I would endorse what Helen says here - when ESOL students have very
low oral and literacy levels it is pretty difficult to determine
whether they have an additional difficulty such as dyslexia. I think
one of the problems is that the acquistion of literacy in another
language when you are not literate in your first is an extreme
challenge and progress can be very slow, (certainly slower than
current regimes dependant on exam success and progress through levels
would allow). On top of this is the fact that unless there are
bilingual teachers/assistants available, tuition is only available in
learners' L2, creating a further challenge to the learner.
While some students do well and make good progress in ESOL literacy
classes there are others who struggle for a long time - this is part
and parcel of this particular area of work. It is easy to
underestimate the challenges facing these kind of students - the
frustration this causes for teachers sometimes leads them to try to
get a diagnosis of a learning difficulty (I have heard teachers say
'all the learners in my class have dyslexia', a fairly unlikely event,
statistically).
I have had woeful results with ed psychs trying to diagnose ESOL
students - one spent a few hours interviewing me about what I knew
about a particular student, and her report basically consisted of a
re-hash of my words and little else. I personally think we should
focus our energies, and institutions should focus their money, on more
intensive programmes, smaller classes and training bilingual teachers
and assistants - (and yes this does cost money, and no we are not
likely to get it in the current climate!!!).
Best
Melanie
Quoting "Sunderland, Helen Charlotte" <[log in to unmask]>:
> Dear Lynn
>
> LLU+ had a working party looking at this issue, many years ago now,
> which produced a book called "Dyslexia and the Bilingual Learner" and
> is available from Avanti Books, (Sunderland et al 1997).
>
> We have found, though, that with learners who have had very little
> education in their own language, it is really difficult to tell if
> it's lack of education or cognitive difference. And you would need to
> ask yourself why you need to know? Is it that the learner is really
> frustrated and doesn't understand why they aren't making progress?
> This was the case with one of my students. You will see her case study
> in a paper I wrote - Sunderland (2000) Diagnosing Multilingual Adults
> in Peer and Reid (2000) Multilingualism and Dyslexia, London: BDA
> which also describes the assessment I did. But, as the BDA points out,
> dyslexia friendly teaching methods are learner friendly too, and at
> this level it may be enough to have an awareness of these. We have a
> chapter on teaching basic literacy to learners who may be dyslexic in
> our book Spiegel and Sunderland (2006) Teaching Basic Literacy to ESOL
> Learners in which we look a possible screening questions and also
> dyslexia friendly teaching methodology.
>
> I wouldn't recommend bringing in an Ed Psych for these kind of
> learners. I don't want to damn a whole profession, but in my
> experience they don't have the cross-cultural experience to diagnose
> learners from non-European backgrounds or those who have never learnt
> to read and write in any language. Instead, why don't you consider
> sending one of your ESOL team on a dyslexia course and building your
> own expertise in-house?
>
> Best of luck, anyway,
>
> Helen
>
>
>
> Helen Sunderland
> Head of ESOL
> Assistant Director, LLU+
> London South Bank University
> 103 Borough Road
> London SE1 0AA
>
> tel. +44 (0)207 815 6285
> fax. +44 (0)207 815 6296
>
> LLU+ (formerly London Language and Literacy Unit)
> Why not visit our website at www.lsbu.ac.uk/lluplus
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board on behalf of
> Lynn Smart
> Sent: Thu 6/19/2008 14:58
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: ALS assessment for ESOL learners
>
>
>
> I'd be really grateful for some practical advice on assessing specific
> literacy difficulties and cognitive difficulties in ESOL students.
> We're a small provider, teaching intensive Skills for Life courses
> mainly for asylum seekers, refugees and 16-19 year old looked after
> children. Many of our learners come with no literacy in their first
> language. Some have also had such troubled backgrounds that they find
> settling in to learn a language quite challenging. But even taking
> into account factors like these, we sometimes suspect that dyslexia,
> dyspraxia, behavioural or cognitive difficulties might play a part in
> holding learners back.
>
>
>
> We're based at a VI form college where the vast majority of mainstream
> students are studying AS/A levels and the college is in Brighton, so
> we don't have the local community expertise that providers located in
> many cities probably do. My colleagues and I are concerned that
> without appropriate assessment, these learners aren't accessing all
> the help they should be getting.
>
>
>
> I'm told that bringing in an ed psych with an interpreter would be
> prohibitively expensive. Should we be pushing for this? Are there
> other forms of assessment that could be helpful?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Lynn
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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