Assistive Technology for ESL students?

[alexibaga]

Hello,

I am new to this forum, but I thought I would let you know of a recent presentation I saw that may be relevant to some of you.

Last week I attended the C-Sun conference in L.A.X. This is a conference for technology that is designed specifically for the disabled community, but during the show I heard a very interesting presentation about software that can be used for ESL learners.

A software product that is used by people with Dyslexia was suggested to have great potential for ESL students by a lady from a University in England. It is a literacy support tool with things like word prediction, homophone support and phonetic spell checking. All features I think you will agree could be useful to an ESL student. I have found most students struggle with the phonetics of the language at first aswell as the homophones. It would appear that dyslexic students have similar problems.

I was wondering if anyone has used this product for ESL kids, I am a private tutor and I may purchase it for my home computer for classes, but before I do, I would like to find out any one has used it or if they think it is useful.

The product is called Read and Write, it is made by an Irish company called Texthelp Ltd. I have included the link to their site incase any of you may be interested. I have requested a presentation CD from their site and will let you know if I think it is good. Any feedback or ideas for other technology would be appreciated.

http://www.texthelp.com/rwg.asp?q1=products&q2=rwg

Kind Regards,

Alexi