An Overview of the Historical and Pedagogical Context

Presentation Outline from the Foreign Language and Disability TeleTraining

A.  What is disability?

    1.  Disability shapes but does not define a person
    2.  Medical model: illness, deficit, or lack
    3.  Social or cultural models: environmental barriers
    4.  The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504

          a.  Different implications for K-12 than for higher education

           b.  Major changes for students coming to college

B.  What are the foundational principles of foreign language study?

    1.  Inherent value in studying human differences and similarities
    2.  International respect and friendship
    3.  Learning about the world
    4.  Knowledge of globalization and diversity

C.  Where do disability and foreign language study merge?

    1.  The study of disability in foreign language courses
          a.  Disability is culturally and historically specific, yet known throughout the world
    2.  Students with disabilities in foreign language courses
          a.  Waivers and substitutions presume that students with disabilities cannot learn foreign languages

D.  What is our role as educators?   

    1.  To teach
           a.  To guide students through the learning process
           b.  To help all students develop their potential
    2. To emphasize the teacher-learner relationship
    3. To think and work as educators
          a.  not as doctors
          b.  not as lawyers
                i.  Be aware of the politics of “special attention” vs. “regular teaching”
                ii. Refuse the antagonistic terms of the debate
                iii. Refuse to yield to polemics
                 iv. Move from this two-sided debate to a multi-faceted discussion of learning styles
                 v. Replace chronic disrespect and denied opportunity with respect and full access to opportunities
                 vi. Move beyond minimal compliance with the law

E.  What resources are available?

    1. Worlds Apart? Disability and Foreign Language Learning. Ed. Tammy Berberi, Elizabeth C. Hamilton, Ian M. Sutherland. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. Includes essays by all of today’s teletraining presenters.
    2.  Growing number of high-quality studies of learning styles and practical advice for teaching (see bibliography accompanying this presentation)
    3.  Growing interest in the spectrum of learning styles and the ways in which instructional technology enables learning across this spectrum
             a. NERALLD Meeting of April 15th
             b.  Language Lab Unleashed
   4.  Still lack of shared knowledge about disability or attention to disability in the classroom
             a.  Teachers take a learn-as-you-go approach
             b.  Ad hoc approach to developing teaching methods and materials

F. What do we need?

    1.  Principled approach to accessibility
           a.  Don’t ask whether a student can learn, ask how.
    2.  A community of serious partners
          a.  Shared responsibility
          b.  The student is at the center
          c.  Forge links with others at your school or on your campus
                    i.  Disability support services
                    ii.  Technological support services
    3.  Willingness to learn, to develop new materials and methods, and to share them with others
           a. DISFL@lists.umn.edu
           b.  The Calico Review
           c.  IALLT Journal
    4.  Recognize “disability” as an organizing principle
           a.  Not yet a standard search term

G.  What is the difference between inclusion and accommodation?

   1.  Reasonable accommodation
           a.  Often most appropriate
           b.  Often haphazardly implemented
   2.  Full Inclusion
           a.  Universal Design in Instruction
                       i.  Not a method, but an approach
                       ii.  Emphasis on variety of learning styles
                       iii. Employs as many modalities as possible
                       iv.  Flexible opportunities for presentation, recall, and evaluation

H.  How do we enable students to identify their needs and learning styles?

    1.  Self-disclosure: often unreliable
           a.  Students describe feelings of shame and alienation
           b.  Lingering prejudice or misunderstanding associates the source of the shame as the impairment itself
           c.  Students are often unprepared to articulate their needs

   2.  Focus on learning
           a.  Ask about experiences and abilities
           b.  Form questions that target a learner instead of questions that focus on strife
           c.  Expressly invite students to tell us how they learn best
           d.  Again: don’t ask whether a student can learn, ask how.