Country Studied: Finland
Area of Focus: Learning Difficulties
Type of learning difficulty the Best Practice is supporting:
- General or specific learning difficulties.
Aims and objectives of Best Practice
The learning difficulties program consisted mainly of strategy instruction, developing awareness of one’s learning style, and promoting self-esteem. The program could in practice be divided into four major components: strategy instruction, learning difficulties awareness sessions, English reading intervention and communication between school and home. The strategy instruction was based on each learner’s needs and a strong emphasis was put on organization, study habits, peer assisted learning, problem-solving and proof reading strategies. The learning difficulties awareness sessions, where learners were encouraged to discuss their fears, feelings and questions regarding their difficulties, were held weekly. Flashcards, phonics, dictations and reading aloud were used, among other things, in the English reading intervention. Communication between school and home included, for example, a review of 52 the strategies used in class and suggestions how the parents could maintain strategy use at home.
Short description of Best Practice
What learners with language processing difficulties need is extra time (for language processing difficulties, see subsection 2.2.1). They usually take so much time in formulating their answers in the classroom that they end up being accused of low motivation and not doing their homework (Smith and Strick 1997:52). Foreign language teaching to learning disabled learners should use basic materials and vocabulary and provide enough time for absorbing information before new material is introduced (Learning Disabilities Association 1994). Special education support is essential, too. As conventional methods of teaching reading and writing do not work, special alternate materials are needed (Smith and Strick 1997:55). Different learning strategies 57 can be very useful when learning oral skills, reading, and writing (Lerner 1993). Using spoken language for giving and answering test questions is a helpful idea, as is teaching learners specific strategies for organising and remembering written and verbal material (Smith and Strick 1997:55). Learners with learning difficulties can benefit a lot from the latest computer technology. Use of a multisensory teaching method together with repetition and use of computers has been noted especially useful (Learning Disabilities Association 1994). As most poorly performing foreign language learners have difficulties with the phonological and syntactic coding ability, they could benefit from explicit and direct instruction in the phonology and syntax of the foreign language.
3 Key learning Principles that were used in this Best Practice to support learners with LD
- Break learning tasks into small steps.
- Probe regularly to check your understanding.
- Provide regular quality feedback.
Strategies used as part of Best Practice
- Adapting instruction to various learning styles.
- Individualized Learning Plans.
- Guidance on creating and implementing individualized learning plans.
- Collaboration with support services and professionals.
- Strategies for modifying or creating teaching materials to suit different abilities.
- Creating a positive and supportive classroom environment.
- Other:
- Provide prompts of strategies to use and when to use them.
- Ask process-type questions such as “How is that strategy working?
- Use Direct Instruction.
- Provide simple instructions (preferably one at a time).
Results and impact
The results showed that the different teaching methods increased the subject’s learning motivation and ability to concentrate. In the beginning, self-evaluation was hard and unpleasant. Gradually, the subject improved in self-evaluation skills. The subject’s biggest problems lay in translating texts from English to Finnish, and in learning vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, using ready-made translations when going through text book passages was discovered to be a useful learning method for her. This way the subject’s time and energy were reserved for actually practicing the language. In the three and a half years following the study, the subject’s school satisfaction, learning skills, and motivation improved. In addition, the subject’s self-esteem increased significantly.
Evidence as to why this was considered Good Practice
The guidelines bring out several important aspects that teachers need to consider when teaching learners with learning difficulties. In addition, the guidelines include some specific teaching methods that have been shown to work well with these learners. Nevertheless, this is not enough. Teachers need more specific and detailed descriptions of exercises and teaching methods that would suit the learners who are struggling with learning difficulties. Moreover, the guidelines presented here are mostly written for teaching any subject at school, not just foreign languages. Therefore there is a serious need for more guidelines for teaching specifically foreign languages to learners with learning difficulties.
Transferability
These techniques can be used accordingly in other institutions if and when they are carried out by an expert.
Resources used as part of Best Practice
What learning disabled learners need is means of taking control of their own learning. By learning how to learn they acquire important skills needed in academic tasks, such as problem solving, and are able to overcome or lessen the effects of their learning disabilities (Lerner 1993:286). A widely used model for teaching learning strategies especially to learners with learning difficulties is the Strategies Intervention Model (SIM) (Lerner 1993:207). It aims at helping learners cope with the curricular demands of higher education in two phases (Lerner 1993:288-289). In the first phase, teachers should identify and determine the demands that learners are failing to meet. For example, learners could fail to identify and store important information needed for a test. In the second phase, teachers plan instruction that matches appropriate learning strategies with the failed demands. Thus the learners will acquire the skills they need at the moment as well as in the future. Following the previous example, instruction could include teaching learning strategies such as note-taking strategy, first-letter mnemonic strategy, and paired associate strategy that help identify and memorise key information for tests.
Critical issues
The color-note strategy is based on three memory strategies in Oxford s categorisation (1990). Firstly, it creates mental linkages by grouping certain linguistic variables together. Grouping means classifying language material into meaningful units to make the material easier to remember. Groups can be based on type of word (as was the case in this study), topic, practical function, linguistic function, similarity, dissimilarity and so on (Oxford 1990:40). Grouping the target words requires deep processing from the learner. This has been proven to enhance learning (Kristiansen 1998:71). Secondly, the color note strategy uses imagery in enhancing the use of memory with visual clues. This means relating new language information to concepts in memory by means of meaningful visual imagery (Oxford 1990:41). The image can be, for example, a picture of an object or a mental representation of the letters of a word. In this study, different colors were used as a visual aid. In fact, one way of making study materials more accessible to dyslexics especially is color coding (Farmer et al. 2002:173). Finally, the strategy employs action by combining physical movement with the learning session.
Any additional learning that we can take from this Best Practice, example:
Every learner has a unique learning style. Learning styles are value-neutral, that is, they represent different but equal ways of viewing the complex process of foreign language learning (Kinsella 1995:171). There is a wide range of definitions for describing a learning style because the concept involves so many aspects: perception, cognition, conceptualisation, affect, and behavior, to mention a few (Kinsella 1995). According to Reinert (1976:160-161), an individual’s learning style is the way in which that individual is programmed to learn most effectively, i.e., to receive, understand, remember, and be able to use new information . Kinsella (1995:171) defines learning styles as an individual’s natural, habitual, and preferred ways of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills which persist regardless of teaching methods or content area . A review of related literature reveals that the concept of learning style includes both sensory channel preferences, cognitive style, and lateralisation.
Any Additional Information or Resources
Studies have shown some correlation between anxiety and language performance, but, surprisingly, the direction of correlation has not always been consistent. In some cases the correlation has been negative and in some anxiety seems to have enhanced performance (Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991:187). Spolsky (1989) lists a couple of reasons why anxious learners do not make good learners: anxiety distracts from the task of learning and remembering new linguistic items, and it discourages the whole learning process. However, he also acknowledges another point of view, namely, that anxiety can have two effects: up to a certain point an anxious learner tries harder, but beyond this point anxiety prevents learning. Scovel (1978:139) explains this by introducing two types of anxiety: 1) facilitating anxiety which motivates the learner to fight the learning task, and 2) debilitating anxiety which motivates the learner to avoid the new learning task. This quite schizophrenic nature of anxiety has been studied further (see Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991:187-188).
