Teacher Discussion Forums

I'm tutoring an 11 year old foreign student in the USA, who has never been to school or had any sort of education before now. He didn't even know how to count past 10 in his native language, and never had much interaction with other kids.

So I have had to start from a pre-pre-school level with him and start teaching him the basic things that most preschool children already know. He is making progress, but it is very slow. I've been working with him for six months, and have taught him the numbers 1 - 10 (counting, pronunciation, 1-1 ratio, numeral recognition, numeral reproduction, and all the other basic number concepts that little kids seem to pick up on their own).

My theory is that he simply missed that early childhood "window of opportunity" so he has no idea how to learn.

Has anyone else here ever dealt with this sort of situation? Working with an EFL/ESOL student who has had absolutely no education before having to learn English? If so, I'd love to hear how you did it! Thanks.

Wow. What a tough thing--for you and the child.

Have you had the child's hearing tested? I haven't dealt with any kids who have been as neglected as this child apparently was. But in my experience when kids get that far in life yet know that little, it's either because they 1) couldn't hear the input around them, or 2) were on the autistic spectrum and therefore didn't realize the input was important to attend to. ...or they are severely mentally retarded. Just to rule out hearing loss, I'd strongly recommend a routine hearing screening. It only takes ten minutes and can be administered by an audiologist, a speech-language pathologist, most school nurses, and some pediatricians. An adult friend of mine ended up going to MIT, then got a Rhodes Scholarship, then went to Harvard for her Ph.D.--very smart woman. But when she was a kid everyone thought she was retarded because she had an undiagnosed hearing loss and thus had no clue what was going on around her. So I know first hand that hearing loss, sometimes even severe hearing loss, can be undiagnosed and can (until remediated) waste a brilliant mind. There, that's my rant for the day.

-EH

Thanks for the idea, and for the response.

Unfortunately, his hearing has been tested by at least three competent specialists -- and it's fine.

He appears to have no discernable autism or retardation. He does learn very slowly, *painfully slowly,* but my theory is that it's only because he missed the "window of learning" that most little kids have when they first start school. His home life, before he came here, offered very little learning or stimulating opportunities. So could it be that he simply never learned HOW to learn, like little kids do in school?

He can't be tested for any learning disabilities until after he has shown fluency in English for a couple years at least. So it's impossible to know whether there's a learning disability there, or whether it's that his brain has never actually had to do much work before. This is very much a "Jungle Book" type of situation, if you've ever read Kipling (except for the intelligent talking animals) . He had contact with other people before coming here -- but not many of them, and they were mostly as ignorant/uneducated as he is!

It was a good thought, though, the hearing thing. Keep the ideas coming!

You're so right that you can't use standardized English language tests to diagnose learning disabilities in a child like that. But actually, you do have other options along those lines.

First, you can contact a bilingual speech-language pathologist in your state. Find one in the right state, with the right languages by going to www.asha.org and clicking on Find A Professional. I'm a Korean-bilingual SLP in NJ, so that's how I know about this specialty area. A good bilingual SLP will have culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment materials and techniques to help you figure out what's going on with the child and what might help.

If no one at all is available in your state, you could try searching in other states and emailing them to see if they'll provide informal brainstorming services online. They can't make diagnoses, nor provide therapy programs in states where they're not licensed, but (if they have time) they can help you get on the right track and know what questions to ask at least.

Another option is to partner with a local special education teacher. Even if you can't get the child qualified for special services via the formal testing route, you can certainly show that the child cannot access the regular education curriculum with the skills he has, and that he needs help. Now that the No Child Left Behind laws include Response to Intervention as a possibility, kids can be given services on a trial basis before the actual formal evaluation has taken place. It's a way of catching kids before they fail rather than waiting for them to fall on their faces. It's a pretty new concept, though, and not all school districts have gotten used to it yet. You may need to do some research on this topic and present your findings to the school authorities to convince them it's okay to offer special education to this child.

You asked whether it's possible for an unstimulating language environment to cause the sort of difficulties you're seeing. Yes, I suppose it is possible. But I've never run across such an environment of utter neglect and isolation, myself. My suspicion, based on the very limited info I have about this child, is that it's not just the environment he came from but rather environment coupled with some degree of cognitive impairment. Obviously, I'm just guessing here. You really need to find a local expert to help you out, and again, I recommend www.asha.org to do it.

Good luck,
-EH