Language Disability - need help!

Parents Forum
1

<p>I know all about the typical learning disability, but nothing about a learning disability related to foreign language acquisition. And while he speaks with proper English grammar, he has always struggled with that too. (Knowing subject, verbs, past participle, etc.) My son attends a college that has a language proficiency requirement. My son has suffered all year. He had taken French in HS and hated it. Hated every moment of it. He decided to take Spanish in college instead. </p>

<p>He had heard lots of people telling him Spanish is soo much easier to learn (not that he learned French either). By the time he'd have to take midterms, the kid would practically plead for mercy. He'd get tutors. He'd meet with his teachers. He'd stay up all night making note cards. hundreds and hundreds of notecards. But learn it? Not at all. My husband got to sending him emails in Spanish (translated on the internet from english, of course). My son translated back to English to read them. Now, all this year, he thought he'd just have this painful year of a foreign language and that'd be it. But it turns out he needs to "show" proficiency. Instead, he's required to take another year. His gpa is plummeting. His spirits are on the floor. He has barely learned 30 words of vocabulary. </p>

<p>There were two solutions to this dilemma: 1) transfer or 2) show he has a foreign language learning deficiency. I'd rather he did not transfer, although this was his suggestion. My question, therefore, is how does one go about proving he has a learning disability that is affecting his foreign language acquisition? Any suggestions? Please!!!</p>

2

<p>I don’t have an answer to your question regarding disability, but I know that some (many?) schools count ASL as foreign language. Would that be an option for your son?</p>

3

<p>There may be a third solution: you also need to ask very specifically, what he needs to do to demonstrate proficiency, and you need to find out if there is an alternative pathway for acquiring that level of proficiency. </p>

<p>If your son has mastered spoken and written English, he can master communicating in a second language. However, he needs to work with an instructor who uses a teaching methodology that is a better fit for his learning style. Half of his problem may be that he is trying to memorize vocabulary and language rules (and all that pesky descriptive language about grammar including things like “past perfect participle”) rather than trying to develop communicative skills. He may need to take a course in an immersion environment where they work with many physical objects and real-life situations. Two summer programs that come to mind are [Concordia</a> Language Villages - Concordia Language Villages](<a href=“http://www.concordialanguagevillages.org%5DConcordia”>http://www.concordialanguagevillages.org) and [Middlebury</a> Language Schools | Middlebury](<a href=“http://www.middlebury.edu/ls]Middlebury”>Middlebury Language Schools) The professors at his college may be able to recommend similar programs in other locations, including abroad in Spanish-speaking countries.</p>

<p>Wishing you all the best!</p>

4

<p>I agree with happymom, there’s a third way - the one I took. Total immersion. I was a dunce at languages until I spent a year in France. After that all languages came more easily (well except Chinese I gave up on that!).</p>

5

<p>He might be able to be excused from the foreign language requirement because he has an LD.</p>

<p>I actually was excused from the foreign language requirement at Harvard because testing indicated I have average ability in that, which put me far behind most Harvard students.</p>

<p>In adulthood, I took French classes for fun at a local second tier public university, and with LOTS of hard work – putting far more time into it than I would have been able to as a fulltime college student – I earned a “B.”</p>

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<p>They actually excused you from a requirement at Harvard because you were going to be average in it? Wow.</p>

7

<p>He should go to the disabilities office at his college and ask them what he would need to demonstrate his language disability. </p>

<p>Is he dyslexic? Many dyslexics are hopeless at learning foreign languages.</p>

8

<p>A Middlebury summer would be hell on earth for a guy with a language disability.</p>

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<p>DD did the summer at Middlebury with a language disability because she HAD to get proficient in Italian for her career. It was hell for at least 3 weeks while she did the immersion and she and her professors worked out how she would learn. But the break through came, later than for others, and she was OK. Immersion does it. She still can’t spell but she has been forgiven the spelling as long as she can speek somewhat fluently. She worked with both her school’s disablity office and Middlebury.</p>

<p>Her private disability testing detected the language issue, amung others.</p>

10

<p>“They actually excused you from a requirement at Harvard because you were going to be average in it? Wow.”</p>

<p>No. I have only average language acquisition ability, which meant that I was likely to flunk foreign languages at Harvard. The fact that decades later, I had to work my butt off to get a B in a French class at a tier 2 public universities underscores the fact that although I’m very smart in some things, I don’t have Harvard-level ability in languages.</p>

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<p>My sister-in-law also got excused from the language requirement at Harvard after flunking German, but she is now convinced that she could learn it in the right circumstances. College languages do go fast - approximately three times faster than high school courses. Even the course I took to brush up at Pasadena community college went at a brisk pace, though it didn’t cover quite as much as Harvard’s course. (Just as much grammar, but less vocabulary and we didn’t read a novel in a first year course.)</p>

12

<p>It is just an issue with oral? If so he’s like me.</p>

<p>If he can, tell him to try Latin, Greek, or Sanskrit. They should be all written. The vocabulary might be easier to learn if he’s trying to write it down than say it.</p>

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<p>I just checked and indeed, the university offers Latin. Too bad it’s been a miserable year of working with his professor every week and still not getting it. Even his teacher told him he should look to see if he has a learning deficiency in acquiring foreign languages.</p>

14

<p>Tell him that you adore him. No one is fabulous in everything and it’s a good thing he learned these things about himself. In the long run, he will be a better partner and a better parent and perhaps a better citizen of the world because he has the experience of trying his darndest and it still not being what was wanted. </p>

<p>Tell him that, please. He may be a friend or an employer one day of someone who is dsylexic or tone deaf and he will work with them with some insight. That is valuable.</p>

15

<p>:)</p>

<p>I knew that there was a reason why I was such a moron at foreign languages. (Thank God my kids inherited my H’s ability to pick up languages…I can only ask where the bank is, I want a taxi, or can I have a room with a bathroom in French.)</p>

<p>Anyway…will your son’s school allow Computer Science to be substituted for a FL?</p>

16

<p>Thanks for the reminders Olymom. Of my kids, no one works harder than this kid. He’s had a really tough time with foreign languages, but was relieved to talk about his options this evening. Tomorrow, he’ll start exploring those and hopefully he’ll have an answer before it continues in the fall.</p>

17

<p>Here’s an update: my son’s professors ended the year by vouching for him to test for a foreign language disability. He’s going to get tested by the college in the fall, but I don’t know if he’ll get the testing done before classes begin. He’s signed up to take more Italian. </p>

<p>I found my son at 3:00 in the morning studying Italian, but it was all wrong. Not just wrong that he was doing this at 3:00am but that he was trying to memorize words. Not writing. not talking. Geez. That couldn’t possibly be the way to go. No tapes or CDs. Just trying to memorize an alphabetical list of 2,000 words.</p>

<p>So I called Rosetta Stone and ordered their lessons 1-3. It makes so much sense. But here’s my question: is that program okay for language learning in college? My DH thinks not. He tells me it’s just talking and dialogue, while in school, kids are tested on grammar and writing. Does anyone have any experience with that Rosetta Stone program?</p>

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<p>I do not know much about Rosetta Stone, but my son’ high school uses it as supplemental material for the foreign languages offered. They must like something about it. The military uses it some as well.</p>

19

<p>Rosetta Stone includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The speaking is tested by comparing your voice graph to the one produced by their speaker.</p>

20

<p>As a parent of a high achieving child with an LD, my thought is that there are a couple of priorities here. </p>

<p>First, before thinking about whether Rosetta Stone makes sense or what your son should do to try to learn a foreign language, it is important for your S to be tested to find out if he has a learning disability that impacts his ability to learn foreign languages (and it certainly sounds like a strong possibility)and if so, the exact nature and dimensions of the LD. </p>

<p>It is important to know exactly what your son can and can’t do – what’s harder for him than others but can be achieved, and what, if anything, just isn’t happening no matter how hard he tries. An experienced tester will be able to give your son excellent feedback regarding strenghs, weaknesses, and strategies that he might use to address whatever challenges show up. </p>

<p>If you can afford to have your son tested right now, by a psychologist who specializes in this sort of testing, so you can get your son squared away with his college’s disabilities office sooner rather than later – not waiting for him to return to college in the fall without knowing if an alternative that works for him can be agreed upon – this would be a very good thing. </p>

<p>A second priority is to find out what remedies or accommodations his college offers for students who demonstrate a learning disability that impedes their ability to learn/speak a foreign language. Will the language requirement be waived? Will the student be offered the option of learning ASL, and if so, is your son able to do this? Will the student receive additional time for tests and quizzes, and if so, would this allow your son to pass? If your son’s issue is primarily with learning to speak or processing the spoken foreign language and making sense of it as he listens, would Latin work better for him and would the college permit this?</p>

<p>Once you know the range of options the college will make available to your son, you can talk with the testing psychologist to figure out if any of these options will work for him and get a concrete recommendation in writing to present to the college. An experienced tester will have worked with students with similar issues who have attended a number of different colleges and might even be able to come up with a creative alternative that the college disabilities office hasn’t thought of but would be willing to adopt.</p>

<p>The thing to sort out before school starts is whether the college will offer an alternative that will work for your son. If the college does not offer an alternative that your son and the testing psychologist feel will work for him given the nature of his LD, then you have a very difficult situation on your hands. At that point, if your son wants to remain at his college, you may want to speak with a disabilities advocate or lawyer about his options. (Obviously, this is a worst case scenario; the most likely thing would be for the college to work with your son to find a good alternative for him.)</p>

<p>But truly, if I were you, I would want to get all of these ducks in a row before school starts in the fall and you write another tuition check. Even with extremely good documentation of a long-established LD, and a college that is LD-friendly and supportive, our child encountered a major glitch with his college’s disabilities office when he started school. There was a ton of unnecessary anxiety and confusion until the glitch worked itself out, and I think it is best to avoid this. </p>

<p>So again, if you can afford to have testing done, talk to the college disabilities office about which specific tests they want in the test battery to diagnose the LD to their satisfaction and find some one local. Your son’s former pediatrician might be able to make a good referral, or possibly the GC at his old high school. Also (assuming your son does not go to college in your hometown), the disabilities office at your local college should have a list of near-by testing psychologists they recommend. Also , a local university with a Ph.D. program in psychology or educational psychology, or a postdoctoral program in psycho-educational testing or neuro-psych testing might have a sliding scale, but it would be good to make sure that your S is being tested by someone who is already licensed and has experience not merely in testing but in writing reports for and talking with university disabilities offices. He might need not only a great tester but a good advocate.</p>