What is it about language learning (and teaching) that makes it particularly difficult to learn for students with certain disabilities? Here’s the short version:
We language educators sometimes have a rather rigid notion of what active participation in language classes must look like. That speaking component of proficiency is very important to us and communicative language courses are highly interactive to address the need for plenty of input. Certain learning objectives are thus interaction-oriented, too. We know that providing lots of input and interaction is good language teaching pedagogy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t also create specific challenges for neurodiverse learners who have trouble recognizing interactive genres, reading nonverbal cues, who are uncomfortable making eye contact, etc.
Language courses are also more demanding in one particular way than many content courses. In language courses, students are often expected to engage with all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in a single class period. That’s a heavy cognitive load to bear for any student on an average day, and it amounts to more difficulty when students also have additional challenges like processing disorders, for example, that slow down the pace of learning and cause fatigue.
Depending on the language and its distance from disabled students’ home languages, the language’s systems may cause difficulty in learning. For example, the unpredictable spelling of English can make it a tricky language to learn for dyslexics and languages with transparent orthography are typically easier.
Even as we identify barriers for disabled students in the classroom, in our pedagogy, and even in our own expectations for learning, it’s important to remain (realistically, not toxically) positive and take an assets-based, rather than deficit-based, approach. The language learning landscape for disabled students is not always 100% bleak. Not every disabled student will struggle with their language study, because not all students with the same disorders have the same challenges and disabled students are incredibly resilient in the face of learning objectives and pedagogy that weren’t designed for them. They are also very often self-aware learners, attuned to their challenges and skilled in their own accommodations and advocating for themselves.
And there’s more good news: there’s quite a lot instructors can do without over-taxing ourselves too much, too quickly. Starting small can make a big difference very quickly and can be a much needed goodwill gesture toward disabled students helping them to feel more comfortable–more welcome–learning languages.
Caitlin Cornell 