Meeting the Teachers Halfway

Students with disabilities and disability service providers also play an important role in creating an effective language-learning environment. Suggestions of what students can do include: conveying their needs to teachers, learning the necessary technology or Braille code, and/or selecting course structures that fit their learning style. Disability service providers are responsible for ensuring that proper alternative formats are available, sign language interpreters are trained, and classroom accommodations are evaluated and adjusted as needed. Similar steps apply when communicating with foreign language instructors overseas regarding what is available or can be provided abroad.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Considerations

Although ideally, teachers will have designed their lessons to be accessible to all students without a need for adaptations, some teachers will find it necessary to make changes to accommodate a student with a disability. Disability services offices or resource teachers often will send a notice to confirm the specific accommodations that are approved for a given student with a disability. In addition, it is often most effective when the teacher talks directly with the student about his/her needs.

“Before the class started, I sent my teachers an email letting them know about my hearing loss and the accommodations I need, and they were both extremely helpful,” says Alison Ecker, who is hard of hearing, about her Italian language professors. “It’s also good to do research beforehand about all the possible accommodations, instead of finding out as you go along, because that can make your life a lot easier.” 

While in a perfect world, teachers will remain aware of their students’ diverse needs and develop a way to consistently provide necessary accommodations throughout the course, in reality, students are often called upon to remind teachers of their needs.

Naomi Collette taught a Deaf international student in an intensive English course at Tokyo International University of America, affiliated with Willamette University in Oregon: “She [fits in so well that she] seems to be ‘just one of the students’, and I almost forget she cannot hear. Like many other [international] students, her speech has an accent, but it isn’t indecipherable,” says Collette. “She sometimes says to me, ‘Naomi come forward. I cannot see your lips.’ And I say, ‘Oh sorry, I just forget.’ She is good at asking but she is not demanding.”  

“It is hard for people with little experience to realize what they need to do to accommodate you, so you have to speak up sometimes. It’s hard but I have really learned that over the years.  No one will know unless you tell them again and again,” says Sarah Franz, who is Deaf and studied abroad in Italy on a University of Michigan program. “I met the Italian professors before we went and explained everything; they did not seem overly enthused but they were okay with it all. I think we assumed it would be fine.”

Technology and Services

In Franz's Italian language courses overseas, she utilized assistive listening devices and relied on a friend to write down things she missed.  Her professors also arranged the desks in a circle to facilitate lip-reading. This was quite a change from the real-time captioners (CART) she had in classes at home. “I guess maybe it’s a bit unfair that I had to try a lot harder than most of the students. I would have liked more support, but my school could not really do that overseas. I would never use those [accommodations] in the United States, but I worked with what I had at the time,” she says. (Later, she learned about the option for remote captioning from overseas).

Ecker, on the other hand, found speech-to-text captioners in the Italian language classroom difficult to use. “The only accommodation I used in my Italian classes was the FM system. I tried using a captioner for Italian 101, but it was just too difficult, so after that term, I stopped using it. They had managed to find a captioner who knew Italian, but then there were problems with the computer not letting him type in Italian (it kept wanting to change it into English) and the class was so fast-paced that he couldn’t keep up very well,” she says. “It made more sense to just focus on what the teacher was saying, since when I was reading the captions, I wasn’t listening as hard. It was just a sensory overload, to have to look at the computer, listen to the teacher, look at the overhead/board, the book, and all the other materials we used in class.”

Although international Deaf students who study English in the United States may have access to sign language interpreters and captioners in the classroom, some report challenges similar to what Ecker describes or pressure to learn three new languages to be successful.

“The first time was hard to trust the sign interpreters because I was so used to depending on oral skills. I was looking at the teacher and not looking at the interpreter,” says Isidore Niyongabo, who grew up orally deaf in Burundi. Niyongabo had learned American Sign Language (ASL) from a dictionary before enrolling in California’s Ohlone College, where he utilized ASL interpreters and captioners in the classroom. “I found it challenging to pay attention to the interpreter to find out what exactly was going on. Later on, I got used to it, but at first, it was complex. [However], it was less stressful compared to my country where I was mainstreamed and didn’t have an interpreter. [In Burundi] I relied completely on what I saw with my eyes orally, and had to memorize everything and take notes myself.”

Collette notes that the Japanese student enrolled in her intensive English language course in Oregon, found that she did not have to rely on a fellow student to take notes for her in class.  “The Willamette University has a disability aid department that facilitated note takers for the student. We hired a note taker who has two laptops in the classroom, so the student can read the screen as the note taker types, and she can also save and print the notes [for later reference]. A student has to have a degree of second language skill in reading and writing, otherwise it will be very hard,” says Collette.

Interpreting Challenges

Similarly, a strong grasp of ASL and Manual Signed English may be needed to fully utilize sign language interpreters (for definitions of these, read the glossary in blue box below).  “English is an aural/oral language and how do we code that on the hand and then code switch between ASL and Signed English when you start getting into diagramming sentences and adjective clauses? It becomes a challenge,” says Mark Kreidler, who coordinates sign language interpreting for international English language students in the Northern Virginia Community College system. “When an instructor is speaking specifically, the interpreter has to switch between ASL, which is best to convey the overall concept, and the specific Signed English to show the English [grammar] – the students are not just having to learn ASL or increase their proficiency in that, they are having to learn the Signed English system as well so the interpreter can interpret the specifics of the English language.”

Similarly, Kreidler has yet to find an approach that works for sign interpreting in foreign language classes for U.S. Deaf students. How do you interpret a class spelling test? ASL is a contextual language, he explains; some specific words in isolation can mean three different signs in ASL. Under usual circumstances, the interpreter would fingerspell the specific word, to clarify. In the foreign language case, sign language interpreters would have to mouth the specific word and the student would need some lip-reading skills. “We’ve had to work really hard for the past years on how to interpret foreign language classes. We’ve had students take French and Spanish and work with interpreters to do a lot more of oral interpreting, which can be a challenge for those used to doing ASL interpreting. If we can find an interpreter who has the background in the language that is definitely helpful, but we’ve had interpreters that are learning as they go,” he says.

Kat Dudina, a freelance sign interpreter who has interpreted in Russian and German courses for Deaf students at Hunter College in New York, stresses that ASL interpreters need to know the language – either fluently or a couple of levels above the students’ course – and obtain the textbook to prepare in advance of the lecture. Working out a system with the team interpreter, professor and student also helps.

“If the goal of the lesson was to understand the meaning [e.g. teacher's explanation of a topic], I would just sign it in ASL, and mouth it in Russian. [The Deaf student] read my lips. She would use ASL and mouth, so I could voice for her in class [in Russian],” says Dudina, who grew up in Ukraine speaking Russian. For expressing grammar or vocabulary specifics in class, Dudina and the student mouthed the words and used Russian fingerspelling, which she found more effective than trying to use the ASL fingerspelling alphabet to express the Russian words phonetically. “At first, it was very difficult because I had to switch my whole mode of communication from ASL. I feel that you have to create an individual system for every student who takes a foreign language. Everyone has a different reason for taking the language and learns in a different way, so every student and interpreter would approach it differently.”

Since accurately conveying verb endings or sentence structure in a foreign language course requires a lot of fingerspelling, Dudina recommends two interpreters switching out every 15 minutes. “If the teacher is reading aloud for comprehension, I’m not going to just sign what she is saying [for the Deaf student],” she says about her experiences interpreting in a German language course. Rather, “the instructor might allow the student to read from the passage and retell it to see how much she understood. The teacher might try to write the sentences when she was speaking as much as possible too, in which case, I would point to the board for the student to read.” Since this isn’t always the case, and fingerspelling foreign words often is required, Dudina charges higher rates for her services that require specialization and more preparation.

Dudina hasn’t learned Russian or German Sign Languages, because she feels it is not the point of the courses. “If I were signing in German, it wouldn’t work because she is not learning signed German, she is learning written/spoken German. Spoken and signed languages of any particular country don’t have to be related at all. Also if the student doesn’t know the sign language, it is counterproductive and confusing,” says Dudina. One exception is if the student decides to travel abroad, he or she may want to learn the national sign language while abroad.

Kriedler has explored all these issues as well. “We share ideas and the different challenges that arise that perhaps we haven’t experienced before. It is one of those things that keeps us on our toes and something we are constantly talking about amongst our staff.”  

For more information on interpreting in the foreign language or English language classroom, visit the online articles linked from the Foreign Language and Students with Learning, Hearing and Vision Disabilities tipsheet.

Blind and Low Vision Considerations

Julie Sanfaçon, like Franz above, assumed that her study of Russian overseas would be fine, and ended up having to make do with what was available when she arrived. She describes responses to her inquiries about access arrangements as “pretty enigmatic.” “[They said] ‘Everything is going to be good’, ‘It’s going to have everything’ – and I wasn’t the only one who was fooled like that,” she says.

In fact, says Sanfaçon, “We often ran out of printer paper and ink, and we could spend a week and a half without the printer working. At the time I didn’t have a portable CCTV [for enlarging print] and I couldn’t bring my heavy CCTV into the classroom.” Luckily though, she brought her own mini-telescope and had ZoomText adaptive software on her laptop, and the Russian university lent her a small monitor so that she could create a mini workstation. She noted that other blind college students (who were Russian) relied on assistance from peers, tape recorders, and access to the Russian Federation for the Blind’s donated computer lab and library of Braille books.

Technology and Services

The more types of alternative formats that students are familiar with, the better disability services offices can assist them and their teachers to make accommodations. In particular, U.S. students going overseas to learn a foreign language will find that Braille materials or personal readers are more available in most other countries than large print or technology-based audio formats.

With advances in computer software and scanner technology, U.S. students who are visually impaired have access to audio versions of most documents.  Only a small percentage of visually impaired people in the United States are proficient in Braille and prefer that format. “I use large print but it’s really irritating because I have a bunch of blind spots in my good eye and it blocks off half the writing so I can only see a couple of letters at a time, so most of what I have is audio,” says Alison Ballard, a visually impaired college student who studied abroad in Costa Rica. “I took classes through high school in Braille but I never got good enough at it to read it really fast.”

Organizations that produce Braille, large print and audio books often have books available in foreign languages as well or can obtain them through inter-country loans. Vocational Rehabilitation can sometimes provide technology to read the audio book formats or fund reader services. However, relying solely on audio formats without learning Braille or accessing large print can make it difficult to learn the spelling and writing system of a new language, and to read out loud in class.

“I prefer books on tape, otherwise it is very slow going. When it’s grammar, it’s really hard to listen to that on tape and pay attention, so I tend to just enlarge and look at that,” says Leslie Weilbacher, who was able to access large print in her German class with her Pico, a handheld CCTV she got through the Oregon Commission of the Blind. She found this better than an enlarged version of documents that in high school were “burdensome” to carry around. She also has acquired ZoomText software. “If coursework is sent to me electronically, it’s usually easier for me because my computer can read it to me – except if it’s in German because my computer can’t pronounce German very well,” she laughs. “Although, people tell me that JAWS [software] can.” 

JAWS recognizes foreign languages; the software is coded to know how to pronounce the correct phonemes for the language it is written in, versus most other software that just reads foreign languages using standard linguistic pronunciations. If using the JAWS default voice synthesizer, Eloquence, the software can even handle a mixture of English and the foreign language on the same page, which can be common in foreign language texts. JAWS is not the only option available however to access foreign languages. If selecting a screen reading software or recording audio books on campus, a student can request that the instructor listen to the pronunciation to assess its accuracy. The instructor also should be prepared to administer tests to the student orally if this is the alternative format selected.

“I use a VoiceNote cordless keyboard to type all my notes and it just talks back to me,” says Krystle Allen, a community college student who is visually impaired. “I ask my Spanish teachers if anytime they were writing on the board if they could speak while they were writing so I could copy down the notes. If it came to tests, sometimes I’d have a visual aid or I would just ask them to enlarge it for me (really large print – 36 font).”

Finding a reader/scribe who knows the foreign language well enough to pronounce test questions, and can take dictation from someone who is blind (or physically disabled) without influencing the spelling or correcting the grammar on an exam, can take some searching and training.

Allen receives a voucher to get her textbooks from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, where they have readers who are fluent in foreign languages. Once she receives a textbook, she uses the software program Victor Reader Soft to listen to it. “It will read the CDs for me as if a person was reading it,” says Allen. “If they don’t have the book, sometimes I ask people to read for me or I read it with my CCTV. I do have a scanner but I don’t really like the program because it makes errors even though things on the printed page are correct.” Two other reliable sources for audio books is the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic and BookShare, among others.

Braille Challenges

When students do use Braille, there are additional set of considerations regarding foreign language courses. For example, refreshable Braille devices now allow students to carry around compact technology devices instead of thick volumes of Braille paper. However, it can take time to request a textbook in electronic format from the publisher or scan a book, and can be expensive to prepare the Braille translation of an electronic document. Before Brailling an entire foreign language book, it is advisable for disability services to find out which specific chapters will be used in the student’s course. Additionally, it may be easier to purchase a Braille copy of an English-French dictionary, for example, than transcribing the vocabulary index in the back of most foreign language textbooks. Also, before investing time and resources to prepare Braille materials in a foreign language, disability specialists should discuss with the student and teacher the symbols for the accent marks and other unfamiliar characters in the foreign language. If the student will be studying the foreign language in the host country, she or he should learn the contracted version of that Braille system.

Judy Loving, a resource teacher at a U.S. high school in Texas worked one-on-one with a blind exchange student from Russia for an hour and half every day to teach her new skills and technology. “I don’t think she had ever been on a computer; she’d never used a Braille typewriter. We had to get her going very quickly on learning contracted, grade two Braille code because that’s what all the high school textbooks were,” said Loving. “Even if it seems like an enormous task at first, it’s just so worthwhile. I’ve worked with visually impaired kids for twenty years and she is one of the top students I’ve ever had. It’s strictly because she was so motivated, so excited and such a hard worker that it made my job so easy. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

With her energy and enthusiasm, the blind student learned the grade two Braille code, consisting of about 200 symbols, within two months of her arrival in the United States. She also improved her English with a talking dictionary provided by her school, and became adept at using new technology loaned to the school by the state education center. This included screen reading software and a handheld computer that could give her instant Braille or audio access to electronic text and provide her faster note taking capabilities than the slate and stylus she had brought with her from Russia.

“The best skill she came with was that she wasn’t afraid to ask questions or to attempt anything. She was a quick learner and a hard worker, and that made all the difference,” said Loving. “Once the teachers saw her positive, outgoing attitude and how eager she was to learn, they found she was a great person to have in the classroom for the other kids.”

While most blind students from overseas are used to Braille, they may not have time to learn the contracted, grade two Braille used in the United States during a short-term exchange program.  Fortunately, other options exist to make English language learning accessible to these students. Norma King from the University of Denver had an intensive English language student from Nepal who was blind. “In preparation, I went to our disability services to see what they could provide. They were able to put our textbook and reading assignments on tapes. We determined what level that student would be placed in, and started that process to get lessons on tape,” she said. “At the same time, I started getting permission to have a computer built. I checked out different systems. The exchange program had not anticipated paying for computers and software. By showing what her needs were and making a plea that if the exchange program is going to bring people with disabilities, they have got to make it work for the students, the exchange program came through.”

 

Learning and Cognitive Disability Considerations

Like students with other disabilities, U.S. students with learning disabilities may use spell and grammar check or dictation/screenreading software, such as Dragon Dictate, Dragon Naturally Speaking or ViaVoice in their coursework. (Students with some physical disabilities may also use these programs.) Unfortunately, the most accurate foreign language versions of this software are not generally available for sale in the United States. While the American versions may have a foreign language option, purchasing the overseas versions will provide for more precise pronunciation of words. This shortens the learning curve exponentially and places accents and punctuation properly, according to Wink Harner, a foreign language professor at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona.

The one drawback to using software purchased overseas for the beginning language learner is that all the commands and instructions in the overseas-produced software are in the foreign language as well. If using the American version, one suggestion is to scan the foreign language textbook, and ask the dictation/screen reading software to add the vocabulary to its memory. Then, for those using the software for dictation, it would be best to train each of the new words as they are added, so that the pronunciation matches the student’s voice.

Students with learning or cognitive disabilities may look to adaptive software programs for assistance in their foreign language courses, as well as tutoring, note taking, extra time on tests, alternative formats for assignments, flexible scheduling or quiet space for testing.

“This semester I have a student who has brain cancer and is taking a Spanish class. The cancer affects his ability to concentrate and take notes. That particular student is such a good self-advocate that I don’t see that I could do anything better than he does in terms of letting the faculty member know what he needs,” says Dayna DeFeo, who in addition to teaching Spanish serves as the Disability Coordinator at New Mexico State University in Carlsbad. She arranged for books on tape and extended test time for the student. The student declined other possible accommodations, such as a waiver for spelling or alternate assessments (oral instead of written), but as his condition changes, so will his needs. “What’s nice about Spanish is it’s not all written words, even in an academic textbook, there’s a lot of drawings and visual things that he says help him,” she says.

While the student DeFeo worked with was upfront about his needs and had ideas that would assist him in learning Spanish, some international students who are taking English courses in the United States may not be as aware or forthcoming. “We have had students with learning disabilities and we have connected them with our Learning Effectiveness Program (LEP) but it takes a lot of personal counseling to get them to accept it,” says King at the University of Denver. “One thing I have done is have the head of the LEP come to my office and the three of us have sat down and talked.”

Alternative Course and Language Options

A student with learning disabilities may find learning a foreign language to be more challenging than other academic pursuits in his or her native language.  This may depend on the complexity and structure of the particular language system, for example, frequency of word occurrence, size of vocabulary, etc. By working with a learning assistance center, students can acquire strategies to persist through the learning process and achieve greater success. However, making assumptions about the ease or difficulty of learning a particular language for someone with a disability is not recommended. Suggesting one language will be better than another for someone to learn can often be turned on its head.

“Probably the most wonderful part of learning Arabic has been learning the written language. For me this has been fundamental in better understanding the pronunciation of the letters. When I see the English transliteration of Arabic, my mind only pronounces the letters in English. But when I learned to recognize Arabic letters, I soon started pronouncing them correctly,” says Kristin Hoobler Morgan, who has a learning disability and previously mastered Spanish. “It’s been a truly fascinating experiment for me and has taught me a lot about the way my brain processes new information. Most people do not learn written Arabic because it is so difficult, but I found that to be untrue for my learning style.”

The availability of teachers who focus on students’ different learning styles can impact those who might otherwise try to waive foreign language requirements. “I think all the students can learn with me, but if the student has a traditional auditory-visual learning style they might not need all the repetition,” says Stacy Attafi, a high school French teacher in South Carolina who has used a variety of multi-modal techniques to teach lessons. “It’s rewarding to see kids like Gavin [who has a brain injury] or students who would not succeed in a traditional class, all of a sudden really turn on to French and see that they can do it and they are good at it. They have been frustrated so many times before in the traditional classroom. It’s not that I’m untraditional but students tell me that they learn here.”

The University of Colorado began offering a Modified Foreign Language course as an option for students who have attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and/or learning disabilities, and because of their 98% success rate, other universities have followed its model. Many students who may previously have requested a foreign language waiver discover that with this option, often arranged by the disability or learning center, they are passing the courses and, for some, doing above average work. In this course, they learn memorization techniques, develop practice routines, improve their understanding through multi-sensory approaches, and use other methods that facilitate them exceeding expectations in foreign language learning.

Sandra Freels, a Russian teacher at the college level, found that individual instruction for a student with post-traumatic stress syndrome proved to be a good alternative when the class pace, level of assignments and types of tests weren’t a good fit. “My instruction is provided on a by-arrangement basis to students referred by the Disability Resource Center (DRC),” says Freels. “The DRC staff provide routine accommodations but do not have a lot of experience with foreign language instruction per se.” The by-arrangement credit option consisted  mainly of over 100 hours of independent study and weekly meetings with the instructor for ten weeks. While this process of language instruction is slower than for other students, Freels reports, “This student in particular found that studying Russian ‘opened other parts of [his] brain’” and satisfied other academic interests.  “He had a strong interest in visual arts, and he found stencils most helpful when working with the alphabet. He combined his knowledge of Cyrillic and his computer skills to do Web searches for his favorite Russian painters and get information about them from Russian sources.”

Researchers from the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio, have refuted conventional wisdom that students with ADHD will have difficulties in foreign language courses. Reviewing the success rate of students with ADHD who had completed foreign language courses, the researchers found that the students performed on par with their non-disabled peers, and passed their courses with average or above-average grades.

When it comes to learning Japanese, people with dyslexia find the language easier to learn than French, Spanish or German, according to research at a school in Somerset, in the United Kingdom. In an online article on the research, Bill Penty, head of modern languages at a school in the United Kingdom, said: “Japanese is written syllabically, so that what you read is what you hear. Grammatically it is exceedingly straightforward up to a certain point. It is also elliptical, which means that if it doesn’t need to say something it won’t say it.” He said that at a basic level all the verbs except one ended in the same sound, and that dyslexic children performed particularly well in exams.  

DeFeo, the adjunct instructor of Spanish in New Mexico, also believes Spanish may be easier in some aspects for students with learning disabilities. “A benefit to Spanish is that it is entirely phonetic. Once you learn the alphabet words are always sounded out phonetically (unlike English). Students who have difficulty with English for that reason may welcome the cut-and-dry spelling that Spanish uses. However, the changes are hard to get used to. For example QU in Spanish makes a K sound (as in quesadilla) and J makes an H sound (as in jalapeño) – this could be difficult for a person who has spelling difficulties.”

Some students with spelling difficulties may find advantages to learning languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet, according to Hoobler Morgan, who has a learning disability. “In Arabic, the written language is totally different and the English transliteration of the words has not been standardized. For example, the way it is transliterated in Egypt is different than the Arabian Gulf. So, whenever I would go to look up a word, it seems to always be spelled differently which makes recognizing words very difficult,” she says. “Additionally, every teacher transliterates words differently! For an individual with dyslexia this is a dream come true so long as you always write in Arabic in English transliteration. Why? Because no one is going to correct your spelling! This is the case for now but soon the English transliteration of Arabic will be standardized.”

In the next article, we will look at how learning a foreign language overseas improves both one’s communicative skills in the language and one’s knowledge of the culture in which the language is spoken. Tips on how to make the most of the overseas experience will be shared by students with disabilities who have studied abroad.