in Knowledge Age organizations is not principally concerned with narrative, exposition, argument, and persuasion (the stand-‐bys of traditional rhetoric) but with solving problems and developing new ideas’ (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 2005:749-‐750).
It is argued that ‘the impact of general learning theory and how individuals learn, based on work from eminent theorists such as Bruner, Vygotsky and Wood (see Bigge and Shermis, 1998, for an overview) does not always directly influence classroom practice’ (Coyle, Hood & Marsh 2011:28) but when teaching through a foreign language it is often essential to maximize both quality and effectiveness of teaching. This is because of the added dimension of linguistic competences, the link between language and thought (REF), and the impact of quality teaching on student’s learning outcomes (Laczko-‐Kerr & Berliner 2002; Wenglinsky 2002).
Interest in accommodating diversity, and developing student’s thinking skills in educational contexts where a group of students may not be at the same linguistic or cognitive level, has presented a challenge for practitioners and researchers (McGuiness 1999). This is a particular area of interest for those scholars who are exploring inter-‐disciplinary collaboration in seeking to determine evidence-‐based linkage between thinking, brain and learning processes (see, for instance, Koizumi 1999; OECD 2002; Fischer et al. 2007; OECD 2007; Hinton, Miyamoto & della Chiesa 2008).
2.2 Learners with Special and Specific Needs
Special Educational Needs is a term that is understood in different ways across the European Union. This is equally true of the term Specific Educational Needs.
Definitions are influences by legislative, educational, medical, and even funding
arrangements. What binds the terms together is the issue of diversity. Students with special or specific needs represent groups of learners who need specific forms of educational provision, whether learning content subjects or languages. ‘…
definitions and categories of special educational needs and handicap vary across countries. Some countries define only one or two types of special needs (for example Denmark). Others categorize pupils with special needs in more than 10 categories (Poland). Most countries distinguish 6–10 types of special needs. In Liechtenstein no types of special needs are distinguished; only the type of support is defined (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education 2003:8).
In some countries, for example, the United Kingdom, the legal definition of special educational needs states that children have special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty, which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. (Education Act 1996). Under this type of definition all children with minor temporary or serious longer-‐term needs would be included under the term Special educational Needs.
A distinction between special and specific educational needs has been made in some countries. Finland, for example, introduced a Basic Education Act in January 2011 which enabled all children to be considered with respect to individual specific education needs. Such differentiation of terms can enable effective forms of intervention which tends to involve individualization of learning paths.
‘Individuals have differing intellectual profiles, and educational systems strive to accommodate these when teaching subjects across the curriculum. Foreign language learning may be one of those subjects that are particularly significant in terms of diverse individual learning styles. Proponents of multiple intelligence argue that it is fundamentally misleading to think about ‘a single mind, a single intelligence, a single problem-‐solving capacity’. In accepting this view we can
assume that there is no single approach to foreign language learning which will suit the needs of any classroom of learners’ (Marsh 2005:1).
Special Educational Needs can be considered as a feature which can be diagnosed where a young person has significantly greater difficulty in learning than other children of the same age. Specific Educational Needs can apply to a wide range of situational, psychological, medical or other reasons why special intervention is required. This may apply to a recent migrant child who does not speak the vehicular language of the school, a child who is experiencing stress because of a serious family situation, to one who is temporarily hospitalized and thus unable to learn in a school class environment.
The issue here relates to two aspects. The first is the size of school population that has some form of special or specific needs at any given time. The second concerns the mainstreaming of good educational practice. That is to say that if an educational practice is to be mainstreamed, then it will need to be applicable to the vast majority of any given cohort of learners. Exclusive schools can usually select students and attempt to build relatively homogeneous class groups. Mainstream schools need to achieve an equally high level of educational achievement but have to accept heterogeneity within class groups. This has become ever more important in recent years in many European countries because of migration.
In 2009 Eurydice reported on the integration of immigrant children into schools in Europe (Eurydice 2009). Following the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008, Eurydice studied the policies and measures being undertaken to respond to the challenges posed by increasing rates of the diversity of first languages present in schools. It states that ‘there are several (such) immigration profiles. In Belgium, Germany, France and Luxembourg, there have been sizeable communities of
immigrant workers for decades, while in Spain, large-‐scale immigration is a more recent phenomenon. Luxembourg has the highest percentages of non-‐native 15-‐
year old pupils (40.1 %) and pupils with a non-‐indigenous language (9) as their mother tongue (23.7 %) in Europe’ (Eurydice 2009:23. See, also PISA 2006 and Eurydice 2004).
The sizes of the school populations which have students who require special forms of intervention are considered to be between 20-‐30%. This figure is difficult to determine accurately because of the above-‐mentioned legislative and other differences between and across countries. In 2002 the official data ranged from Greece (0.3%) to Finland (17.8%) (Eurydice 2002). In 2010 the European Agency for Special Needs Education reported government provided statistics provided for the academic year 2007/2008 as follows: Greece (5.2%); Finland (15.1%); Austria (7.1%); Spain (4.7%) and Iceland (25.6%). These figures would be on the basis of recognized or otherwise diagnosed special educational needs. They would not account for specific needs, or any needs which for whatever reason remain undiagnosed. One of the reasons why the size of the school populations is difficult to determine accurately relates to what are considered common challenges which may be mild yet still hinder effective learning, such as dyslexia. In 2009 the NEURODYS Sixth Framework Programme on Life Sciences, Genomics and Biotechnology suggests that at least 5 – 10% of school age children have some form of dyslexia (NEURODYS 2006). Only some of these school age children will have been included in the national statistics because of the complexities of recognition, diagnosis, and support.