I received this question recently, and I thought you might like a peek into my thought process: If a student has weak eyesight and can't read letters well, which means the student hardly writes, how should a teacher evaluate the skills? Well, I’d need more information to offer meaningful advice. I have several curiosities about …
Language study as an asset in dyslexic learning?
Not long ago, a student wrote to their language program at my institution sharing that their language study helped them with certain aspects of their dyslexia. Essentially, they noted that their dyslexia makes it hard for them to read and write and having to learn a second set of linguistic rules to follow "made it …
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What is it about language learning?
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 …
Accessible teaching – don’t panic; start small
Last month, I mentioned that as part of my dissertation study I'll be asking Big Ten language instructors what their programs and institutions can do to better support them in their accessibility and inclusion efforts (see August 15, 2023 blog entry). This month, I'm writing to those language instructors directly, who may feel very alone …
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It’s up to institutions
While I believe each of us has some personal, ethical responsibility to do better and recognize ableism when we see it (including the unintentional kind, which is everywhere), my primary focus has never been on blaming individuals. Not all educators are willfully perpetuating ableism. It's also true that individual instructors are not always fully autonomous …
Knowing your community
I recently used a pretty weird metaphor in a community organizing meeting when I was explaining to a staunch advocate of law enforcement that we shouldn't invite police officers to our community events since we want to be inclusive and welcoming to our immediate neighbors. I likened this concept to a dining scenario that we …
Tell it like it is
We can learn to talk about inaccessibility and ableism without fragility. When we are told that something in our course or program is inaccessible, it's not meant as a personal affront. We may feel embarrassment or shame about the room for improvement in our course design, but what’s most important is how we keep our …
Language Matters
The language we (language instructors, researchers, testers, etc.) use to describe language learners of marginalized identities matters a great deal. My colleague Robert Randez and I recently collaborated on a piece for a critically needed special issue of Language Testing to, in part, illustrate for applied linguists the importance of making purposeful and informed language …
Access finds hope in language learning
I know I talk (and write) a lot about ableism in academia, and in language learning specifically. It's important that I do, because it's really there and it's a real problem. One year ago, I wrote about how "best practices" in language teaching can erect barriers to accessible learning. I stand by what I wrote …
A real question: attendance in language learning
I have a real question. What’s the relationship between class attendance and success in the learning outcomes of a course? Why does attendance really matter that much? Do we really have to control it to the degree we think we need to? Instead of failing (or reducing a grade for) students on the basis of …
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Caitlin Cornell 