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IN RECENT years the issue of accommodations, waivers, and course substitutions for students who are at risk for learning a foreign language (FL) in college has received increasing attention in both learning disabilities (LD) and FL journals. The Journal of Learning Disabilities, for example, devoted a special edition to this issue. Over the past two years, articles on the subject also have appeared in Annals of Dyslexia and Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal. There also have been articles in foreign language journals, such as Modern Language Journal, Foreign Language Annals, and Language Testing. In 1999 Richard Sparks and James Javorsky provided an update for the ADFL Bulletin on laws regarding students with LD and foreign language study.
Lately, and particularly since a recent lawsuit against Boston University included FL study as a legal issue between students (plaintiffs) and the university (defendants), the issue of accommodations and services for at-risk FL learners has become fraught with questions and concerns. The chairs of FL departments at universities are likely to be caught in the middle of the debate, because they must make decisions about how to address the needs of these students. For this article, the authors used a question-and-answer format and worked collaboratively to develop and answer eight questions. Special educator Leonore Ganschow designed the questions, which were approved by the two respondents, Robert Shaw and Richard Sparks. Shaw and Sparks had served as expert witnesses for, respectively, plaintiffs (students) and the university (Boston University and its board of trustees) in the aforementioned lawsuit, which addressed the legal rights of students classified as learning disabled (also LD). During the trial, Shaw and Sparks addressed questions specifically related to FL study.
Foreign language researchers-educators such as John Carroll (Carroll and Sapon) and Paul Pimsleur (Pimsleur, Sundland, and McIntyre) were among the first to write about underachieving FL learners, and both developed tests to measure aptitude for learning a foreign language in the 1960s. The first reports about students classified as LD occurred in 1971 when Kenneth Dinklage, a counselor at Harvard, wrote a chapter in a book on Harvard students about waivers at Harvard for students who exhibited signs of dyslexia and failed to meet the FL requirement. From this point on, literature began to emerge that connected LD with FL problems. In 1989 a survey of LD service providers at over 150 colleges and universities showed that about 74% of the institutions questioned reported that they had procedures for allowing students classified as LD to either waive the FL requirement or substitute the language requirement with related courses. Also, around this time FL educator Barbara Freed issued a position statement for the ADFL Bulletin readers about procedures for the petitioning process. Research during the 1990s has called into question some of the assumptions in the field of special education about the nature and diagnosis of LD, about who can and who cannot pass FL courses, and about the substitution-waiver process. These issues led us to develop the questions raised in this article about FLs for university students classified as LD or having difficulty with FLs. Each question is followed by a response from Shaw and Sparks.
SHAW: Learning another language has long been considered an important aspect of a liberal education. Thinking about how to teach students who have difficulty learning an FL helps us to teach all students more effectively. Considering when and whether to allow substitutions for the FL requirement helps us clarify the role of FL teaching in a liberal education.
It is especially important for institutions to develop clear policies, endorsed by all constituents of the university, regarding procedures for students with FL difficulties. These policies will help the parties involved—students, parents, professors, and administrators—know the students’ options and make more informed decisions.
SPARKS: Chairpersons of university FL departments and administrators of FL programs will inevitably encounter students who claim they have a learning disability or who have been classified previously as LD. Some of these students will request instructional accommodations in FL courses. Some universities have policies that make students classified as LD eligible for course substitutions for or waivers from the FL requirement. Because they will encounter these students, it is important that department chairs and administrators be aware of the LD concept, how learning disabilities are diagnosed generally, and the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
SHAW: Extensive research over the last several decades shows that students have difficulty with FL learning for many different reasons. However, some generalizations can be made. Most FL learning difficulties stem from cognitive rather than from affective problems. Often, difficulty in an FL is related to deficits in the student’s first-language abilities, particularly deficits in phonological coding.
This research suggests that a multifaceted instructional approach, presenting material in a variety of ways, will be successful with a greater number of students than a more limited instructional strategy. This research also suggests that FL teaching should include specific instruction in the phonological aspects of language.
SPARKS: Current research indicates that good FL learners have significantly stronger native-language skills (i.e., reading, spelling, vocabulary, writing) and show greater FL aptitude (on the Modern Language Aptitude Test [MLAT]) than poor FL learners. Students with significantly stronger native-language skills and FL aptitude achieve higher levels of FL proficiency (on proficiency measures using the guidelines of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages [ACTFL]) than students with weaker native-language skills and FL aptitude. Furthermore, it is unlikely that affective differences (e.g., motivation, anxiety) are the causal factor in poor FL learning, although affective differences may correlate with good and poor FL learning. Our studies have shown that the primary problems of poor FL learners are language-related, a finding that only makes sense: FL learning is the learning of language.
SHAW: The practice at our campus is similar to that at most other institutions. Students who have persistent and puzzling difficulties with the work in the college courses are referred to the coordinator of LD services for a screening interview. If the screening interview indicates that the difficulties are characteristic of a learning disability and are not readily explainable by environmental conditions such as emotional distress or poor academic preparation, the student may be referred for a comprehensive psychoeducational assessment. This testing provides a diagnosis as well as information about specific areas of weakness in the student’s academic skills that should be addressed in supplementary instruction or reasonably accommodated.
A diagnostic report consists of a detailed description of the student’s academic strengths and weaknesses as well as a diagnosis (if one is warranted by the data). A diagnosis alone does not justify reasonable accommodations; any reasonable accommodations must address specific impairments described in the documentation. For example, not every student with a diagnosis of a learning disability will require accommodations in FL classes. The documentation should present evidence of specific language-processing disabilities that impair performance in a language class.
SPARKS: Students suspected of having LD are usually evaluated by a psychologist or educational consultant. Medical doctors (pediatricians and psychiatrists) generally do not evaluate for LD. Anyone can make a referral of a student for evaluation. One assesses for learning disabilities by taking careful (and verifiable) developmental, social, and academic histories of the student (including copies of school records); by administering a standardized intelligence (IQ) test; and by administering standardized measures of academic achievement (reading, spelling, writing, oral language, mathematics). At the present time, the standard manner in which the concept of LD is made operational is through a discrepancy between one’s score on the IQ test and scores on the academic achievement test. The discrepancy should be significant, generally 1.5-2.0 standard deviations. Also, the student should exhibit below average scores (under the twenty-fifth percentile) on the academic achievement tests to indicate current difficulty with native-language skills.
SHAW: We have found at Brown University that all students who have difficulty with FLs benefit from multisensory teaching and intensive supplementary tutoring. The presence or absence of an LD diagnosis has not affected the determination of an appropriate teaching methodology.
SPARKS: Research findings show that there are not significant differences in IQ, academic achievement, and FL aptitude (on the MLAT) between students classified as LD who have FL learning problems and students not classified as LD who have FL learning problems. The primary problem of both types of poor FL learners is that they have overt or subtle differences in their language skills. Our research has shown that these differences manifest themselves generally in the phonological (sound), phonological-orthographic (sound-symbol), and, sometimes, syntactic aspects of language. Thus, it is unlikely that students classified as LD and students not classified as LD, both of whom have FL learning problems, would need different types of instruction to learn an FL. However, this is an empirical question that has not yet received rigorous investigation.
SHAW: I will defer to Sparks’s description of effective teaching techniques in the classroom because he has conducted extensive research in this area.
SPARKS: In some of our studies, we have investigated a technique for teaching an FL that derives from a method designed to teach native-language reading, spelling, and writing to students with learning difficulties. Some of these studies have included students classified as LD; however, many of the students in these studies were having problems with both native-language and FL learning but were not (and could not be) classified as LD. This approach is called the Orton-Gillingham method, which my colleagues and I have described in a number of articles. Using this method, the instructor teaches directly and explicitly the phonology, phonology-orthography, and syntax of the FL. Our studies have shown that at-risk students (LD and non-LD) who were taught Spanish using this methodology achieved significant increases in several aspects of their native language and in FL aptitude (on the MLAT) over two years of instruction. A recent study showed that an at-risk group of FL learners taught Spanish using this method achieved levels of oral and written FL proficiency after two years of instruction that were not significantly different from the FL proficiency of a group of not-at-risk FL learners who were taught Spanish using traditional teaching methods.
SHAW: This is perhaps the most interesting question in the list. It calls for a discussion of the meaning of reasonable accommodations as well as a discussion of whether FL learning, per se, is an essential aspect of a liberal education.
Reasonable accommodations are, by definition, modifications in the normal academic routine that directly relate to a student’s documented impairment and that do not alter the essential aspects of the academic program nor cause undue hardship to the institution. A student with a documented disability who has difficulty learning an FL is certainly eligible for modifications in the regular academic routine if theses modifications help the student learn the language and do not alter the essential aspects of the school’s academic program. Reasonable accommodations such as supplementary tutoring or extended time on examinations are relatively common in FL programs in colleges and universities in the United States.
The controversial question is whether institutions of higher education should allow students with a learning disability to substitute courses in related fields to satisfy the school’s FL requirement. I have argued elsewhere that schools should consider this accommodation only as a last resort, when other measures such as supplementary tutoring or modified instruction have not been successful. There are many sound educational reasons why FL instruction should be part of a student’s education, and students should not be deprived of these benefits simply because they have a learning disability.
However, I believe, based on fifteen years of experience, that a small number of students cannot learn an FL in a university classroom environment, even with extraordinary assistance. These students should be allowed to substitute related courses for the school’s FL requirement. Because definitions in the literature of a liberal education are so varied and the implementations of a liberal education are so diverse among institutions of higher education in the United States, it is difficult for any school to argue successfully that FL learning is an essential component of its education for all students.
Many of the best schools in the country do not require FL learning of all their students, and most of the schools that do require courses in an FL do not require anything approaching fluency as a requirement for graduation. Other than fluency in a second language, two commonly cited benefits of FL learning are providing a perspective on one’s first language and becoming acquainted with a culture other than one’s own. Both of these benefits also can occur through direct instruction in courses such as the history and structure of English, introductory linguistics courses, and courses taught in English about other cultures.
The diversity of curricula among colleges and universities in the United States demonstrates that there are many ways to achieve the goals of a liberal education; allowing a small number of students with severe FL learning difficulties to meet these goals in courses other than a foreign language simply makes good educational sense.
SPARKS: Students classified as LD are eligible for instructional accommodations from a university. Students not classified as LD are not legally eligible for instructional accommodations. To make an informed decision about accommodations, FL educators need to know the following: What is a learning disability? Who is LD? Can students classified as LD pass FL courses without instructional accommodations?
First, what is a learning disability? The field of LD has not been able to reach a consensus on an empirically valid definition, but the definition used by most professionals and diagnosticians is a discrepancy between a student’s potential to learn (IQ) and their academic achievement scores. However, different states have adopted different levels of discrepancy to classify a learning disability (e.g., 2.0 standard deviations in Ohio, 1.25 standard deviations in Indiana, 1.5 standard deviations in Kentucky). Moreover, recent research has shown that use of IQ-achievement discrepancy does not identify a group of learners with learning problems who are different from students without IQ-achievement discrepancies. The lack of a uniform definition of LD has put the field in the position of being unable to answer the question, What is a learning disability?
Second, who is LD? Since there is not a uniform definition of LD, both public school and private diagnosticians who perform evaluations classify students as LD in many different ways. In our studies, we have found that less than half the secondary and postsecondary students classified as LD meet a minimum diagnostic criterion (i.e., IQ-achievement discrepancy) for this classification. Yet, they have received instructional accommodations, placement in special sections of FL classes, or course substitutions for or waivers from the FL requirement based on their classification as LD. Kenneth Kavale has written that it is “relatively easy for a student to be classified as LD because of the well-known problem of definition resulting in vague and ill-defined boundaries” (Kavale and Forness 250). Because students have been classified as LD by a school district or private diagnostician does not necessarily mean that they meet the criteria for LD, nor does it always mean that they have the serious native-language learning difficulties that are supposed to be a hallmark of LD.
Third, can students classified as LD pass FL courses without instructional accommodations? Several of our studies have shown that students classified as LD can pass FL courses at the secondary and postsecondary levels of education without instructional accommodations. In one study, 56% of students classified as LD had passed all their high school FL courses with grades of C and higher. In our studies with college students, many of the same students received only grades of W (withdrawal) in college FL courses before being permitted to substitute courses for the FL requirement.
Because definitions of LD and classification as LD are problematic, the question of whether students so classified should receive special accommodations from a university is also problematic. Only those students classified as LD are eligible for such accommodations. That is why the LD label has become so valuable to increasing numbers of students: the label leads to access to special treatment.
SHAW: LD support staff at a university can help students understand the various strategies available to them if they struggle to learn an FL. A review of the students’ documentation and the earlier experiences in FL courses can suggest strategies that will be helpful for them. We have found that the most helpful strategies are supplemental tutoring or participation in a total immersion program, either abroad or in the United States. We have also found that the instructors of FL courses are more than willing to try modifications in their courses that will be helpful for students with FL learning difficulties. The instructors have also been very willing to provide reasonable accommodations on exams in their courses. If the university has a modified-format course specifically for students with FL difficulties, the students should, of course, be encouraged to take this version of the course.
In general, I would hope that the learning-disabilities support staff would first try to help students in learning an FL and consider a course substitution only after other alternatives have been considered and rejected.
SPARKS: First, develop rigorous and defensible guidelines for classifications as LD and employ those guidelines in determining whether a student meets criteria for classification as LD and merits access to accommodations. Many students enter the university already classified as LD by a public school or a private diagnostician. Learning-assistance providers find that many of these students do not meet minimum criteria for LD and have been misdiagnosed.
Second, be skeptical about students who receive classification as LD as they enter college or after entering college. Most students who have learning problems in college, especially FL learning problems, are those who have no significant history of native-language learning problems. Most have passed high school FL courses with average and above-average grades. It is unlikely that these students have learning problems that can be classified as LD.
Third, follow the continuum of special services in providing assistance to students classified as LD who have FL learning problems. Require students to use the least restrictive alternatives first, such as in-class instructional accommodations, then tutoring, and then enrollment in special (modified-format) sections of the FL course (if available) to determine whether they can pass FL courses.
Fourth, examine methods that have been successful in teaching an FL to students with FL learning problems. Teaching the sound-symbol system and the grammar of the FL directly is beneficial. Moreover, encourage students with FL learning problems to work hard and pass the FL course.
SHAW: The university has a responsibility to help any student learn any of the subjects taught at the university, particularly those subjects required for graduation. Most universities have developed extensive support programs for students who struggle in the sciences, for example. Similar services should be available for students who struggle in FL classes. If students can demonstrate that they cannot learn an FL even with these supplementary services, then a course substitution is appropriate.
A diagnostician’s recommendation of a course substitution should not constitute the sole criterion for providing one. Diagnosticians are generally not familiar with the demands of the particular FL courses of an institution or with the support services available for students at the institution.
The university should help FL teachers apply principles of universal instructional design to their courses so that students who have difficulty in FL courses will find them more accessible. The university should provide financial support for attendance at workshops and conferences and encourage collaboration among faculty members to help make language courses multisensory and include explicit instruction in phonics. The university may also provide supplementary support for students with LD that affect the learning of an FL, above and beyond what the department can provide.
If the efforts of FL faculty members to make their courses more accessible to all students are successful, there will be less need for supplementary services and course substitutions for students with FL difficulties.
SPARKS: I’m not certain of the basis on which a diagnostician would recommend a course substitution for the FL requirement. To my knowledge, there is no empirical research that has established a threshold (cut-off point) on standardized, native-language academic achievement tests or on the MLAT, below which students have been found consistently not to pass FL courses. Our research has shown that students classified as LD can pass FL courses in both high school and college. Not all of these students pass FL courses with grades of A and B. Some students have to work hard and struggle to achieve a C or D, but they can and do pass FL courses.
What we find most often in our studies is that once students are classified as LD, they automatically become eligible for a course substitution for or waiver from the FL requirement. Yet our studies have shown no significant differences between the cognitive ability and academic achievement of students classified as LD who received course substitutions and students classified as LD who fulfilled the FL requirement by passing FL courses. In several of our articles, we have recommended that the LD label not be used as the sine qua non for receiving a course substitution for or waiver from the FL requirement. We also have suggested that grades of W are not synonymous with course failure. These research findings suggest that the university has two empirically defensible positions it could adopt regarding course substitutions for and waivers from the FL requirement: either all students experiencing FL learning problems are eligible for course substitutions and waivers or no student experiencing FL learning problems should be eligible for course substitutions and waivers.
In my view, the responsibility of a university to students classified as LD who have FL learning problems is to teach them an FL and to help them pass the course by making tutoring and instructional accommodations available. It is then a student’s responsibility to make use of the tutoring and instructional accommodations, attend class, and put forth the effort necessary to pass the FL course and fulfill the FL requirement.
The issue of course substitutions for FL requirements has unfortunately drawn attention away from the much more important question of how to teach students who have difficulty learning an FL. More attention is now being paid to this issue. Meanwhile universities will continue to grapple with the problem of teaching an FL to at-risk students, and there will continue to be differences of opinion on how to best handle the FL requirement for these students. In this article we have raised a few questions and offered responses representing different points of view to better help FL chairs understand the issue.
Dinklage, Kenneth. “Inability to Learn a Foreign Language.” Emotional Problems of the Student. Ed. Graham Blaine and Charles McArthur. New York: Appleton, 1971. 185-206.
Freed, Barbara. “Exemptions from the Foreign Language Requirement: A Review of Recent Literature, Problems, and Policy.” ADFL Bulletin 18.2 (1987): 13-17. [Show Article]
Kavale, Kenneth, and Steven Forness. “The Politics of Learning Disabilities.” Learning Disability Quarterly 21 (1998): 245-75.
Pimsleur, Paul, Donald Sundland, and Ruth McIntyre. “Underachievement in Foreign Language Learning.” International Review of Applied Linguistics 2 (1964): 43-50.
Shaw, Robert. “The Case for Course Substitutions as a Reasonable Accommodation for Students with Foreign Language Learning Difficulties.” Journal of Learning Disabilities 32 (1999): 320-28, 349.
Sparks, Richard, and James Javorsky. “Accommodating the Learning-Disabled Student in the Foreign Language Curriculum.” ADFL Bulletin 30.3 (1999): 36-44. [Show Article]
© 2001 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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