School of Thought

Hablas espanol?

  

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Hablas espanol?
By Jared Setnar, Upper School Director

To a student with dyslexia the thought of learning a foreign language is usually anxiety provoking. Many dyslexics have trouble comprehending the basic sound units of language, called phonemes. Phonemic Awareness is essential in quickly grasping any language. Have you ever met a dyslexic who struggles with spelling? Chances are you have, and it all has to do with phonemic awareness, or lack of it in the case of dyslexics. Dyslexic students can learn a foreign language; they simply need to learn it as they do everything else, in their own way and on their own terms.  The good news is that there are tools and methods designed to help students with Dyslexia with learning a foreign language.

One tool is the foreign language itself. If a student needs to be proficient in speaking, then a language with similar rules to English could be helpful, such as German. Although French is related to English the two languages sound very different. Languages such as Chinese and Japanese are completely different and would pose a large challenge for the student with dyslexia tasked with learning to speak those languages.

Another option is to focus on reading a language rather than speaking it; especially on a college level as many schools now accept reading / translation tests as evidence of being proficient in a foreign language. This can be extremely beneficial for the dyslexic student who typically has strong memorization skills and can memorize words.  Reading rather than speaking a foreign language allows students to understand the meanings of terms without being bogged down by learning the oral language component.  Using this method a student with Dyslexia could even tackle a language that is not linguistically connected to English at all, such as Chinese or Japanese since a visual code is memorized.

Learning a foreign language can be a challenge for people with dyslexia, but it is simply one challenge of many that dyslexics can and do overcome.

Ches. Bay Academy: Dyslexia & Language: wavy.com