Assignment 6.2: Providing Specialist Support

Introduction

The government’s Skills for Life strategy requires that all adult learners should be “guaranteed good teaching and support, no matter what their starting points are or where their learning takes place” (Adult Literacy Core Curriculum). A central recommendation of Freedom to Learn (2000) was that specialist guidance should be made available to assist Basic Skills tutors in making the core curricula fully accessible to all learners. This led to the passing of legislation such as the Learning and Skills Act (2000), the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001) and the publication of Access to All, which sought to provide practical advice to tutors working with learners who have Dyslexia, learning or physical disabilities, mental health and well-being issues, Autism or Asperger Syndrome and people who have sight or hearing difficulties. An ESOL specific version of Access to All was published in 2006.

The core principle of Access to All is this: “all learners are entitled to a learning environment that matches their individual requirements. For this to occur there has to be a match between how the learner learns and how he or she is taught.” With this in mind, both providers and tutors have a responsibility to review and monitor learning and understanding, base learning approaches on individual learning styles and motivation, and negotiate and follow the learner’s own educational priorities.

All post-16 education providers must also now adhere to the code of practice established by the Disabled Rights Commission in the wake of the Disability Discrimination Act (2006). It is the legal duty of such institutions to provide education of an equal standard to all students regardless of disability. The Commission reported that the main issues affecting learners were in relation to classroom practice, exams and assessment, materials and the provision of learning support.

Learner In Need of Specialist Support

The subject of this assignment is Hamed, a 42-year-old Afghan learner who has been studying in a pre-Entry level group at ______________ College. Hamed arrived in the UK two years ago having had no formal education in his home country. Despite regularly attending classes he has been unable to advance levels or even take an exam owing to learning difficulties which leave him unable to work independently and in need of direct individual supervision. In common with many pre-Entry learners, Hamed has a distinctly spiky profile. While his speaking and listening skills show signs of progress, he continues to struggle greatly with reading and writing. A major area of concern is his inability to retain information – although he can produce legible handwriting and can copy basic information, he cannot recall the spelling of familiar words or produce even simple sentences.

Institutional Provision

When conducting initial and diagnostic assessments with ESOL students it is extremely difficult to distinguish between low-level language ability and wider learning difficulties. Although the standard enrolment form includes a question about learning and health problems, there is no separate assessment for dyslexia or conditions that may slow down or restrict learning. Furthermore, many low-level learners, particularly those who arrive from countries where special needs support remains undeveloped, are unable to articulate, or are sometimes completely unaware of, their learning difficulties. Indeed, government research has found “no direct translation for the term learning difficulty” among many Turkish, Eritrean and South Asian communities (Learning and Skills Development Agency, 2004). More commonly used terms were translated as ‘slow’ and ‘stupid’. Faced with such prejudices, many ESOL learners are understandably reluctant to admit to learning problems in an initial assessment or the early stages of a course.

Compounding these problems, class tutors who are not specialists in the area are often slow to request support, particularly when teaching large, mixed-ability classes. In Hamed’s case, it took several weeks before he was placed with a Learning Support Assistant. During this time it was assumed that Hamed’s lack of progress was due to his unfamiliarity with formal education and poor receptive skills.

__________ College has an Additional Learning Support Team to assist students with Learning Difficulties. For ESOL learners, initial needs assessments are left to the class teacher who can then request extra help such as a learning support assistant, the loan of specialist equipment and the granting of special exam considerations. In practice, I have found that there are not enough learning support assistants to cover every student with suspected difficulties, which results in assistants being asked to attend to extra learners in addition to the person they were initially allocated to help. Technical equipment such as talking dictionaries, individual cassette players with headphones and audio-visual resources have to be shared between several classes and are not always available when needed, requiring a large amount of pre-planning. There is currently no provision for interpreters to be present at initial assessments. Although low-level students are often accompanied by friends or family members, they may feel uncomfortable discussing their learning support needs.

With regard to exams, students with specific learning difficulties are able to apply for up to an extra 25% of the time ordinarily allowed for a paper. This, however, is not of help to all students. Hamed, for example, is easily tired and becomes unable to concentrate when given practice exam papers. In this instance, a more appropriate form of support would be to offer the students a supervised break during the examination.

A further area of concern is the physical environment for learners, whose classrooms are scattered around other departments and lack adequate signposting or specialist facilities for ESOL classes. Although the college is in the process of building entirely new premises, there are currently several difficulties in providing an adequate learning (hearing loops for a deaf student, for instance, could only be provided once a week, and then only by relocating the entire class to the other side of the college premises).

The Teacher’s Role in Providing Support

The role of the teacher in providing support is spelled out in Access for All, which requires tutors to “produce learning programmes that maximise the opportunities for acquisition of…skills for each individual learner.” In practice, teachers who have little experience of teaching learners with specialist support needs are initially reliant on pre-existing frameworks – the assessment advice and suggested classroom activities (listed by individual level descriptor) provided with the ESOL core curriculum, for instance. It is of vital importance that teachers are trained in dealing with specific issues and are informed of the help available and how to utilize it. In the words of the Further Education Funding Council, “teacher expectations and attitudes are as influential as technical equipment and individual ability”. (Tomlinson, 1996)

In practical terms there are number of things a teacher can do to assist students with Learning Difficulties. First and foremost, it is important to use contexts and activities that are relevant and motivating to the learner. Where possible, teachers should find out about the students’ previous learning experience and activities that have been enjoyable or helpful. The use of visual aids such as photographs and computer programmes (where available) can also be highly beneficial. A common failing of teachers (including myself) is to work more with the support assistant than the learner. Part of the support process is to give the student as much opportunity as possible to work with the teacher and other students, rather than relaying instructions and then leaving the learner to work alone. Differentiated activities enable stronger students to work unsupervised while the teacher spends time with learners who are having difficulties; as often as I can, I try to involve Hamed in small group and whole class work.

Task variation is also important for learners like Hamed, who are too often left to merely copy letters and sentences. I do a lot of work with letter tiles and matching games, which provide kinaesthetic as well as visual practice.


Reflections on Continuing Development

The first recommendation for my continuing development in providing learners with support would be to undertake specific SENDA training in order to broaden my knowledge of general support issues and the options available to help students. Additionally, I would welcome the chance to observe teachers who have more experience dealing with specialist support. In particular, it would be helpful to observe methods of preparing and delivering classroom activities and utilising support assistants during tasks. With regard to resource development, and in collaboration with other staff members, it would be helpful to produce a menu of suggested classroom activities for students with Learning Difficulties using the Core Curriculum advice as a starting point. Finally, I believe that specialist provision should be made available for low-level ESOL learners who have specific literacy needs (perhaps in addition to normal lessons). It would be a useful experience to visit and learn from institutions that already offer this service.

My experiences with Hamed have informed my current practice but there is still plenty of scope for further development, especially in regard to the use of Language Experience texts in class to motivate and involve learners, differentiating activities so that learners do not feel excluded and providing a variety of tasks to reinforce things that Hamed has recently covered in class. Thinking more proactively, I would also welcome specific training in helping learners with hearing problems, well-being issues (victims of torture and emotional distress) and identifying Dyslexia in second language learners.

Conclusion

As a large institution __________ College has a number of strategies for dealing with students who have learning difficulties. However, many of these were designed with native speakers rather than second language learners in mind. At present, for low-level learners such as Hamed there is too much emphasis placed on the individual teacher to adapt classroom practice and planning and not enough institutional support provided to correctly diagnose and assess ESOL students with learning difficulties, or to ensure their full participation in learning and development.

Bibliography


www.lifelonglearning.dfee.gov.uk/freedomtolearn/front.html

www.drc.org.uk/library/publications/education/code_of_practice_post_16.aspx

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/curriculum_esol/access/

http://www.csie.org.uk/ (the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education)

www.csie.org.uk/publications/tomlinson-96.pdf (Tomlinson Report, 1996)

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