Personalized Learning: Empowering a Student with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Basic Grammar Course

Abstract

<p>This paper provides illustrations of how a personalized learning approach is implemented in the Basic Grammar course to empower a student with an autism spectrum disorder is taking the ownership of learning and meeting his learning needs based on his strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Building upon literature and pedagogical practices of personalized learning, this paper details the innovations implemented in the Basic Grammar course for a student with an autism spectrum disorder to take more control of his learning, facilitate decision-making and communication skills, and engage in the learning process. Additionally, the innovations implemented in this course mirror the essence and principles of personalized learning. This paper is expected to enrich educators in the attempts to adopt a personalized learning approach and to give new insight into how to implement personalized learning in an inclusive classroom. Moreover, it is hoped that the idea of equity in inclusive education by implementing personalized learning could be an omnipresent practice to improve the quality of education for all in Indonesia.</p>

Individualized Guidance to Empower an L2 Learner With Autism Spectrum Disorder in Academic Essay Writing

“…Teachers' interventions, furthermore, have been reported to facilitate learners with ASD to learn an L2 despite their deficiency in expressing their thoughts. This has been reported in numerous studies in different L2 contexts, for example, in Spain (Aran, 2018), Colombia (Martínez & Carvajal, 2021), Nigeria (Ugwuanyi et al, 2018), Hong Kong (Chan & Lo, 2016), Thailand (Opartkiattikul et al, 2014), Malaysia (Yahya et al, 2013), and Indonesia (Kurniawati, 2020;Padmadewi & Artini, 2017;Sari et al, 2021;Subekti, 2020b). In a study in Hong Kong by Chan and Lo (2016), the teacher participants teaching autistic learners enthusiastically expressed their beliefs in the need to support learners with special needs in the L2 classroom.…”

“…Furthermore, teachers of learners with ASD need to use appropriate teaching methods to ensure that learners get involved in the instructional process. Some teachers use teaching aids to engage them, such as, using vocabulary cards self-made by a learner with ASD that could enhance the participant's vocabulary mastery (Subekti, 2020b) and individualized instruction to facilitate a learner with ASD in grammar class (Kurniawati, 2020). Numerous other studies supported the importance of applying suitable methods as well.…”

An Autistic Student's Language Learning Strategies in Writing Poem

“…The Second study is written by (Yulianti, 2018) and focuses on Learning Language applied by students in writing English text. The third previous study written (Kurniawati, 2020) Personalized Learning: Empowering a Student with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Basic Grammar Course.…”

Differentiated Instruction for ASD Students in an EFL Class

“…Since the students' needs and abilities in the classroom are various, especially in inclusive schools (where regular students learn in the same class with special needs students), the teacher may implement Differentiated Instructions (henceforth DI) in teaching (Kurniawati, 2020). Endal et al (2013) define DI as "a process in teaching and learning for students of differing abilities in the same class."…”

“…Additionally, in high schools, there were studies conducted by Aftab (2015) and Block and Zeman (1996), Endal et al (2013), and Marlina and Efrina (2019). In higher education, some studies about DI in English classes were researched by Kurniawati (2020), Kurniawati et al (2019), andSubekti, 2020). Therefore, this study was conducted in a private elementary school in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, as there were limited studies about the implementation of DI in English classes for elementary school students.…”