What is it about?
This study reported the results of teaching English as a foreign language to five Iranian students with dyslexia. Learning achievement was defined as a reading performance close to that of English-speaking children without dyslexia. The instruction comprised techniques to involve various senses (multisensory) while enhancing the learners' awareness of phonemes (phonics). Findings demonstrated the effectiveness of the instruction and students' achievement over a short period of time. Interestingly, the students' reading and phonological awareness in their first language (Persian) were also improved after the instruction in English, pointing at the interdependence of languages despite their vastly different writing systems.
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Why is it important?
This study supported the hypothesis that linguistic knowledge can be transferred from first to second language and vice versa, despite the greatly different writing systems employed by the two languages. It also delineated a compilation of language instruction techniques which can be adopted to help students with dyslexia learn a foreign language.
Perspectives
I hope this paper motivates other researchers to elucidate various aspects of foreign language learning in dyslexia, and inspire language teachers to develop better instructional materials and devise more suitable techniques to include all students in the magnificent and rewarding journey that language learning is.
Shirin Mohamadzadeh
Alzahra University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Teaching English to Students With Dyslexia in Iran: A Multiple-Case Study, Reading & Writing Quarterly, May 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/10573569.2019.1605951.
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