Job Discussion Forums

[spiral78]

Wow. Interesting update. You're probably correct that he's got some undiagnosed learning disability.


I know what you mean about extensive prep being unrealistic.

It's useful that repeated watching of short video helped him comprehend, at least. Maybe that's repeatable - lots of short UTubes around, and perhaps in his field? You might try one video of five minutes or less and repeat it with different focuses....

Or ship him off to CERAN

http://www.google.ca/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=CERAN+Belgium&aq=f&aqi=g1g-v2g-b1&aql=&oq=

[artemisia]

Wow, this is tough! I think that's right and he has a (possibly undiagnosed) learning disability. In which case, what he really needs is a different kind of training with a French special needs teacher. That�s not much help to you but at least it gives you a realistic idea of what you can(�t) achieve with him in an EFL classroom. I can appreciate what you�ve said about preparation and time as well as familiarity but I think he�s probably used to �failing� with language, so I�d try to do some basic experiments with him. If you do make up some resources you will be able to reuse them � probably a lot with him. Do you have a picture dictionary?

I know you've already taught group related vocab such as colours but I'd make that a repeated and reduced focal point. E.g. names of pieces of fruit with related picture words and cards. I�d use this as starting point for seeing what associations he can make/ remember with groups of things. Once he�s �learnt� the vocab, matching word cards might be helpful here so that he doesn�t have the �pressure� of having to produce the word himself (if he can�t) when he sees the object. (I know with dyslexia, one method is to focus on saying the word and �writing� it in the air with a finger while saying it � but this might not be a comfortable thing to do with him!). From this you�ll get an idea of what associated words he can remember (imperfectly) and you could go on to the same with pictures of computer parts etc.

Re: the sentence examples:
"What is x name?
x x is Bill
He is x London

The result was:
What is hits name?
Hits mame is Bill
He is job London"

With basic sentences and gapfills, you could try reducing what he has to do. E.g. he looks only at subject pronouns and then does a gapfill with missing subject pronouns. Then the same with possessive adjectives, then missing verbs with �to be�, etc. You could keep reusing the same exercise and just take out very basic different parts of speech each time. Again, you could have small groups of cards of pronouns/ verbs and so on as a backup so if he can't write (say) it, he might initially be able to pick the correct word out of a group of similar words.
At least you know the DVD idea mostly worked well and you�ll be able to repeat this. If possible, I�d try the same �group� idea with revising (pre-taught in groups) vocab from the DVD but that might not be practical/ possible. You might find nothing works with him, anyway.
Good luck!

[Kofola]

Hi,

Glad to hear the video was a success. And that he enjoyed and felt motivated by it. I imagine keeping him motivated will be one of the biggest challenges, given that everything is so difficult for him.

I don't know how much experience you've had working with learners with dyslexia. I have a couple of students, but they were already high int to advanced by the time I got them. I don't know nearly enough about dyslexia and foreign language learning and fortunately mine have fairly mild forms. However, one thing I have really noticed is that it really affects their ability to deal with syntax - in both written and spoken language, which really increases the load. By adulthood they have lots of coping strategies of their own. One seems to be interpreting things. I find that they tend to rely on interpreting certain key words in a random way. Sometimes this seems to be a face-saving mechanism (they don't want to take too long in finding the answer etc) and at other times they genuinely can't seem to cope with the syntax. Your post about the vocab in the video seems similar to this.

Hopefully other people on the board will have more experience with this. My only suggestion is to try and keep it as simple as possible. Perhaps get him to repeat a lot of things, rather than changing syntax eg avoid questions-answers but simply get him to replace information in sentences from the source with sentences about him. Perhaps you could also use pictures in conjunction with the video to help with the vocab. Knowing what his coping strategies are would prob be a great help - you could tap into them. However, it took me months and months to work out some of the things my students do! And I still don't feel I really have a handle on this.

School experiences with older dyslexics is also an issue. I had one student who if he thought he wasn't going to be able to do something then he wouldn't even try. Emotional baggage from being laughed at at school I think.

Good luck!

[riverboat]

[Justin Trullinger]

I've stayed off this thread since early, cause it was sort of getting into debating the whole "can some people just not learn a second language" question.

It's easy to have an opinion on that, hard to have any hard evidence. Empirical evidence about innate capability isn't easy to show.

Certainly, a lot of people fail to learn second languages. Even many who seem to be trying, fail. (Though it's often apparent that they are trying hard in ineffective ways.) The fact of failing to learn a language doesn't really prove they were somehow inherently unable, though- just that they didn't do it. I once trained for a marathon I never ran, if you see what I mean.

The most strikiing part of the OP for me was this-

[riverboat]

[artemisia]

[Mrs McClusky]

Keep going, he seems to be coming along just fine.

[Mrs McClusky]