Written Transcript for the Foreign Language and Disability TeleTraining

Introduction

Elizabeth Hamilton's Overview

Tammy Berberi on Learning Disabilities

Introduction

Operator: Good afternoon. My name is Christie and I will be your conference operator today. I like to welcome everyone to be Foreign Language and Disability TeleTraining today. After the speaker's remarks there will be a question and answer session.

Moderator: Hi, welcome everyone. My name is Michele Scheib, and I will be the moderator today. Thank you all for calling in. I would like to welcome the presenters today – we are very fortunate to have several foreign language professors and a disability professional to conduct the training. They are all contributors to a publication entitled “Worlds Apart: Disability and Foreign Language Learning” – this is a publication that will be released next year by a Yale University press. And today during the TeleTraining, we will get a glimpse at some of the knowledge and practical tips that they shared in that book.

I will be introducing each of the presenters individually when it is their turn to present. I would like to first, before we go to the first presenter, acknowledge the cosponsor of this Teleconference. The first is the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange. It has been promoting increased participation on people with disabilities in overseas study, language, intern, volunteer and work programs. It is sponsored by the United States Department of State, and administered by Mobility International USA. It provides free information and referral services, numerous how-to resources and one-on-one technical assistance about overseas accessibility. You could learn more at the website www.miusa.org.

Also co-sponsoring this TeleTraining is The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages or ACTFL, which is a national association of foreign language professionals. With more than 10,000 members around the world, ACTFL's mission is to provide vision, leadership and support for quality teaching and learning of languages. Its membership includes elementary, secondary, and post-secondary teachers, administrators, specialists, supervisors, researchers, and others concerned with foreign language education. ACTFL programs and projects range influencing educational policies at the national level to those furnishing practical assistance to classroom teachers. You can learn more about ACTFL online at www.actfl.org.

Elizabeth Hamilton's Overview

Moderator: Let's get started. We will have Elizabeth C. Hamilton who is Associate Professor of German at the Oberlin College and she is going to give us an overview to get the Teletraining started. I would also like to think Elizabeth for helping to plan this teletraining.

Elizabeth: Thank you very much, Michele. First I would like to say good afternoon to everybody who is taking part in the teleconference today. I would especially like to thank Michele Scheib of Mobility International U.S.A. for her tremendous enthusiasm and excellent organization of this panel. She has demonstrated the importance of sharing our knowledge and learning from one another about how to enable learning for all of our students. Our efforts to create truly inclusive classrooms, language labs, and study abroad programs will benefits all students and it will help us to understand disability as part of what makes us all human. Those of us engaged in teaching foreign languages are already deeply interested in all aspects of humanity. The most basic premise of foreign language study stems from the value inherent in the examination of human difference and similarity. Its most cherished rewards include developing respect for and even friendship with others. Enhance self understanding, and ultimately a broader and deeper understanding of human life. We champion foreign language study as integral to learning about the world. Disability then should be as much a topic of the foreign language study as the vocabulary, grammar, custom, arts, literature, geography, or food of the culture of the language we teach. Disability is culturally and historically specific, get it is known throughout the world.

Disability is also, of course, an experience that many of our students and colleagues bring to our classrooms. There are so many experiences of disability that it is sometimes difficult to conceive of them as having any relation to one another. What does a person who is blind for example, have in common with a person who uses a wheel chair? Just what is disability?

The medical model has presumed that disability is a result of disease or injury. The response of choice for professionals, that is medical doctors, to treat the patient in order to remove or prevent a deficit. This medical model is now competing with a social model which considers the critical role of the Environment in the shaping disability through the barriers that human beings erect whether we intend to erect these barriers or not.

Social models draw attention to the built world and advocate the removal of unnecessary barriers be they in architecture, communication, programming, or attitudes.

Disability is not an isolated event or the result of a private or personal circumstance in this social model. Disability affects 40 million Americans, which includes 1 million college students today. Keeping our knowledge of the humaness of disability in mind, let us remember that while it shapes a person's life and learning, it alone does not define a person.

You will likely be familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. The civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is also an anti-discrimination act that safeguards disabled students right to access. But like the ADA, Section 504 does not provide any type of funding. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law insuring services to children with disabilities in public schools throughout the nation. This requires schools to prepare an individual education plan (IEP) designed to meet each child's unique needs.

I mention these laws here briefly to give some legal and historical context to the developments we are making in education today. In an informative essay entitled “Beyond Ramps, new ways of getting access,” Jane Jarrow notes that "prior to section 504 the provision of services and supports for people with disabilities was largely the result of whim, pity, guilt or obligation. Now whim plays a much smaller role as a new generation of students with disabilities learns to insist upon their rights in the public schools.”

It is very important to note that educational experiences are different for students in the kindergarten through 12th grade context then they are for college students with disabilities. Again I quote Jane Jarrow, “In college, students have the right to accommodations but they are also responsible for requesting such accommodation. The post secondary institution is obligated to provide resources and support services only if the students request them. Students with disabilities receive no special consideration or services until the ask for them.”

Asking for accommodations is more easily said than done student at college may find themselves far from home, far from familiar support and little prepared to articulate their needs or be their own advocates. How do we enable them to identify their needs or learning styles in the classrooms?

Self disclosure of a disability is often quite unreliable. At times students choose not to identify themselves as having a disability because they perceived a certain shame or alienation. Lingering prejudice or misunderstanding presumes that the source of this shame is in the impairment itself rather than in the constant pressures students face in having to constantly identify themselves as different from others.

Stigma frequently accompanies disability and students at times choose not to identify themselves as having a disability. And unfortunately stigma reproduces itself, sometimes even in our policies, unless it is checked.

But disability in all its manifestations has joined the list of unacceptable personal topics reveals the degree of misinformation that still guides our profession.

Where a disability is a taboo, we act as though it were not present. This is a double-edged sword of stigma. It is, of course, invasive to ask a student about his body or his medical history. But questions about a student’s ability and experiences are appropriate – we as teachers must learn to ask the ones that do concern us, and allow us to teach effectively.

Encourage disclosure then, not simply to comply with the law or to get around the law, but to enable students to succeed in their work. We can encourage them by focusing on learning. When you talk to students ask them about their experiences and abilities. Form questions that target a learner instead of questions that focus on strife. Expressly invite students to tell us how they learn best. Don’t ask whether a student can learn, ask how.

We in foreign languages can make a difference if we are proactive and we recognize our students foremost as learners. We can let them know through a general announcement or statement on the syllabus that we are prepared to talk with them about their learning styles and about accommodations that they may already know help. We will also make a positive difference if we know more how students with various disabilities, in fact, learn foreign languages.

Historically our courses have posed a major hurdle for students that even can stand in the way of their graduating from high school or college. A typical response for schools or colleges is to waive the course requirements for students with disabilities, yet waivers and substitutions presume that students with disabilities cannot learn foreign languages. Waivers and substitutions may suffice legally yet more and more foreign language teachers regard them as inadequate. This presumes that the student will fail in the course and many teachers and a growing number of researchers know that failure is evitable.

In a forthcoming chapter of “Worlds Apart: Disability and Foreign Language Learning” Helga Thorson and Rasma Lazda underscore the fact that while the a diagnosis of a learning disability seems categorical, language learners exist on a continuum in which there is no clear distinction between those who can and those who cannot learn a foreign language.

Further, they cite evidence that in a highly structured classroom setting students with learning disabilities often outpace their student peers who do not have learning disabilities. Professor Berberi will address this more in this panel. I cite it here because Professors Thorson and Lazda titled their chapter, “Teaching Foreign Languages to Students with Disabilities: Initiatives to Educate Faculty”.

This article therefore is directed toward us. The more we know, the better we are able to help our students. What is our role as educators? It is, of course, to teach and guide our students through the learning process. We should emphasize the teacher-learner relationship and think and work as educators. We should not think and work as doctors or lawyers.

There is a politically charged chasm between the special help and regular teaching, and I stubbornly refuse to accept the antagonistic terms of this debate. I view my work with students with disabilities as less an instance of catering to political constituency than an opportunity to know my students.

There are, afterall, obvious parallels between, for example, a blind student who needs text in an alternative format, and a sighted student who needs additional work with a particularly difficult concept or grammatical form. When students struggle with difficult material, teachers devise suitable materials. I suggest that to avoid antagonism, we move from a two-sided debate to a multi-faceted discussion of learning styles. In doing so, we replace chronic disrespect and denied opportunity with respect for our students as learners and not simply consumers of resources.

We are not lawyers are medical doctors and therefore should not threaten sue or brace for lawsuits or attempt to diagnose students. We need to teach our students and enable their learning of the foreign languages. Our role is to enable learning so let us put our greatest efforts to creating hospitable environment for learning. We are able to provide full access to opportunities and when we do, we move beyond minimal compliance with the law.

It is my view that often antagonism rises when there is little real knowledge about how students learn and when there is a perceived contest over our resources of time and money. It is unfortunately true that there is a lack of shared knowledge about the disability. Teachers still have to take a learn-as-you-go approach and they still take an ad-hoc approach to teaching methods and materials.

There is still a belief that we should create special materials for individual students and separate them from their classmates. There is a major difference I think, however, between full inclusion and accommodation.

Accommodation is focused on an individual student and his or her particular needs. Often accommodation is appropriate – we might incorporate Braille or a large print or a book on tape for example into our lessons that do not use these materials.

In practice, however, accommodation is haphazardly implemented. Full inclusion, on the other hand, takes the complete spectrum of learners into account and allows diverse learners to work together. Many presenters today will talk about universal design and instruction, or universal design for learning. This is a movement modeled by the universal design movement in architecture which strives to make new buildings as accessible as possible from the outset at the design stage so there is no need to retrofit a building with ramps or elevators or signs in order to make the building accessible.

The same approach rings true when we think of our instruction. When we think about the learning styles at the beginning stages, we eliminate the need for accommodations or particular alterations later. Universal design asks us to emphasize a variety of learning styles and to employ as many modalities as possible – create flexible opportunities for presentation, recall and evaluation of student work.

Moderator: Did you have any concluding remarks?

Elizabeth: Okay. I would just like to direct your attention to a bibliography that I have included in the list of materials, and to encourage you to continue this conversation, hopefully by participating in a list serve that we have set up to facilitation discussion about disability in the foreign language classroom. It is called DISFL – you can join on at disfl@lists.umn.edu. I am sorry for running on a time, but I look forward to continuing this conversation at the end of this presentation.

Tammy Berberi on Learning Disabilities

Moderator: Thank you very much for giving us an overview of what we are talking about today. Next we have Tammy Berberi, an assistant professor of French at University of Minnesota, Morris.

Tammy: I volunteered to talk about learning disabilities today because I think that so many of the students that we serve have learning disabilities and it is certainly the challenge that I meet with most often in my classes. I volunteered to offer to talk about this. I want to make it clear I think I am in the same boat as everybody else who might be listening. I am not an expert. I'm just a teacher who wants to do my best to serve every student in my classroom. So I've learned a lot over the last couple of years putting together the book that Elizabeth mentioned. That is what I'm willing to share today. Certainly there are probably listeners here who know more about this than I do. Please feel free to jump in at any time and nuance what I have to say or correct what I have to say.

I want to start with some definitions because this was helpful for me as a teacher.

Learning disability is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in listening, speaking, reading, writing and mathematical abilities. To my mind five of the six of those areas of difficulty intersects with what we tried to do every day in our classes. Learning disabilities are caused by the disfunction in the central nervous system but they can occur at any time across the life span. They may intersect with different disabilities or other regulatory behaviors or social interactions but these other issues in and of themselves do not constitute a learning disability. Likewise, cultural differences or insufficient and inappropriate instruction does not cause a learning disability. They can't be cured or treated with medication - only rehabilitated with remedial instruction and compensatory strategies and accommodations.

In contrast attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is often grouped together particularly in the statistical analysis with the number of students we serve, is a neurologically based disorder present at birth caused by the deficiency in a neurotransmitter in the brain. And that is treated by at medication whereas learning disabilities cannot be.

ADHD symptoms are that a student can be presumed to be distracted, impulsive or extremely fidgety. If these symptoms are situational and appear later in life, they may be linked to anxiety or depression rather than attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I have to underscore what Elizabeth said by the fact that we are not diagnosing and not clinicans. It is not our job to diagnose students, but we can help a student who isn't aware of an issue that they may be having that may be impeding their learning. We can help them understand the differences between these and talk to them about some of the symptoms and encourage them to get tested if they haven't been tested before.

In terms of the prevalence in our classrooms, about one of nine entering college shows a disability of some kind. A very high percentage of them are learning disabilities, although the percentage varies a lot weather ADHD is lumped together with those.

Sally Shaywitz, the author of a really helpful book published in 2003 entitled, Overcoming Dyslexia, said one in five people, across cultures not just in the United States, have significant difficulty reading and processing phonological systems, which is of course what we ask our students to do in a foreign language classroom. So one in five is a really significant number and if I go back through my own classes, maybe only a handful of students in the given year disclose a disability, I would say that one in five students who struggle with foreign language acquisition or have issues, holds pretty true at my smaller college.

I think the language learning continuum that Elizabeth was talking about, the article by Helga Thorson and Rasma Lazda, it is also really helpful. Not all students with learning disabilities manifest their disability in the same and learning disability is an extraordinary broad continuum.

Students with learning disabilities and students who do not have learning disabilities may struggle equally in a foreign language class and we shouldn't assume that students with learning disabilities automatically group at the bottom end of this continuum. In fact, as Elizabeth noted we had ample evidence that students with learning disabilities can be very successful language learners and in some cases even become foreign language teachers.

To complicate this issue is something that Elaine Horwitz and others have called foreign language anxiety. A different issue altogether. Horwitz has said that one-third of all foreign language learners have some kind of anxiety related to foreign language learning. This anxiety can be contributed to all sorts of factors that probably aren't as important here as a phenomenon itself.

The issue of who has a learning disability in our classrooms and what that means in terms of their acquisition of a foreign language is further complicated by many factors and I just want to list them quickly here.

Shaywitz points to the fact that a lot of language learning disability testing in schools is a little bit gender bias in that girls are much less frequently diagnosed than boys because of the gender stereotype. Family attitudes or resources may prevent a student from being tested or the faster pace of college level learning may reveal a learning disability that the student is unaware of. I would like to return one second to what Elizabeth said about self-advocacy skills. I think that the majority of students that I do teach with learning disabilities opt out of registering with disability services because they don't want the stigma. And yet, many of them are French majors and continue to meet with the same struggles and we work on accommodations without the intervention of the disability services. They are majors and they continue on and recognize the value of what they are doing despite significant difficulties. So, my own approach and we can certainly discuss in the question and answer is that I generally offer any accommodation to every student. I just assume that there are people in my class that would benefit from the same measures.

This is also complicated by differing experts perspectives. The continuum of possible accommodation is about as broad as the continuum of learning disabilities itself. In the book Overcoming Dyslexia, Shaywitz spends two paragraphs wholeheartedly advocating substitutions of kind we talked about.

She thinks good learning can cure dyslexia and depending on the severity of the disorder asking a student to learn, articulate, and recall something in a phonological system is paramount to asking someone like me with a mobility disability to climb ten flights of stairs. To draw an analogy of this kind helps us understand that in many cases the barriers that students face are absolute. Although that isn't an approach that I advocate, and I don't know if any schools offer automatic substitutions.

One of the really deleterious patterns that is associated with offering course waivers is: the requirement that the student demonstrate inability for a waiver is that they would have to fail a foreign language course in order to prove that they are unable to complete a requirement. I have to see that is really deleterious to a student’s self-esteem and a waste of time and resources for their family. Some other options, at some larger schools, CU Boulder was the first to do this but now there are many other large language programs that are able to offer distinct tracks with a slower pace and a modified curriculum for students with learning disabilities.

Most of my colleges work at colleges where there is the kind of money to offer the alternative track, but for others that is not a possibility. I think most of us are probably faced with, what we're talking about today, and that is how to teach these students in our regular foreign language classrooms. This approach is certainly the most inclusive given the number of students who may struggle in our classes but are not legally eligible for accommodations or opt out for a variety of reasons.

I think the most gratifying thing about thinking about inclusive teaching is that a lot of what we do in the good foreign language class already enables good learning for many students. I would just like to return for a second to what Elizabeth said about good communication with the individual student. With every learning disability manifests itself in unique ways and if the continuum is as nuanced as they say it is, then what we really need to do is establish a great basis for collaboration with our students. Part of this for me has been to go way beyond the boilerplate statement that is on all of our syllabi – that is “If you have a disability, you need to register with Disability Services. Here is the contact information. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

My syllabi statements tend to include examples of what I may be able to do to help a student to spur them on to start communicating with me. That is, what am I willing to do for any student who is struggling with a particular aspect of my class. Will I offer any student extended test time? Would I create a common set of class notes that is either student-generated or teacher-generated that is available online? Will I offer extra review sessions before exams? Will I offer extra credit for sessions with tutors or if they attend extracurricular or cocurricular events?

I think too it is very important to as the kind of questions that Elizabeth recommended, but also to be ready for a very incomplete answer. Ideally a student would say, “This is how I learned in all my other courses, and this is all I think it would transfer to a foreign language course.” But if they were not aware of the struggles before their foreign language cores or before arriving to college, they aren't going to have those answers. We will have to be ready to provide some suggestions for how they might succeed in our classes.

Moderator: Tammy, do have any concluding remarks? And then we will open it to questions. They did get your outline too, in case you didn’t get to some of your points.

Tammy: I didn't get to a whole bunch, wow, that went by really fast. Let me see, let me talk just quickly about some of the more innovative strategies for inclusion that I have come across.

One is a modular syllabus whereby I would allow students to choose their way they want to be graded in the course. One student might choose to be graded 40% written exam, 30% aural/oral exams, 30% writing assignments, where another student might choose 20% written exams, 50% aural/oral exams, 30% writing assignments.

You don't have to write different syllabus in order to do this, you only have to have students choose how they want to be assessed. Everybody completes the same work, but it is just weighted differently at the end of the semester.

The other way is to teach students how to bridge skills if they have difficulty writing, then teach them how to create assignments that they're excited about, maybe by using a video camera and making a movie, and then adding text with windows media as subtitles' to that movie as a written assignment rather than facing a blank page and getting started. Allow them to build web sites, allow them to keep journals related to coursework rather than doing formal writing assignments. Maybe they would write one page of informal writing as a written response to a reading assignment. And then many twice or three times a semester have them clean up the journal entries and turn them in as a formal writing assignment. It sort of lowers the affective filter and the anxiety that may surround the skills that are difficult for them.

The last thing I want to mention quickly is technology. It is really helpful if you are guiding your students through the process of learning how to talk about their learning styles and needs in your classroom, it is really helpful if you can point to technology that will be of use to them or units on campus like Computing Services or Disabled Students Services. Two programs that may be particularly useful to your students are Kurzweil 3000, which reads French, German and Spanish pretty well. It is a program that converts written text to an audio file. And the other program is a Dragon Naturally Speaking, which allows a student to speak to the computer, and generates a written version of what they said. I have it on pretty good authority that buying the actual foreign language version of the software is much more effective than buying the foreign language attachment to the English program itself. And for the preferred version of Dragon Naturally Speaking runs about $200.

My last remark would be, it is really wonderful when you can say, “Let's go and look at how this technology works together and I can sit down and show you how it works.” A lot of times students who could really benefit from it haven’t tried it. The technical barriers might be enough to make them not want to. My best suggestion would be to contact the language lab director or different units on your campus and encourage them to make these programs available, machines available, and to spend a couple of hours learning how to use it, so you can counsel your students with some really specific information. Sorry I ran out of time.

Question and Answers #1

Moderator: We have time now if the operator can take a couple of questions related to Elizabeth Hamilton’s or Tammy Berberi's presentation.

Operator: At this time I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question Press star and the number one and your telephone keypad. The first question is from Robert Sanders.

Robert: Hi, this is a question for Elizabeth. You have an item on your agenda, which is called “language lab unleased”. Could you describe that?

Elizabeth: Language lab unleashed is a web site that is run by a colleague of mine here at Oberlin College named Barbara Sawhill and she and other language lab specialists are very keenly interested in using computer technology and Internet technology to enhance foreign language learning. They host a blog that has an ongoing conversation about these very issues. Not necessarily specifically naming disability, but attentive to all of the variety of learning styles that there are.

The contributors to Language Lab Unleased are very smart, dynamic people who are using technology in very creative ways. They're using things like Skype (voice over Internet protocol) in foreign language classrooms and incorporating blogs into lessons. And helping students create language learning portfolios so that they can bring together demonstrations of a host of their skills. I just warmly recommend that you take a look at Language Lab Unleashed and consider listening to some of the podcasts that are archived there where you can hear some very provocative and helpful discussions of language learning in many forms. I hope answers your question.

Robert: Thank you very much.

Elizabeth: You're welcome.

Operator: The next question comes from Anna von Bon.

Anna: Hello, this for either of you. I am sitting listening and intrigued thinking about the difference between First and Second language learning. I am thinking of all the people around the world to have learned their first language with disabilities and without - and if you could speak to what is the difference between the two, and what is it about second language learning that creates more of a challenge?
 
Tammy: This is Tammy Berberi, and most of the things that I have read in in Helga Thorson and Rasma Lazada’s article in the book “Worlds Apart”. There is a very strong correlation between problems in one's native language and problems in acquiring a second language. So there may not be unique aspects of the second language that posed barriers that they didn't have in their first, and it is the same thing, it is pretty easy to predict who is going to have difficulty acquiring a second language. That said, in my experience, this isn’t research based, just personal experience, when students are starting a second language they are trying to learn a phonological system from scratch. That is something that happens in their native language before they are even aware of any difficulties at all, and I think sometimes the stigma can compound itself. And if difficulties are present in learning the native language, you image how being confronted with a whole other new system, the problems of that could cause. So that is what I could say. Elizabeth, do you have anything to add?

Elizabeth: I would echo those concerns, those factors and I would also say what we also know anecdotally, and that it depends a great deal when a person learns that second language. Whether a person's brain is still growing the way a young child’s would or whether that person is acquiring the second language as an adult, which for many of our students, we can regard them are as adult learners. So the age of their beginning to learn a foreign language will also have an effect.

Ian: May I also add something? This is Ian Sutherland. The ease or difficulty of picking up a second language has a lot to do with its similarity to the first, structurally and so forth. If it resembles the first language than it will be in many respects easier to pick up. If it is a great variance, then it will be much more difficult to pick up a second language. I experienced this among my deaf students who transitioned from ASL to learning English or a foreign language. The syntax structure of ASL frequently does not relate closely to that of spoken or written languages, and therefore there is a challenge in understanding the structure of another language other than an ASL.

Ian Sutherland on Inclusion of Deaf Students

Moderator: At this time we will close it for questions. There will be more time later to ask questions. We will now have Ian Sutherland, who just spoke, present. He is an Associate Professor [of Latin] at Gallaudet University. He may have the floor now.

Ian: Thank you, very much. My topic today is that integration of hearing and deaf students in the same college classroom. In the decades following the implementation of the ADA, the number of the deaf students enrolled in U.S. colleges has greatly increased. Thus the chances also increased that the teacher who heretofore has had no experience teaching the deaf, have a deaf student enrolled in class. Thus I would like to address the situation of a professor of foreign language who has a deaf student in her course for the first time and is faced with teaching that student effectively. My tableau envisions a single deaf student in the first-year Latin cross, simply because Latin is my specialty, but these techniques can apply to situations of more than one student, different languages, and courses beyond first year. The discussion assumes that the student is profoundly deaf, not hard of hearing and that he employs sign language, not oral speech as his preferred means of communication. A sign language interpreter will accompany the students to class.

This scenario also assumes that the students having either limited or no capacity for oral communication will concentrate on learning to read and write the target language but not to speak it.

I will first describe some of the resources provided by the institution for support of the disabled students and their professors, and then I will describe some practical teaching techniques that the professor can employ in the scenario that I described.

Please indulge me when I use the second person in these remarks.

Any American university that receives public funding should have the equivalent of an office of services for students with disabilities, which I’ll refer to OSSD. Although the actual name of such an office at your institution may vary. The OSSD should have a disability coordinator. The professor should meet with the disability coordinator and get to know her and the OSSD staff. Learn about the services that the OSSD provide and how to schedule these services. With this OSSD staff review your syllabus and class plan, and discuss how to get a desirable classroom and implement technologies such as captioning for audio description on videos. Even if now you don’t have a disabled student in your class, seek out this office anyway and familiarize yourself with this operation so that if a need arises in the future you will be prepared.

The OSSD and registrar will likely book the interpreter for the deaf students in your classes with little or no effort required from the professor. However, if you schedule a special art activity outside of regular hours such as an evening class or fieldtrip, contact the OSSD well advanced to schedule an interpreter for that occasion. Become acquainted with your deaf student in the same way you would with any other student in an informal  office hours meeting. Include an interpreter to facilitate communication. Try to meet with the student and an interpreter before the semester begins so each of you feel prepared for the first day of class.

At this early meeting review with the student the syllabus of your course and describe the courses general characteristics and your expectations. Describe or show the layout of the classroom to the student and interpreter and ask them how they will be best positioned in the space for various activities and relative to the other students. In general, explore the ways in which your student best approaches learning and the best ways you can facilitate that in the class.

Also be aware that interpreting is a complex process. The reformulation of spoken English into American Sign Language (ASL), most commonly used here in the United States. The reformation into ASL creates a short lag time between when the speaker finishes an expression and when the interpreter finishes translating it. Because the deaf student will receive information behind his peers and class, this will affect classroom dynamics. In order to ensure that the deaf student has full opportunity to share in class, including asking and responding to questions, be attentive to such situations as: how quickly you field the answers to questions and how quickly you move on to new subjects.

Also allow people to only speak one at a time since an interpreter can only translate one person at a time, the deaf student misses what transpires when multiple people speak simultaneously.

The interpreter’s role is solely to transmit communication between parties and to do so impartially and without favoring or influencing one side or the other. This is very important. In your class be mindful that the interpreter cannot play an advisory role for either you or the student. Also the interpreter should not be considered an assistant teacher to perform any didactic functions. It is tempting sometimes for a hearing teacher to turn over some of the teaching responsibilities to the interpreter when he or she, the professor feels like he or she is not been effective in conveying ideas. Sometimes it is tempting to say, “Oh, you explain it to the student”. When this is in direct conflict with the professional and ethical responsibility of the interpreter.

Although the interpreter does not require content knowledge or expertise in the course, she will be more thorough and confident if you provide her with documents such as the syllabus, study guides, and a list of specialized vocabulary for the course.

Now let's examine some specific characteristics of the classroom and techniques for instruction that both improve accessibility and comprehension for the deaf student and at the same time enhance the experience of the hearing students. These characteristics and techniques aim at the concept of inclusion as opposed to accommodation as outlined by Elizabeth previously.

Whenever signed communication is used, visual contact is essential. Signers must be able to see one another in order to communicate. When visual contact is interrupted, communication ceases. Thus establishment of good visibility for the student in the classroom for the deaf student is of vital importance. Ideally the deaf student will be able to see the teacher, the interpreter, his classmates, and any focus of work, such as the overhead or blackboard, simultaneously or with minimal movement. The classroom arrangement of parallel straight rows of seats in the classroom, perfectly normal for the hearing environment, prevents the deaf student from being in visual contact with the classmates even if he can see that teacher. To use this kind of seating arrangement would emphasize to the deaf student that access to his environment is limited and no one is particularly concerned about his level of engagement with his classmates.

By placing seats and an arc, the teacher can create an arrangement where the deaf student sees everyone and everyone sees him. This allows him direct communication with the whole group and integrates him much more into the class. This also makes a strong statement about his respective status in the group. Depending on the classroom it may not be possible to arrange the seats and an arc but every effort should be made in doing so, including requesting a suitable classroom well in advance.

The senses of hearing and sight in combination are powerful for cognition because it enables a person to gather visual and audible information simultaneously. For example, hearing students can listen to the teachers speak while examining a textbook at the same time. They can watch a movie while listening to a soundtrack. But the deaf students cannot do this. Activities that compel the use of both audible and visual senses for success, places him at a disadvantage. Remember, he gathers information only visually and can do so from only one direction at a time. Thus if the teacher directs the students to look at a textbook, and then continues to speak while they do so, the deaf student loses that communication.

Thus, let us seek techniques that allow multisensory participation by the fully abled but also allow visual component thereby enhancing access to content by the deaf student. An overhead projector is ideally suited to such a situation. Photocopy the textbook on to transparencies and project the pertinent page. Stand at the front of the room right next to the screen so that all students can see both you and the image of the page easily at the same time. While discussing the lesson, refer to the text by pointing to the appropriate place on the projected image. This is very effective for hearing and deaf student alike. Slide shows with Powerpoint can also be used in the same manner.

Note that in these situations, the best place for the interpreter probably is also at the front of the room on the opposite side of the screen from the teacher so that the deaf student sees the interpreter and the text almost simultaneously. This is particularly good for translation exercises. The students can come forward and translate from the text, indicating their location as they proceed. And the deaf student in turn comes to the front, signs the translation of the text file the interpreter voices the translation. The black board can also be used for great benefit. Have students write exercises on the board and have them stand next to their work while analyzing the sentences and translating. Note also that the interpreter will be next to the board as well. Whether using a projected image or the blackboard, everyone will benefit from seeing the work displayed and it creates a multisensory experience for all students.

Another simple technique that enhances the visual nature of exercises is the use of color applied to written work. For example, when teaching Latin nouns, write the stem and case endings in different colors. When teaching verbs, write the stem, tense sign and personal ending in different colors. Color makes the structure of the words more recognizable and easier to remember for all students, but it is a particularly potent visual cue for the deaf student. Likewise using color in the full sentence can transmit a meta-message about the sentence’s syntax. Try writing the subject-verb-direct object or prepositional phrases in distinct colors. For more advanced lessons when teaching complex sentences, try writing different clauses in distinct colors. This will be an aid to all and will be especially welcome to the deaf student.

The last technique that I want to mention is the use of simple signs taken from the American Sign Language. I'm not suggesting that the teacher or student needs to be fluent, but the use of just a few simple manual gestures can greatly facilitate communication with the deaf student while also assisting the hearing the students as well.

I will not describe three handshapes as an example. A picture of these has been loaded onto the website and sent to you electronically. If you can refer to that simultaneously, it will help comprehension.

The first handshape is called the the 5 hand because all fingers are extended and visible. Hold your hand in front of your body with your palm toward your body and extend all 5 fingers. Now hold the thumb of the five hand down onto your palm keeping the other fingers extended. This is called the 4 hand because the four fingers are extended.

Now go back to the five hand and curl the small and ring fingers into your palm. There are now three fingers extended with the thumb still upright. As you might expect, this is called the 3 hand. Now you know three handshakes.

Use the five handed to symbolize the Latin case system beginning with the thumb at the top and descending, each digit represents a case in the order in which the cases are traditionally listed in the textbook. That is the thumb of represents the nomative, the forefinger the genative, the middle finger the dative, the ring finger the accusative and the little finger the abulative.

Similarly, use the 4-hand to symbolize the four principal parts of the Latin verb. From the top downward, the forefinger, middle finger, ring finger and little finger represent represent respectively the first, second, third and fourth principle parts of the verb.
 
Final the 3 hand represents the person of the verb. Thumb = first person, forefinger = second person, middle finger = third person.

Thus in class to indicate a different case of a noun touch the end appropriate finger of the 5-hand with the forefinger on the other hand. In the same manner touching the fingertip of the 4-hand refers to one of the principle parts of the Latin verb. Touching a fingertip to a 3-hand identifies a person of the verb.

Employ these handshapes from the beginning when you first introduce the concepts they represent. The students will quickly pick up the technique and find it an excellent mnemonic device. When you quiz the students on these particular concepts,  simultaneously display the related handshake. When answering touch the fingertip corresponding to the appropriate grammatical form while also name it aloud. Use of these handshapes can also elegantly streamline communication between the deaf student and the interpreter. Touching a fingertip of the five hand relieves them of the tedious process of fingerspelling the names of the cases. Simply touching the small finger of the 4-hand substitutes the whole expression – perfect-past participle. Students will pick up the use of these gestures quickly and in short order as soon as you raise the handshape the students will immediately know the context of your next remark.

Even more than this, it will be an element of the deaf student’s language used as a means of shared communication for the whole class. It will send a strong message that he is a class member whose presence is important and valued. My underlying point here is to say that there are many ways to integrate a class with deaf and hearing students together and to enhance the learning experience for all at the same time. That is, it helps create an inclusive environment. I will close my remarks now and be happy to take any questions.

Question and Answers #2

Operator: Again, if you would like to ask a question Press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question kind that comes from Kathleen March.

Kathleen: My question was for the previous person actually, so I can pass.

Robert Sanders: Hi my question is also for the previous person, it comes from one of our participants here at Portland State. He is a teacher here, and Victor asked, regarding students with dyslexia, how can we make online course work more easily accessible given that these students experience difficulties with the input and output of information?

Tammy Berberi: I would encourage the student to use a screen reader. The two programs that I mentioned Kurzweil 3000 will read Web screens to the students so that they have oral input as well as trying to read the screen themselves. Dragon Naturally Speaking would allow them to produce assignments, which they could then upload through the web site.

Robert: If I may clarify the question, it has been my experience here that many students with disabilities are very fond of technology and are hard to separate from their computers. We also had experiences of students who have dyslexia and do not want to work with computers at all.

Tammy: Anybody want to jump in and help? I really don't have any suggestions but I would love for someone to weigh in on it.

Melissa Mitchell: I would jump in from a personal and anecdotal standpoint. I happen to be related to two individuals with severe learning disabilities in the area of written language and auditory processing. So, when it came to learning a foreign language, they were quite excited to learn foreign language, but as you noted, it comes at a difficulty. Both of them chose to learn a foreign language quite different from their native language of English, which is Japanese. For them, and for students who have difficulty with the technology (which was the case with my brother), we noticed that for him, the difficulty with the technology came from not necessarily not wanting to learn to use it, but the method by which software tutorials, and what not, at the time were presenting how to use the software. So one of the issues that you may be experiencing with the students who don't want to use computers at all may not necessarily be the computer itself, but the need for further assistance in acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively use that tool. Unfortunately, we sort of now live in a world where it is pretty much impossible to avoid using a computer. I mean, my brother is now a diesel mechanic and must use computers to diagnose the trucks he works on.

Robert: Thank you very much.

Elizabeth Hamilton: May I add one more comment? One of the main issues in learning disabilities and effective learning comes with the ability for students to make a connection between the parts and the whole. There is an approach, an unnamed approach called Orton-Gillingham and it is an approach that asks students to review the smallest possible components of what they're learning. Whether it is the pronunciation of a letter or the pronunciation of a word or the spelling of a word or the location of a word in a sentence and gradually adding more complex components to that knowledge that they have acquired in order to build sequentially. Many of our responses today tend to emphasize computer technology because computer technology does let us make many repetitions, and it allows us to manipulate text very easily. But the process is the same, whether or not it is done on a computer or not. Notecards or a blackboard are rather primitive technologies compared to computers, and those are places that allow students to work with small portions of language and gradually grow towards bigger units of language that then contain meaning.

So I would suggest having your colleague look into the Orton-Gillinghan approach, and possibly seeing if there are other means of putting this language into a format that the students like to work with. I think it is quite possible to do that.

Robert: Thank you, very much.

Elizabeth: Thanks for your question.

Moderator: We have received a couple of e-mail questions for Ian. I will share those with him towards the end of the call, but we do need to move on to our next presenters. Hopefully we will have some time at the end. Unfortunately on the agenda originally was Michelle Abadia, and she lost her voice. So she is unable to present as she had planned on blind and sighted students and technology in the classroom, but we will give resources on that topic afterwards and at the end of the call Elizabeth Hamilton also has experience in this area will be able to answer questions.

Melissa Mitchell and Elizabeth Emery on Mobility Disabilities and Programs Abroad

Moderator: I want to move on to we have time on the final topic which focuses on overseas language programs. Melissa Mitchell who is the Outreach and Training Coordinator at the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange and Elizabeth Emery, Associate Professor of French at Montclaire State University, will now present on that topic.

Elizabeth Emery: This is Elizabeth starting. Just to give you a little bit of background, both of us will be talking about our own experiences and then pulling them to gather as a tag team presentation. I have traveled in Europe on my own extensively and also have acted as an organizer and tour guide for groups of students studying in France. And so today I will be talking about these specific experiences – notably one 6-week summer trip to Paris in which one of the students was using a wheelchair and crutches. And that experience was so successful that she talked about moving to Paris after graduation.

Melissa Mitchell: This is Melissa, and as Michele mentioned before I serve as the Outreach and Training Coordinator for the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange. I believe it is also important to mention since this is a telephone call and no one can see anyone else, that I am a person who uses a wheelchair, and I’m also partnered with a service dog. My experience extends from the fact that I was a French major and received a bachelor's degree in the French language in tandem with my journalism degree. For that degree I completed a short-term faculty-led study abroad and then went on to do a six and a half month teach abroad experience in France.

Since been partnered with my service dog, we together have traveled to four countries and half of the states in the United States. Furthermore, I also manage a resource known as the peer to peer network, which is hosted by the Clearinghouse, whereby we match people with various disabilities who are looking to go abroad with people with similar disabilities who have been where they want to go, so that they may function in a peer advising role from the standpoint from a person who was already been there and done that and can provide advice to a person who is preparing to go. This network currently includes about 150 members and 69 of those who are people will use wheelchairs or other ambulatory devices to navigate the world.

Elizabeth and my presentation will consist of a first section dedicated to advising students with mobility disabilities to study abroad and the second to anticipating accessibility and arranging accommodations abroad. A third section will be specifically focused on funding resources and helping students find the needed funding to the participate in full formal study abroad experiences, imbedded study abroad experiences, short-term study abroad experiences.

We will take turns providing our perspectives on various topics and conclude with five minutes or so of questions.

Elizabeth: I will take over in terms of advising students. The initial thing to consider is that study abroad is challenging enough for everyone even in the best circumstances. There are so many questions about the kinds of situations that exist abroad, fears about communicating in the foreign language and fears of another country. In fact studies have shown these kinds of fears of being in another country are the major reasons that students choose not to study abroad So study abroad with a disability presents similar kinds of problems, because in addition to the typical concerns about lodging, health, communication, money, come worries about accommodations.

These are really the same kinds of concerns as those of students who choose not to travel because they are scared of something they don't know. In fact, traveling abroad with a disability is a misconception that it is not possible to do it. Mostly because of students, faculty members and administrators who see this as impossible. It is, in fact, completely feasible to study abroad with a disability as long as communication is clear and the accommodations are requested in advance.

I would agree with Tammy and Elizabeth, who talk about the importance of communication, it is really the critical ingredient of a successful study abroad program. Clear and early communication between the student, advisors and study abroad leader. In my own experience it was entirely possible and I would very much recommended it to others. The student who participated in my group and I will call her Kristin, she had been told it would be too hard to study abroad because she used a wheelchair. She was a wonderful French major, and President of the French club, and she had been speaking pretty sadly about the fact that her friends were going to France and she could come with them. I said, “Why can’t you come?” She said, one of her advisors had convinced her it would be impossible. We talked a lot about that and found out that really she needed to do to get around was completely possible within the parameters of this program. So we factored that into the planning. It wasn't difficult; it was just one more logistical element that we needed to factor into the program as a whole. My point is that if one has flexibility on the part of the student, and creativity on the part of the study abroad leader, it really is possible to go to any place.

Melissa: Elizabeth and I, as we were preparing for this training, discussed something else also very important in this process, which is allowing the student the greatest possibility of information and disclosure about situations which may or have arised in the past in the program and allowing the students to participate in the process that we call here in our office “challenge by choice,” whereby the student is allowed to gather as much information as possible about the upcoming experience, and choose based on his or her abilities and his or her goals for the program, what things are going to be feasible with appropriate accommodations, and what things he or she may choose to opt in or out.

I have a personal example here, which I believe illustrates this quite well. When I was in France, for the second time I chose to go on an adaptive ski trip that was being offered to the French Association for Paralyzed Persons. As a part of this trip, we had a day's worth of activities and included snow-mobiling, horseback riding, carriage riding, and many other things. Because this program was specifically designed for people with disabilities, no one thought to assume that any member of the group could or could not do anything. It was a matter of, here are the activities, participate in the ones you would like.

I chose to go on the day long snow-mobiling trip, which was a great time, never mind that I landed in the snow several times for lack of being prepared for the power of the snowmobile and being a small person on top of everything else. Unfortunately several hours into the day, this is a very practical matter, it was discovered that I had to find a restroom. Unfortunately the place that they had chosen to go snow-mobiling was pretty much a deserted field. There were a few trees. There was a building with restrooms; unfortunately it had been closed for the season. I had to make a choice about what I was to do for myself. When I say with the group and figure it out or was I going to make the choice to go back early and miss out on the rest of the day activity. My personal choice was to enlist to other more able-bodied members of the group to help me find a private place and do what I needed to do. That was a personal choice and I have heard many other stories of people with mobility disabilities having to make choices like that that were included in personal care – you know, finding places where you can navigate and make do. Those of you who have been to France would be aware of the infamous pod paid toilets they have there. That was a choice that I made for myself. I am very happy that I chose to stay with the group and finish the day’s activities.

Elizabeth: In coming back to advising, it is asking the student how you learn, and what you would like to learn, not whether you can learn. It is very important for the advisors to treat the students as individuals to find out what they personally would need and what they can tolerate. And also speak very frankly about needs and how they will mesh with the realities of the destination – the accessibility of the electricity, restrooms, transportation, medical facilities and things like that. It is particularly important to remember that students may not be able to imagine what the country will be like. It is important for us to show pictures or videos of the destinations, like narrow cobblestone streets in Europe or North Africa, ways for the student to visualize what they will encounter and how it differs from what they need. And if students are willing to be flexible in the ways their needs are met, like a manual wheelchair or crutches or even having people carry one, it is always possible to find ways to make things work.

Melissa: One of the examples that we like to use for this is our counterpart, Mobility International who hosts the Clearinghouse, who also has a program division that runs exchange programs. Through our 20 or so years plus experience we have discovered that one of the useful ways that we have found of framing a study abroad experience and getting a student to consider what types of things they may need away from their home environment (where systems are already in place to meet their needs), is to ask the student, “Can you imagine what sort of assistance you would need if we took you tent camping for a week where there is no electricity or running water is not likely?” They found that putting the question in this sort of paradigm where the student may have some frame of reference and can visualize, “Okay, you know, I am not one to have my bed or my special set up bathroom. What will I really need in this situation?”

Our next section that we would like to move on to at this point is the question of providing reasonable accommodations and accessibility abroad.

This is a very hot topic for anyone providing any sort of travel experience in education, whether it be foreign language related or any other topic. The first question that we hear is that there is no ADA there. “We have ADA here in the U.S. but they don’t have it where they are going. What do we do? What are required to do?” The first point that I would like to make on this, is that there are many, many countries around the world that have a law or a series of laws that taken together are very similar to the ADA and provide for similar kinds of protections under the law.

Many of these laws in other countries can and do extend to foreign students who may be studying in that country. On our list of handouts you will find a link to the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund where you can look up various countries and read abstract about their disability-related laws and how they may apply in your circumstance.

The other point to make here is that many schools are choosing to say, “Well, the courts have does said that ADA does not apply extraterritorially.” That because study abroad is an important aspect of higher education, and for many schools is becoming a requirement, that as an institution, they will provide the students with the accommodations that they need in the classroom to go on study abroad.

Furthermore, there is always the ingenuity and imagination and possibilities for free and low-cost options to assist students who are preparing to go on a study abroad. Many of these would include, you know, simple things like a student who needs a higher desk. Okay, you put the desk up on some blocks that it does so it reaches the height that the student needs. A student may be incapable of taking their own notes due to physicality or learning disabilities may be able to receive a copy of the teacher’s notes or another student’s notes. Students may be unable to write their own lessons may be able to ask another student to write their answers for them or to ask the teacher at a later time to write their answers for them. The key here is flexibility and the need to discuss with the students the kind of accommodations they get, and what disability-related needs and what accommodation is needed, so that the student and advisor may problem-solve together some alternative options for meeting the same disability-related needs.

Elizabeth: I would agree. In terms of flexibility, there are many low-cost options. Michele has written a wonderful a tip sheet that is in the packet at the MIUSA website. One of the big things that comes up constantly is funding. It is one of the major impediments for study abroad for everybody. It is possible, for my student I was able to get a scholarship, but it was suppose to be for scholarly excellent and not to pay for accommodations. So, the funding is something important to help the student with and present it not as an obstacle, but as a possibility. Melissa has more tips for funding.

Melissa: Funding is a huge obstacle for all students when looking at study abroad experiences, whether they be short or long term. For students with disabilities, who may already be receiving funding through Vocational Rehabilitation or Social Security  to support them through their education, it is important to know that these funds have been used in the past to support students on study abroad programs, and can be used to support those programs.

In order to use Vocational Rehabilitation or Social Security to fund a study abroad program, the student must show that the study abroad program will increase their employability and/or is necessary for their course of study – which would hold true for almost anyone who has chosen to major in a foreign language.

Question and Answers #3

Moderator: Thank you Melissa and Elizabeth. We will open it up. We only have a few minutes left in our teletraining today. We will open it up for a couple more questions at the end. So the operator, are you there?

Operator: Again to ask a question, press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. The first question is from Edward Roth.

Rachel: This is from that University of Southern, California, this is Rachel. I have a question regarding the foreign language anxiety that you talked about earlier. I come across a lot of students who either have LD or multiple disabilities. I wonder how do you help students who have another type of disability, such as a psychological disability that interferes with their learning in a foreign language class.

Tammy Berberi: That is a really good question because many studies will cite psychiatric disabilities as one of the most prevalent categories of disabilities that we find in our classrooms as well. So helping students with psychiatric difficulties or foreign language anxiety is really important. I would say that anything in my talk when I had to finish up pretty quickly, I skipped a whole section about what we as foreign language teachers do well. I was going to say that I would be happy to turn my remarks into a very brief handout of strategies, and if Michele is willing to send them out to participants today because I didn't have the time to cover what was probably about 20 minutes of material.

Anything we can do to lower the affective filter to make the students feel more at home in the foreign language classroom and make them feel O.K. with participating in a foreign language environment will help. Another thing that I have done with the students who really struggle with anxiety that they can’t seem to overcome is simply to ask them or I have had students tell me, “I don't want you to call on me. I can't read out loud and I don’t want to. I honor that reuest. Instead I ask students and I will give students prompts in advance of class and ask them to prepare some remarks that they're willing to make. When students ask me to avoid calling on them, or avoid singling them out in class, I honor that request in fact I put it on my disability statement on my syllabi that I am willing to do that for students who don’t want to be called on. I do give them alternatives for participating meaningfully in class time.

Elizabeth Hamilton: May I offer one alternative to that suggestion and that is to do as much choral work as you can, so that the entire class is using the language at the same time. That often reduces anxiety. Dialogue can even be read in chorus. Half of the class can read one role and a half of the class can read the other role. That often elicits a lot of laughter and enthusiastic participation. That can encourage students with high anxiety to speak in your class nonetheless.

Rachel: Thank you (see also the yellow highlighted section at end for additional email comments on this topic made after the call ended).

Operator: The next question comes from Vicki Johnson

Vicki Johnson: Hello. I am a sign language interpreter and I am wondering what you would do in a Spanish classroom when: The teacher speaks in English, and I sign in ASL, but when the teachers switches to Spanish, what should I do? Fingerspelling is tedious, and if I signed it in ASL and spoke it on my lips, the student still gets the translation into English. What do you suggest?

Ian Sutherland: That is a tough one. As anyone who heard the question readily might perceive, having a trilingual interpreter is a pretty specialized niche. Do you understand all of the Spanish yourself in class?

Vicki: Yes, I do. What I did in the past is use computers, so when the teacher switched from English to Spanish, I would type in the computer and the student could read it and the student would type back and I would voice it. I don't know if there is a better method, it was just something I put together – what do you think?

Ian: Is the student voicing (e.g. speaking) or is the student merely signing in the class?

Vicki: The student is signing.

Ian: Is the student expected to learn the vocal components or voice the langauge?

Vicki: No, but the student did want to participate in some way.

Ian: Right. It sounds to me what you have done is the best approach that I can think of short of - the other component to this is learning Spanish sign which maybe unrealistic. We do a little bit of that here at Gallaudet, but that is a specialty for which most of us in our department are also not qualified to teach Spanish sign language. So I'm afraid that there is no simple solution to that one. Checking the students comprehension of morphology is almost exclusively done by fingerspelling. That is what we do as well. It sounds to me like you have come up with about the best possible option that you can using the computer.

Vicki: Okay. Thank you.

Ian: I'm sorry that I can't be of more help there.

Elizabeth: You may want to Vicki to the chapter on using foreign sign in the book (e.g. Worlds Apart), although it doesn’t specifically answer her question.

Ian: Okay, good (see also the yellow highlighted section at end for additional email comments on this topic made after the call ended).

Operator: Your next question.

Moderator: We are out of time now and don’t have more time for questions. I do encourage you, people who are close to a computer, to e-mail me your questions. If you can e-mail them to meet within ten minutes of the end of this call, I will have the presenters stay online and answer them for the audio file. Unfortunately the call will be ending for everyone now. My e-mail is mscheib@miusa.org. That e-mail also is included in the registration information that you received earlier today. That is mscheib@miusa.org. Just e-mail me questions that you have for the presenters.

Unfortunately our time together has now ended. It went by awfully quickly. I thank all the presenters for their information. I challenge all of you who participated in this call to take the information that was shared today and find a way to use it in your work and build on this knowledge so that more students with disabilities can be fully included in the foreign language classroom. Thank you all again for joining us. I will be in touch with additional resources following the call as well as asking you to fill out an evaluation form. Thank you so much and goodbye.

Elizabeth and Ian: Thank you very much, Michele.

Moderator: Operator, the presenters will be ready to rejoin the sub-conference.

Operator: Okay. This concludes today's Disability and Foreign Language TeleTraining – you may now disconnect. Presenters please hold.

(pause) You are now in your subconference at this time.

Moderator: Everyone here? Thank you all so much – that went by quick! (agreement and laughs). Operator is the audiofile transferred over so that we can have them answer a few questions?

Operator: Yes, ma’am.

Moderator: There were only a few questions that were emailed in – one was a question that she also got to ask – it was the last question. The first question is for you Ian from Roger Pieroni from the University of Evansville. “Hello, my question is very pragmatic: I have a deaf student who communicates by signing and is interested in taking beginning French, complete a 3 year sequence in the language and study abroad, possibly in an immersion/intensive language program. Do you have suggestions?”

Ian: The first thing is to inquire about the means of communication by the student. Find out about the level of hearing loss for the student. One thing I was not able to go into due to time constraints is hearing loss comes across a great range – there are some students with minor hearing loss, all the way up to profound hearing loss. And, the means of communication among the students with hearing loss varies greatly as well. Some voice in English, some only use manual communication, some use a combined form.

So, as we touched on in various other presentations, first thing is to establish good communication with the student and find out what the status of the student’s hearing is, what is the preferred mode of communication for the student, and so forth. If it falls into the category of the one I was describing in my remarks, you’ll need to arrange for an interpreter in the classroom. Lots of the practical information that I lay out in the chapter of my book (e.g. Worlds Apart) would pertain to the French classroom as well such as sight lines and inclusion in the class.

Let’s see. What were some of the other details in the question?

Moderator: It might also be something for Melissa and Elizabeth to answer. The student is also interested in taking a study abroad course in an immersion language program overseas. Suggestions for that.

Ian: That would certainly be fully possible. It might be necessary to make arrangements for an interpreter to accompany the student. If it is a deaf student that uses manual communication and works with an interpreter, the interpreter would need to be included in the excursion. There would be no practical impediments to the student participating in the overseas program if the cost issue can be addressed.

Melissa: I want to talk from the standpoint that some people in our peer-to-peer network at the NCDE (e.g Clearinghouse) who are profoundly deaf and have participated in these type of experiences. Several of them that I am aware of have chosen to go through the pedagogy of their foreign language class as it is expected by their university, excluding the oral portion of the language as it was not possible for them.

However, as their time to go abroad approached these students researched options for learning the in-county sign language during the early phases of their study abroad and had chosen to participate in the traditional study abroad being a semester or longer. They found doing so provided them with an equal experience of their peers in that they also had linguistical challenges be that they were learning a new sign. They also had cultural challenges in that the deaf culture in the host country could be quite different from the deaf culture in their home country. They also had the experience of being able to communicate independently the same way their hearing peers did as the semester progressed in the immersion program.

Elizabeth Emery: Melissa, can I ask a quick question? Did they sign up for an immersion French language classes or did they sign up for beginning French.

Melissa: Most of the people that I am aware of who did this – one student was studying German and chose a course of study to follow the university format but then as her time to study abroad as a German major came, she took it upon herself to do some research and learn some German Sign but also got in touch with German organizations for the deaf – many of these around the world provide free or low-cost community lessons in the sign of that country. So that when they got to Germany or wherever they were going, they would enroll in their classes or use an interpreter as Ian suggests. But as the semester went on, one student who I’m aware of, got to a point where her German sign was to a high enough level to switch to using an in-country interpreter versus a student using ASL. I believe that choice for the student who chose it provided the same rich experience that their hearing peers provided in study abroad.

Ian: That sounds wonderful, and how resourceful for that student. It sounds as if that student spent an entire semester abroad.

Melissa: Yes. I would argue having done a short-term program abroad myself, that a student choosing to go on a short-term study abroad program and is deaf or hard of hearing and uses sign as their primary means of communication could benefit from doing some personal research and learning some basic in-country signs to better help them communicate with a host family, people on the street, and those things.

Ian: I completely agree – that is a great approach. An option, one that might be practical for a shorter itinerary or an itinerary that includes a lot of travel in which a group does not spend extended periods in one place is seeking out deaf associations or deaf clubs in those cities and taking time to go and meeting members of the deaf community in that area. This can provide a very rich cultural experience on a short-term basis if you just happen to be around for a short time. Online you can look up locations of deaf associations or deaf clubs that exist in cities abroad and then taking the opportunity to go by while there. Usually they are very receptive to meeting visitors from other countries and meeting with them to find out about people visiting in their country.

Moderator: Okay. I have a couple more questions. I promise I won’t keep you more than 15 more minutes since I think we had agreed a half hour after the call. Here’s a question that came in from Amy Free, who is a Staff Interpreter at the University of Wisconsin. I’m asking this one because it is related: “My question is about funding study abroad accommodations. In practice, our general rule is that the obligation to pay for accommodations lies with the entity that is receiving the tuition dollars, rather than the entity that is sponsoring or coordinating the event.  The institution of enrollment is therefore the party with that obligation.  Are there other ways this is done, or is our practice the standard model?”

Ian: The short answer to that is I guess I don’t know how that works nationwide. My assumption would be that yes it would be the institution that receives the tuition would be that one responsible for providing services.  I think she’s got that right, but I cannot speak from knowledge about how the various universities around the country fund their study abroad programs like that.

Melissa: I would like to say that we at the NCDE (e.g. Clearinghouse) encourage and have known many universities or third party exchange providers who have been able to provide accommodations whether they be for a student with a hearing impairment or any other disability that requires accommodations that incur a higher level of expense, whether that be an interpreter or personal assistant or something along these lines.

When they are planning the budget for their exchange program they allocate 1-3% of the budget off the top for reasonable accommodations then in needs arise, whether they be on the lower costs or higher cost end, the program budget is not automatically strained by these requests. We do know a few universities who have taken this approach and a few third party providers who have taken this approach.

The other thing we suggest or has been done through a Clearinghouse publication called Rights and Responsibilities is that some universities will agree to pay the cost of a student’s accommodation up to the cost that they would be paying anyways if the student remained on the home campus. So, if the campus was providing interpreter services, they would provide dollars for interpreter services equal to that for the student if they were physically on the home campus. It is then up to the student to find resources to make up the difference if there is any.

A third way the students have been successful is finding in-county interpreters, that is interpreters who live in the country where they will be studying, who are knowledgable in ASL to provide interpreting services, which would greatly reduce the cost of providing an interpreter vs. flying an interpreter over there, providing lodging and all the other things that you might have to pay. The one thing that students have done who have contacted us and been successful is finding interpreters who are just as interested as the student in having an overseas experience and they take on the cost of their own living expenses and then it is only up to the student or sending institution to provide applicable wages for the interpreting services.

There are many ways people have been successful in obtaining interpreting services or for that matter on very similar lines, personal assistant services they may need while abroad.

Moderator: I think that is a good enough answer for that. One other question or comment rather for Tammy is Mary Ball from Ashland University and an Instructor in French and Language Lab Director asked: “I have a question regarding Tammy’s presentation. Can she post a copy of her references?  During the talk, she mentioned a number of authors, but I didn't get all the names.  It would be great to have a list of them.”

Tammy: Okay. Michele would it be alright if I send you a handout I make of things that I skipped.

Moderator: Certainly. Anyone feel free to do that. I’m willing to send it out to the people who signed up for the call.

Tammy: Okay. Wonderful. Then I can do something a bit more elaborate and include a bibliography at the end.

Moderator: Here is another question from Martha Ann Moultry, principal at Fox Hallow  Elementary French Immersion school in Eugene, Oregon. She sent a couple of things and she was hoping the presenters would address the issues of foreign language learning for students with disabilities at the K-12 level. “Are there any specifics for addressing the needs for early language learners?” I can share some of her comments: “Traditionally parents of students with disabilities have self selected not to have their children attend the school for fear that they could not be successful in learning a second language.  Currently we are working on attracting students with disabilities to the school, but I am also interested in resources to better prepare our staff to offer the best possible learning environment for these students when they arrive.”

Tammy: I think that a lot of what we talked about at the higher education level is applicable to K-12. The difference is or rather why we didn’t broaden our remarks to include and address the K-16 level is because K-12 has done a better job of doing accommodations and it’s only in the past few years that we have begun to take the systematic and principled approach here in higher education. I don’t know but I haven’t specifically thought about elementary and K-12 education.

Melissa: I know that I started my personal foreign language education in the K-12 setting. I started in the 7th grade and I think her issue she points out with parents automatically opting their children out under the assumption that they would have difficulty in the dual language environment, unfortunately comes from, as Elizabeth mentions, the medical model and the way that those working and serving in the medical model speak to parents about the capabilities or lack thereof (even in the future) of their children – by the time children reach kindergarten at age six, parents have faced six years of rather daunting predictions of what their child will and won’t be able to do. So, I believe that in order to attract more students with disabilities to dual language environments you must show parents that as a school, as a teacher, you believe that every child can learn something related to foreign language. It doesn’t matter necessarily that they become smooth, fluent, natural speaker who you would never guess learned the language as a second, third or whatever number language they happen to be on. It is quite common for students, especially young students, to be very underestimated in their learning abilities because they do not have very many modalities to display their learning at this age. It is important when looking at a K-12 learning environment to allow students to learn in very natural manners – as a group from the teacher but also from their peers with assistance from their peers. And to also allow a student with a disability who may be particularly talented in one topic or another to provide assistance to their non-disabled peers.

Tammy: If I could just add one thing that Elizabeth pointed out and I’d like to reiterate that studies have shown that immersion experiences are very helpful for students with learning disabilities in particular. I think also the younger they start the less aware and seasoned they may be in thinking about their own deficits and bearing that stigma. The freer they will be as learners.

Elizabeth Emery: I’m piping in, although I don’t know how helpful it is because I haven’t seen it yet, but I know my local Association of Teachers of French has just come out with a study and articles about disabilities in the K-12 foreign language classrooms. I don’t know if it is about immersion or what is in it, but I will try to get a copy if that is something of interest.

Elizabeth Hamilton: That would be great; I’d be very interested in that. What association chapter is that?

Elizabeth Emery: It is the New Jersey/New York chapter.

Email Questions and Comments

The following comments emailed after the end of the call are not included in the audio file:

Elizabeth Emery: I spoke with Harriet Saxon, the colleague who had organized the booklet on teaching K-12 language classes for students with disabilities. She also said that it had been forwarded to the national AATF (American Association of Teachers of French) and that copies could be ordered through Jayne Abrate at Southern Illinois University.  Hope this will help answer the question that came up after the teletraining.

Anna Van Bonn: Two ideas that were raised – affective filters/anxiety in language learning and challenges in physical study abroad might also be addressed through technology.  I am a graduate student in the Global Studies in Education program at the University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana.  I've never been there – my program is entirely online.  How might online and other distance learning programs benefit students with 2nd language anxiety?  We have experimented, in our program, with "virtual exchange" with foreign universities.  I appreciated the suggestions for inclusive study abroad (and nothing can replace that experience), but I would like to suggest that through the use of technology, the meanings of "travel" and "classroom community" are changing, and might also be considered viable alternatives when considering access.

Lawrence Cusick (Student Accessibility Services Assistant at Dartmouth College): I was just thinking about a response to one of the callers who inquired about student's who aren't as willing to use computers and would rather have another method available. I wonder if interactive whiteboard technology might be an option (Mimio, SmartTech, etc.), or writing tablets with handwriting recognition software or a touch-screen? Then it would not be imperative to use a keyboard and/or mouse for all computer-related work.

Also, a thought for the caller who inquired about ASL interpreting in a Spanish course and having to go back & forth between signing, fingerspelling and using the computer. I know there is at least one CART company, CaptionFirst, who provides real-time captioning in both English and Spanish. We have not yet had the occasion to use such a service for any of our students but this may be an option to alleviate having the ASL interpreter jump from signing to transcribing in the middle of the class. I imagine at this time there are more than the one mentioned CART provider who are able to provide bilingual services, but we have had such infrequent use of CART that I am not sure what's available at the moment.

Ian Sutherland: I wonder whether there is any way that the teacher could provide a written version of what she is going to say in class? For example, could she pop a transparency on the overhead, to show written versions of the sentences or text that she is speaking? This would allow the student to see the sentence(s) quickly, and immediately begin to formulate his response in Spanish. The student would be able to stay closer to the pace of the rest of the group. It also relieves you of the responsibility of interpreting the remarks for him, or retyping everything on the laptop.

Whether this is possible depends in part on whether the teacher speaks extemporaneously. When she switches into Spanish, is she creating stuff off the top of her head (in which case she may have no idea ahead of time what she will say), or does she follow a book or other prepared exercises ((in which case it should not be too difficult to prepare a text)? Even if she wants it to appear extemporaneous in class, would it be too much to ask for her to think ahead of time about what she may want to say, and commit (some of) it to writing? If an overhead is not an option, or if the teacher wants the hearing students to concentrate on receiving the spoken word without also seeing a written text, could she provide a paper printout of her remarks for the deaf student? This way he could also practice reading/translating Spanish while the hearing students practice their auditory reception.