Author(s): Duvall, Emily D
Published: July 2006 in Teaching Exceptional Children
URL to article
Research Focus Area: Asset-based best practices for serving students with disabilities/students in special ed
Abstract:
The article focuses on the inclusion of students with disabilities in a foreign language class in the U.S. The national foreign language standards support a communicative language approach to teaching and developing a rich multidisciplinary content-based curriculum. These standards have moved foreign language education towards increased access for all Americans. Many special education teachers are concerned about how they can teach these students when they have so many difficulties with their first language.
Research Question(s):
How can foreign language teachers “level the playing field” for students with disabilities by acknowledging and responding to a student’s physical, sensory, or cognitive barriers and employing appropriate accommodations, modifications, and adaptations?
Key Findings:
- While differentiation is often thought of in terms of students who are considered gifted or talented in their abilities, curricular and instructional differentiation is really about equity for all.
- Adaptations are the accommodations and modifications usually identified in a student’s individualized education program (IEP).
- Accommodations are the services or supports provided to help a student access the subject matter (e.g., tape-recorded books), access the instruction, (e.g., visual displays or study guides) and enable the demonstration of knowledge without compromising the validity of what the student knows.
- Where accommodations change how a student learns, modifications go a step further by changing what a student learns. Modifications can be minimal to significant.
- Universal design and adaptation for curricular access describes a variety of ways for all students to access the same content, to understand the same instruction, and to demonstrate the same knowledge.
- A curriculum that incorporates universal design features includes students with differing abilities alongside students with differing cultural and linguistic backgrounds and approaches to learning.
- Curriculum must remain challenging to students. Universal design is not about “dumbing down” content.
Implications:
The author presents a model of universal design that can be applied to most classrooms as well as to a wide range of special needs, summarized by the acronym INCLUDE:
- Identify Classroom Environmental, Curricular, and Instructional Demands.
- Instructors should begin by identifying what they bring to the classroom, then move to an assessment of the classroom environment. They should pay attention to Class Environment, how students are grouped, instructional materials, teaching style, and evaluation methods.
- Note Student Learning Strengths and Needs
- Students need to establish their students’ strengths, skills, and challenges in not only academic development, but also social/emotional and physical development. They should be careful not to extrapolate; instead they should use information on hand from their observations and special needs instructors in the school building.
- Check for Potential Areas of Student Success
- At this step, insructors should reflect on the instructional demands identified in Step 1 and identify areas where students can succeed in the classroom.
- Look for Potential Problem Areas
- Next, instructors need to look for “mismatches,” by identifying learning needs as they relate to instructional demands.
- Use Information Gathered to Brainstorm Instructional Adaptations
- Here, professors find ways to eliminate or minimize the impact of the mismatches identified in Step 4. This task can be well served by discussion with colleagues and special education resource teachers.
- Decide Which Adaptations to Implement
- Instructors then need to decide which of the adaptations identified to implement in their classroom. It’s important to keep in mind the age-appropriateness of each adaptation, it’s ease of implementation, how comfortable the instructor feels with each, and support for the adaptations in the research literatre.
- Evaluate student progress.
- In the final step, instructors should take time to critically assess the results at appropriate intervals. They should be sure to review the results with others.
Limitations:
- This article does not describe specific instances when this classroom strategy has been implemented.