker) Among the many variables that can affect language learning, is foreign language anxiety. Anxiety is a concrete emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes. There are two types of anxiety:
- Trait anxiety = which is a permanent personality trait
- State anxiety = which is situational and temporary In the field of foreign languages, this concept was developed with the idea that it is more something in between the two types of anxiety. It is a distinct complex of self-perception, beliefs, feelings, and behaviours related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process. Key factors that can influence anxiety:
- Student = Personality traits, attitude (approach to learning), aptitude, motivation, past experiences, L2-self, fear of being judged, language level of competence…
- Learning support = feedback, classroom climate (relationship with both the teacher and the classmates), teaching methods (immediate corrections, rote learning), communicative methods that can cause frustrations, teaching styles, test anxiety (feeling constantly assessed) …
- Language = typological differences and similarities (it feels easier for an Italian to learn Spanish than to learn Chinese), psychological distance (how you perceive the language that you are learning), social status or stereotypical perception of the language (English – modern, innovative,
highly useful whereas Latin is perceived as useless and ancient), specific activities such as writing by dictation or roleplay…
Lesson 3 – A good language learner
Unfortunately, we tend to conceptualize students with problems as poor learners. But what characteristics define a good language learner?
- Sociable and open-minded
- Motivated and Interested
- Hard working and persistent
- Well-organized (he/she does extra activities, he/she does works in advance)
- Curious to deepen his knowledge.
- active and productive – participation (proactive)
- self-critical There are also some key aspects that are transversal to the three taxonomies:
- being autonomous/independent
- being flexible = come up with ideas and strategic to overcome difficult situations
- being proactive = know how to manage their learning process, they adapt to situations and find their own strategies to overcome the obstacles. These aspects are related to the personal side of people, but also the context can have an influence on them. Although a good language learner has its own personal traits, when they are in formal contexts, they are ultimately influenced from the environment. The student is a social role which comes with expectations on how student study the language, expectations also on the part of the teachers who may have their own idea related to the perfect type of student. If we want to go deeper in the context of good language learner, we should introduce the strategic dimension of language learners. If we think that a good language learner is someone who uses good strategies to reach his goal, we can understand the key to help them reaching their goals. A good learner is just a good strategic user. Someone who is expert in the area of language learning, who knows how to manage the process of language learner. Learning Strategies: knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do Oxford definition 1980: specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and transferable to new situations (strategies help us transfer some knowledge to new situations). Strategies are also important for the learning cycle to be efficient. In order for the learner to be effective in each stage, the learner should apply some strategies both implicitly and explicitly.
As regards to good language learning strategies, we could define them as knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do. Even in everyday language, when we talk about strategies, we often immediately associate them, either explicitly or implicitly, with difficult situations that cannot be resolved with predetermined solutions or with “automatic” procedures. These situations, on the contrary, require flexibility, creativity and innovation. We do not need a strategy if we already know what to do, or rather when a task has a routine solution. It’s exactly in that moment, when routines aren’t sufficient, that the difference between those who give up, those who break down and those who have a compass which allows them to orient themselves and find innovative solutions in new and problematic situations becomes clear. The aspects that can make a strategy more or less effective for a learner are:
- The level of relevance to the language task at hand; memorisation can be an effective strategy for learning vocabulary, but it is not useful for inferring meaning from contextual clues.
- The level of relevance to the learner’s personal learning profile; the more we know about a learner’s personal characteristics, the more we are able to identify appropriate strategies that can reduce their level of frustration and number of failures.
- The successful use of a strategy by a learner, in synergy with other strategies
Lesson 4 – Language learning difficulties and disorders
In a renowned study from 1954, the psychologist Abraham Maslow introduced his hierarchy of needs, in which he proposes to conceive human needs as being part of a pyramid. On the bottom of the pyramid, we can find primary needs, which we share with animals and are linked to our physical survival, and towards the top of the pyramid we can find secondary needs, which are the ones that distinguish us as a species and concern our social, psychological and emotional spheres. According to this model, we satisfy our needs in a hierarchic and ascending manner: in order to achieve self-actualisation, we must first satisfy our basic, primary needs. By adopting this perspective, we can define students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) as learners who have trouble satisfying some of their basic, psychological and/or self-fulfilment needs on account of a functioning difficulty when interacting with their environment. With the acronym SEN, we intend: any permanent or temporary developmental difficulty that affects functioning in educational or learning environments, which is due to the interaction between various health factors according to the ICF model, and which creates the need for individualised education. This theoretical concept is based on three assumptions:
- SEN is a pedagogical notion, which does not make use of clinical labels. Attention is instead placed on the educational needs which can arise due to an individual difference; the aim is thus the inclusion of all students and their educational success.
- Functional difficulties can be temporary or permanent; in this sense SEN is an open and reversible category. A child can manifest a special need even in only one specific phase of their development; it is the school’s role to identify this need even in the absence of a clinical diagnosis.
- Individualised education, as perceived in the definition above, does not imply a ‘separate’ way of teaching, rather more the diversification of existing teaching practices on different levels (content, methods, material etc.). This must guarantee that each learner has the opportunity to develop the essential competences included in the school’s curriculum, in full respect of their individual characteristics. Traditionally, the expression complex communication needs is used for those learners with a disability that renders all forms of communication difficult, in terms of both production and reception (e.g. intellectual disabilities, non-verbal forms of autism etc.). However, the meaning of this expression should be widened: in fact, even in the absence of disabilities, certain learners can have communication needs that are complex in nature. By broadening our perspective, complex communication needs can be conceived as an umbrella term used to indicate all of these situations. In certain cases, the need will be so pervasive as to affect all aspects of communication, whilst in other cases it will mainly affect the verbal dimension and only limited non-verbal aspects. We will refer to this second scenario as Specific Language Needs (SLNs), which was introduced in the Italian scientific literature on language teaching, and it refers
communication disorder, which affects only socially related verbal and non- verbal communication abilities, and is not associated with repetitive or obsessive behaviour, as is the case with autism. Referring to the ICF model, language disorders are linked to limitations in body functions, and in particular executive functions. Generally speaking, children with disorders affecting phonological, expressive and receptive components of language processing are slower in anchoring and directing attention towards a given stimulus, respond more slowly to both linguistic and visual stimuli, and tend to remember a lesser quantity of words. Therefore, their cognitive limitations tend to have an effect on attentional-inhibitory control, information processing efficiency and working memory. In the case of a disorder that affects the pragmatic component, the difficulties instead seem to be mostly due to a limited cognitive flexibility: often these children have no trouble remembering or processing information, they instead struggle to adapt their language to their interlocutor or to the communicative situation. Indeed, a learner’s behaviour might change from Pre-school to Primary school because of the mismatch with their teachers’ method. Moreover, the pressure and the expectations are higher, plus the tasks are more difficult. Since dyslexia is more evident when you start reading and writing, in pre-school signs of dyslexia are not identified (they are viewed as personality traits) while in primary school they are mistaken for bad attitude. A child might externalise his frustration by being aggressive, but he/she can also internalize it by isolating themselves. It is important to highlight the fact that people with dyslexia are not stupid even though many think that people with dyslexia are less intelligent than others. This is due to the stereotype that reading is something we start to do automatically, so people who cannot have a mental disability (which is not true). Educators are not required to be specialists, but observing more would help them to identify some common characteristics. A useful tool could be using a checklist: language and movement are connected because of a region in our brain involved in procedural activities. There is also correlation between language disorders such as dyslexia and specific language impairments (late talkers are often then diagnosed with language disorders). Additionally, problems regarding memory and attention are to take into consideration. Language disorders are always to be interpreted alongside the contextual factors that can have an influence on them. As regards personal factors, many studies have underlined the relationship between a child’s character and the (usually unsatisfactory) results attained in tests that evaluate expressive and receptive language skills, as well as the link between linguistic deficits and social and emotional competences. As language is developed through social interaction, personal variables are closely intertwined with environmental factors. One aspect in particular that can affect the behaviour of these children is the attitude of their communicative partners. Research has shown that many educators tend to consider children with language difficulties to be less
intelligent and less likely to be successful than their peers, and seem to be reluctant to support these learners in a concrete fashion, even when they openly vouch for their inclusion. From these considerations, we can see the obstacles that these learners have to tackle in order to fully participate in the social environments which they find themselves in. As regards school, we must keep in mind that language disorders evolve through time: the learner’s oral expression usually improves, while issues in literacy and text comprehension develop at a later stage; in certain cases, this can lead to a diagnosis of a specific learning disorder, such as dyslexia. If the learner’s below-average performance cannot be attributed to low cognitive skills, behavioural problems or sensory disabilities, they can be referred to as Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs). They are neurobiological disorders, which affect learning and the use of certain reading, writing and mathematical skills. There is often comorbidity between these issues, and between these issues and other, more general deficits that affect language comprehension and expression. Examples are dyslexia, dysgraphia, dysorthography… Since dyslexia is about reading and writing, and there is a slow development of language which is not a mental faculty, a person who was dyslexia in his first language is prone to having it also when learning a second language. Students with dyslexia have difficulties not only with spelling, but also in areas such as comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, interaction, and writing composition. This is because English has a deep orthography (the same letter can be pronounced in different ways or not be pronounced at all) whereas other languages have a shallow orthography like Italian and Spanish. Moreover, some languages are syllable-timed (Spanish) where we tend to pronounce the vowel of every syllable, while English is stress-timed in which the pronunciation of the vowel depend on where the stress falls. The learner may often feel anxious in situations such as dictation, reading out loud, or doing improvised role-plays, while being more engaged and relaxed in things like cooperative work, problem-solving, or step-by-step role-plays. The range of linguistic difficulties may be wider in the L2 because of the poor amount of exposure to the foreign language and also the learning environment which is not natural but rather forced. Moreover, we have to keep in mind that difficulties are often due to a specific learning difference, not a lack of effort. The anxiety that students with dyslexia feel is usually provoked by the fear of getting judged and the level of exposure required for the tasks. Another activity that could provoke anxiety would be having to learn something by heart and then having to recite it out loud.
that are encountered by speech and language therapists across a range of clinical contexts (link with clinical practice). Louise Cummings uses a model called the human communication cycle which summarises the steps that characterise human understanding and production of language. There are two dimensions: a receptive one (hearer) and a productive one (speaker). If we are engaging in an interaction as active partners we have communicative intentions, then our thoughts need to become words through language encoding. We also have to activate motor programming for our mouth and phonatory system, and this becomes motor exaction of speech. Speech is not a language, is what we do from a physical point of view when we speak. If we are hearing someone speaking, we sense speech through sensory processing and we try to discriminate sounds/meanings during speech perception. This leads to the decoding of language. This suggests a model for categorizing language disorders. For instance, if you have a speech disorder, your difficulty is rather about the articulatory system (motor programming and execution). Whereas if you have a language disorder, the difficulties may differ and may concern conceptualization (decoding level). The model also shows the relevance of each branch of linguistics for the understanding of each disorder, for example pragmatics are useful to understand communicative intention while articulatory phonetics are useful for motor programming. If the problems are in language decoding discourse analysis and syntax are crucial to understand the issues at hand. Language sample analysis activities
- Phonological aspect of language disorders Most studies of clinical phonology are conducted in English. This activity is designed to highlight the (smaller) amount of work that has been undertaken into phonological disorders in languages other than English. In the study regarding Spanish, approximately 93% of the errors produced by these Spanish-speaking children fell within a number of commonly occurring phonological processes. These included consonant cluster reduction and liquid simplification (omission or substitution), such as “lato/pwato” instead of “plato”. A number of less commonly occurring phonological processes were also among the 93% of errors committed by these children. Velar fronting was one of these processes, for example “tlus” instead of “cruce”. In the Italian study, the Italian-speaking children with language disorders deleted weak syllables in various positions in the word. One such pattern of deletion is word-initial weak syllable deletion, for instance, “carota” is
produced as “rota”. From a perceptive point of view, weak syllables are not considered crucial by the speaker with a disorder. There is also a different pattern of weak syllable deletion, where the middle syllable is deleted as in “albo” (albero).
- Connection between grammar and discourse Clinical studies of expressive language in children with language disorders often focus on sentence-level analysis. Less often, extended forms of discourse such as narratives are examined. The boy produced/displayed:
- several grammatical errors = Use of non-finite verb in place of past tense verb (I fall down instead of I fell down), incorrect preposition in conjunction with an intransitive verb (jumped out instead of jumped off), omission of subject pronoun, use of regular past tense -ed ending on an irregular verb (flied instead of flew) …
- problems with referencing = Use of a subject pronoun without a preceding noun to which it refers, use of adverbials which lack a clear referent, use of a subject pronoun which has an ambiguous referent… He locates things and people in the past as if we knew what he is talking about, but we don’t, so the narration is confusing and unclear.
- inefficient topic management = he answers a general question by going into detail and recounting one specific accident to his leg, then he moves onto toys, and then goes back to the leg and the bike. At the end he gets lost talking about his dead grandmother which is not relevant to the topic.
- Specific case of a student with dyslexia JR is a 47-year-old right-handed man who has experienced no serious illness, head injury or neurological disorder. He is self-employed and runs his own building firm. JR’s difficulties with reading and spelling started in school and continue to affect his life (e.g., a friend helps him with business paperwork). JR has four children, two of whom also experienced reading and spelling difficulties at school. During assessment, JR read 82% of words correctly. Of his errors:
- 63% were neologisms (ex: grotikə instead of grotesque)
- 24% were visual paralexias (ex: sympathetic instead of systematic) when the read word shares at least 50% of the letters of the target word.
- 12% were morphological paralexias, i.e., a phenomenon that occurs when the base lexical item of the target word is read correctly but a bound morpheme is dropped, added, or substituted (ex: adventurous instead of adventurously). JR’s pattern of reading performance can be summarized as relatively good word reading, visual paralexias, morphological paralexias and nonword
Handout 6 Passage from Schopenauer’s “Parerga and Paralipomena” – The hedgehog dilemma he highlights how difficult social interaction and peaceful coexistence really is. In naturalistic contexts, teacher must observe their students but are also part of the environment. This is the so-called “observer paradox”: how can a collection of data be considered reliable, if the events that were recorded were influenced by the presence of the observer. Therefore, we have to embrace the ethnographic approach, which prioritises the dialogic relationship between the observer and the observed. It also presumes that a given phenomenon can only be understood by studying it in its natural context, considering all the factors at play. To re-use our painting-related metaphor, in order to be able to move from portrait-painting to landscape-painting, educators must “take a step back”. We can liken this process to the one used to appreciate Impressionistic artwork, in which we must continually move forwards and backwards, from specific details to global aspects and back again, in order to fully grasp its inherent worth. There are many distancing measures to employ to achieve some distance in our observation, including:
- Defamiliarization when you are too involved in the situation = putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, questioning your methods…
- Recording to be able to rewatch and relisten to a situation as many times as needed, and also to focus on different things or actors.
- Triangulation = at least three points of view give us the possibility to be more objective and precise as possible.
In order to build accessibility, we must observe both the learner and the environment in which he/she is situated. A language educator has to create an accessible environment that allows learners with Specific Language Needs to become strategic learners by reinforcing their strong points and providing specific support for their weak points. The aim is to create the language learner profile through observation during the teaching process. The teaching phases are:
- Planning = identify personal and contextual factors that characterize the learner profile, as well as methodological barriers and resources.
- Implementation = monitor the effectiveness of teaching actions and their effects on classroom climate.
- Feedback = assess the effectiveness of the teaching process and the improvement in language learning. Throughout these phases teachers have to observe themselves to improve their actions (they can also be the observed subject). The language learner profile is a meta-observational tool because it collects, summarises, organises and interprets the data gathered by the language educator during the observation of the learner in context. Its purpose is to take an accurate snapshot of the learner’s characteristics in context, to be used as a starting point for our teaching activities. Needs analysis is a process that:
- allows to precisely define the learners’ language needs and their expectations of the language course.
- must be undertaken in consideration of learners’ future pragmatic needs, the need to learn how to learn (and how to become autonomous) and their current needs, as these factors drive their motivation.
