Students with Disabilities

Abstract

until the school day started. Andrew loved to greet me in Spanish with a big smile on his face and hold the door open for me. Andrew was indeed one of my most eager students. He did not learn the vocabulary as quickly as some of the other third graders, but he was excited to be in Spanish class and excited to use whatever he did learn. Andrew is also a student with autism.As the example illustrates, it is possible for students with disabilities to be included successfully in foreign language instruction, even from a young age. This article shows why such instruction can be important and how it can be done effectively. Access for All to the General CurriculumWith the provisions of both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 1997 and, educators must ensure that all students have the opportunity to participate and progress in the general curriculum.These requirements are further bolstered by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001; all students between Grades 3 and 8 are to be tested annually in math and language arts (and in science in selected grades beginning in 2007), and students are to be tested in these subjects at least once during their high school years as well. Clearly, teachers of students with disabilities are devoting considerable effort to how their students with disabilities can be included in the general curriculum and achieve at high levels (Clayton,

Coping with Challenges in Teaching Foreign Languages to Children with Mild Intellectual Disabilities: Stakeholders’ Perspectives

“…Another method worth referring to is the Total Physical Response (TPR) [27,60]. This can be especially helpful to students as it optimizes the processing and storage of information by establishing links between kinesics and memory.…”

“…When zeroing in on subtheme teaching strategies and techniques, the existing literature highlights the importance of making learning strategies explicit, since it is the development of the students' talents that is at stake [60,62]. This helps these students gradually acquire some autonomy in their learning process.…”

“…This helps these students gradually acquire some autonomy in their learning process. Among these strategies, the aforementioned authors [60,62], indicate frequent revision and repetition; choral repetition; the utilization of color patterns to learn linguistic aspects; and the use of guides and/or organizers. At the same time, we cannot underestimate the importance of the affective aspects and the classroom atmosphere.…”

Inclusive Foreign Language Assessment in Trying Times: Pre-service Teachers’ Attribution Mechanisms and Their Implications for Inclusive Emergency Remote Teaching

“…Some of these efforts have relied on the use of labels or categorization of learners, which inadvertently could lead to the perpetuation of the conviction that foreign language learning is not meant for or essential to everyone (c.f. Kleinert, Cloyd, Rego & Gibson 2007), or that some learners may underperform just because they exhibit certain traits. In fact, as Dose (2019) documents in her study, German foreign language teachers of English express that they do in fact place different expectations on different groups of students in inclusive settings, especially with respect to their educational goals.…”

“…In the German context FLE was long regarded not worth pursuing among students with special educational needs (cf. Kleinert et al 2007;Morse 2008;Dose 2019). As a construct, CC is also multifaceted enough to display considerable individual differences between learners.…”