2.4 Applications of SEN Provision Integrated Content and Language Learning Approaches
The learning of a foreign language exposes individuals to a range of new experiences. These invariably involve emotions. The European Framework for CLIL Teacher Education (Marsh, Mehisto, Wolff, Frigols-‐Martin 2010) has a range of references to the need of a teacher to both explore and manage the impact of one’s own attitudes and behaviour on the learning process through forms of self-‐
reflection, but also to continuously build safe and meaningful learning experiences for students by managing the affective side of learning through an additional language.
Language learning touches not only upon social interaction, but also personal development and creative exploration, as well as intellectual and skills development. At its best, language learning opens up new worlds to learners within which self-‐discovery is a positive consequence. Individuals develop skills and acquire new dimensions of social interaction that even at their simplest open up new areas of communicative potential. This focus on the affective dimension is frequently cited in SEN language learning provision. Both SEN and CLIL involve working in ways in which numerous multi-‐dimensional challenges need to be continuously handled, and this requires sophisticated recognition and response to major factors in successful learning, such as emotion. ‘Emotional experiences are built into the architecture of the brain. In fact, emotion and cognition operate seamlessly in the brain’ (Hinton & Fischer 2010:119). Citing Barrett et al. 2005;
Barrett 2006; Damiaso 2003, Hinton, Miyamoto & della Chiesa 2008, the authors state that ‘if learning institutions are responsible for cognitive development, they are automatically involved in emotional development as well…. Therefore educators should guide the development of emotional regulation skills just as they
SEN language education provision and CLIL both involve methodological adaptation to meet diverse needs, abilities and expectations. The types of methodological adaptation in SEN differ according to the types of learners involved. In both contexts, quality languages educational provision has often involved innovation, grassroots professional commitment to ensuring access to an adapted or otherwise alternative form of languages education, and at a later stage, top-‐down recognition and support (see, for Baetens Beardsmore 1993, Garcia 2009, and (McColl, McPake,& Picozzi, 2003).
The language teaching profession has been adapting to new emerging socio-‐
cultural contexts and learner’s diverse needs for some years see, for instance, Marsh 2002: 49-‐64). This has led to an increasing focus on individual learning preferences and convergence of opinion on what can be considered a quality generic approach to language teaching and learning at different levels of education, and indeed life. ‘The impact of general learning theory and how individuals learn, based on work from eminent theorists such as Bruner,Vygotsky and Wood (…) does not always directly influence classroom practice. But if CLIL is to build on potential synergies, then considerations of how effective learning is realized must be brought into the equation’ (Coyle, Hood & Marsh: 2010: 28).
An analysis of what is meant by effective pedagogies in different contexts, applied to both SEN languages provision and CLIL has led to a major focus on ‘the centrality of student experience and the importance of encouraging active student learning rather than a passive reception of knowledge’ (Cummins 2005:108). This has led to the provision of integrated learning experiences that draw on the historical development of socio-‐cultural, constructivist perspectives on learning and the linking of these subsequent developmental areas. It is obvious that special needs learners are somehow different to the mainstream, and thus require adapted
educational solutions. Some may require very specific language educational solutions, but the same applies to students in CLIL contexts, ‘it is also true that the same logic applied to good foeign language learning for non-‐SEN learners applies to those with SEN’ (Marsh 2005: Executive Summary).
Development of educational solutions for both Special Needs and CLIL have focused on learner autonomy (Holec 1981; Wertsch 1997; Kukla 2000); multiple intelligences (Gardner 1983); language awareness (Hawkins 1984); language learning strategies (Oxford 1990); educational neurosciences (CERI 2007; Fischer et al. 2007); thinking skills (Marzano 2000); autonomy and authenticity (van Lier 1996; van Esch, K. and St John, O. 2003); integrated working patterns and creation of communities of practice (Wenger 1998); dialogic inquiry (Wells 1999; Wong 2000), motivation (Dörnyei 2001); assessment (Genesee & Upshur,1996);
integration (Swain 1996; Genesee 1987); and educational provision and institutional organisation (Sheridan, Zinchenko, & Gardner(2005).
Applications of an integrated approach to language learning are found throughout Special Education in Europe: The Teaching and Learning of Languages (Marsh 2005). In a school for children with difficulties too severe for inclusion in mainstream schools, an integrated approach is used to teach French as an additional language through integrated modules and methodological adaptation (2005: 79-‐80).
In a school for children with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties, French and Spanish are taught as additional languages through ‘learning by doing’
modules leading to ‘substantial achievements can be made teaching foreign languages to the severely disabled, (which) overcomes attitudinal barriers about value, potential and purpose (Marsh 2005: 187). The Principal, David S. Stewart
comments ‘the skills required for the acquisition of language – attention, listening, responding and communicating are those that are an essential part of special needs education. Doing this in another language brings a new dimension. Indeed it could be argued that such learning engages another part of the brain. There have been pupils who have been able to do things such as counting more accurately and consistently in a second language than in their mother tongue’ (Stewart 2005).
This school uses the MAKATON approach that originated from research in the 1970s leading to development of a multimodal communication framework (see, for instance Walker & Armfield 1981; Brownjohn 1988). It uses a combination of sounds, speech, symbols and signs concurrently which are used to develop language and literacy skills following CLIL practice for these children who have profound challenges in their lives.
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