Students with Special Needs in the Language Classroom.

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Students with Special Needs in the Language Classroom

Students that show the need for special education are those who have more difficulties that the rest of the students in understanding curriculum that is at their age level.  Reasons for the difficulties could be the result of a series of internal causes or the result of an inadequate educational approach.  To overcome these deficiencies, the student needs a series of conditions that offer special adaptations to ordinary curriculum, such as including a list of specific resources that the students can use   that differ than those which the school offers on a daily basis.

The language teacher has to pay special attention to the use of written and oral language in the foreign language in the classroom.  There are effective motivation devices that, with correct use, help the slower learners include themselves in the progress of the class, as well as ensure that the gifted students do not lose time or get bored.  There are also useful devices for those studetns with special needs; in carefully selected materials they can find the help necessary to reach the objectives layed out for their situation.  The teacher should pull the maximum benefit from the interaction among students through performing and acting out role-plays, readings, recordings or songs, description of illustrations, photographs, etc. Also  the teacher could find beneficial the oral comprehension exercises, in which the students must find some particular information.

        The teacher must consider that the student’s learning difficulties mainly have interactive origins.  This means that the difficulties depend as much on the student’s own characteristics as on the environment in which the student develops, and his or her response to it.  The pedagogical adjustments that those responsable of education have suggested go in two directions:

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  1. Adaptations to curriculum access: modifications of the spatial and material aspects of the educational intervention allow the students with special needs to study regular curriculum.
  2. Curriculum adaptations: modifications in planning objectives, contents, activity methodology and criteria, and evaluation processes that take diversity of needs into account.  

We talk about curriculum adaptation when the modifications done reach the point of eliminating basic skills taught.  If the case is that in which the skills eliminated are a complete area, then we talk about curriculum diversification (only in second cycle of ESO).

        Another criteria that ...

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