Using Technology to Meet the Needs of At-Risk Students &

Students with Learning Disabilities Learning in the

Foreign Language Classroom

Sixth International Conference on

Language Teacher Education

2009Eve Leons, Associate Professor, Landmark College

eleons@landmark.edu

Why Some Students Struggle The ease at which a student will learn a foreign

language is closely related to their native language skills.

Students with weak native language skills have poor appreciation for the “rule systems” of language: phonology, morphology and syntax. This weakness can make decoding and understanding grammatical explanations difficult.

There are connections between weakness in phonological working memory and both short-term and long-term language learning.

Why Some Students Struggle

Difficulties with verbal working memory seem to be strongly associated with both AD/HD and language based learning disabilities.

It is not uncommon for this group of students to have issues with “executive functioning.” This means that students will have difficulty with materials management, time management, setting priorities, meeting deadlines and studying independently.

Why computer based practice?

Students with weaker language processing and memory abilities benefit from getting information via multiple sensory pathways and multiple formats.

Students with learning disabilities & those classified “at-risk” need ways in which they can study more efficiently and have access to the sounds of the language outside of class time.

Students benefit from:

the ability to self-pace

rapid feedback

increased opportunity to practice language in ways that are structured and multimodal. (Stevens & Marsh, 2005).

Overview of Tools

Course Management Tools

On-line Practice Materials

Useful Language Lab Features

Reading Support

Accessible Textbooks Text-to-Speech

programs On-line/electronic

dictionaries Speech-to-Text

programs

Universal Design

While these tools can be instrumental in the success of struggling students, they work equally well for students of all ability levels.

Most of these tools can be used in the study of other academic areas as well.

Problem Solution Students have difficulty

keeping track of assignments, prioritizing, organizing their time & materials

Students may not have an accurate picture of how they are performing academically in class. They may think they are doing much better or much worse than they actually are.

Course managementtools such as Moodle allow teachers to help students stay organized by posting assignments, deadlines, and electronic copies of course materials.

On-line grade books help students keep track of missing assignments, prioritize & understand their current grade. Some students use on-line grade books as a way to keep themselves motivated.

Ex. On-line Course Management (Moodle)

Problem Solution

Students lose materials, study inefficiently, and require practice materials which are multi-modal.

On-line practice materials can be easier to manage than paper materials, CD’s, CD-ROMS etc. because they are available from any computer, 24 hours a day.

With on-line materials,

students can practice in a structured, multi-modal environment that provides support and feedback.

Links can be integrated into a course management system.

Problem Solution

Students with weaker language processing abilities often experience textbooks & textbook practice materials as an overwhelming flood of information.

Teacher created practice materials allow individual instructors to highlight the information they want students to prioritize.

They also give teachers the ability to present information in a way that meshes with how content is presented in class.

Examples of On-line resources that allow teachers to make their own practice materials

easily

http://www.quia.com

http://conjuguemos.com

http://www.byki.com

http://clear.msu.edu

http://www.wordchamp.com

http://flashcardmachine.com

On-line Vocabulary Practice

Programs such as Quia, WordChamp, and BYKI flashcards allow students to:

hear & see the language simultaneously• control how much material they are working with

at any given time• practice at their own speed• practice in a way that is hands on & fun.

Ex. On-line vocabulary practice: Quia

Ex. On-line Vocabulary Practice: BYKI (note integration of mnemonic)

On-line Verb Conjugation Practice: Example – conjuguemos.com

Conjuguemos allows students to self-pace & control how much material they want to practice. It gives students access to a grammatical reference and gives teachers the ability to view student work.

Ex. On-line Verb Practice: Conjugemos.com

Conjuguemos.com – Note the ability for students to control amount of material to be

practiced

Mash-ups: MSU CLEAR

Mash-ups – Ex. MSU Center for Language Education & Research

The term "mash-up" refers to the combination of data from one or more web services with customized functionality or data. In the case of CLEAR's mash-ups, the term refers to the combination of an audio or video clips with an exercise and additional text. The idea is to combine media elements to create a new resource for language teaching.

Mash-ups put it all together Mash-ups give teachers

the ability to easily integrate audio, video, text & practice materials in a variety of formats.

The link to the mash-up itself can be added to the class website or course management page.

Mash-ups can house a learning sequence. For example, students can click on a link that takes them to Quia to review vocabulary, then Conjuguemos to review tricky verbs and then back to the mash-up where they can enter a teacher created dialog, record their responses and submit the recording.

On-line dialog practice: Students can listen to the question, record their response, & submit recording.

The free, web-based BBC materials such a Talk Spanish or Mi Vida Loca are good examples of “pre-made” materials that work well for students of all ability levels.

They combine visual & auditory input with the ability to see written text in both English and the target language. Audio is high quality, without background noise.

Practice activities are simple, clear, and fun.

On-line BBC materials

Problem Solution Students may have phonological

processing issues or attention issues which make it difficult to work with auditory input. They may have difficulty parsing speech and catching individual words, even cognates and familiar words, in a stream of speech.

Students who are slow-processors may have difficulty formulating their thoughts and retrieving language quickly. This can make in-class participation challenging.

Students may benefit from the ability to self-pace and slow down sound as needed. They may also benefit from having audio and video materials paired with subtitles in the L2. Language labs such as Sony Soloist offer students this feature. Teachers can also “bookmark” very specific segments of video or audio for students to work with. These tools give students an effective way to process auditory input.

Consider A-synchronous “chat” to have students generate language. Slow processors benefit from the opportunity to take language slightly out of “real time” in order to gather their thoughts and create the language they want to use to express their ideas. The Sony Soloist Lab also offers this feature.

Language Lab: Sony Soloist (audio is paired with text, students can use the Varispeed tool to slow down the audio, & use the bookmark tool to listen to very specific segments of the audio content.)

Problem Solution Students may have

difficulty decoding and reading text in the second language and potentially their first as well.

Students receiving services under IDEA 2004 and who are unable to read standard print materials due to physical limitations (blindness, low vision, physical disability, or organically-based reading disability) are eligible for accessible textbooks.

Kurzweil is one text-to-speech program that can work with a number of foreign languages.

Text-to-Speech (Kurzweil)

Text-to-Speech Text-to-speech programs, such as Kurzweil

3000, give students the ability to hear written text, get easy access to a word’s definition, make voice/written notes, etc.

FREE Text-to-Speech Software Click, Speak – a Mozilla Firefox add-on that uses your system voices to read back text automatically or by selection. http://clickspeak.clcworld.net/

WordTalk – an inconspicuous and easy to use add-on for MS Word that will read back your document while highlighting each word. http://www.wordtalk.org.uk/

Problem Solution

Students may have difficulty with comprehension due to a lack of fluidity in their reading. They may lose their train of thought if they get stuck on unknown vocabulary.

WordChamp web reader allows students to read an on-line text and get definitions for unknown words quickly by highlighting a word.

Text-to-Speech programs such as Kurzweil offer similar capability.

Reading Support: ex. WordChamp Web Reader

Reading Support: ex.WordChamp web reader

Problem Solution

Students have difficulty with paper dictionaries because they lack a sound component and because of the time it takes to look up a word.

Students benefit from electronic dictionaries because they can quickly get a definition which helps them stay on track with their language task.

Access to sound is also a clear benefit. Web-based dictionaries & hand-held electronic talking dictionaries such as those produced by Franklin are more user friendly.

On-line dictionary: ex. WordReference.com

Ex. WordReference.com definition w/ sound available

Problem Solution Written out-put can be

difficult for students for a wide variety of reasons including difficulty organizing thoughts, spelling, and for some difficulty typing or writing by hand.

Students can benefit from a variety of support tools such the spelling/grammar tools within word processing programs, as well as the electronic dictionaries mentioned earlier. Software such as “Inspiration” can help students organize their ideas.

Speech-to-text programs such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, Via Voice, iListen, QPointer Voice, SpeakQ, and Microsoft) can be useful to some students with written output difficulties. However, most of these programs have been designed for English.

Speech-to-Text: ex. Dragon Naturally Speaking available in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian & Spanish

Thanks for taking the time to think about integrating some of these ideas into your

teaching.

Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments.