Waiving language requirement at a college

Parents Forum
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The ADA requires accommodations to be able to participate in work or life activities. It doesn’t require changing the program or eliminating it if everyone can’t participate. I worked on a case where a person with a disability could not pass a class in medical school. The school allowed her to repeat the class, and were willing to give her other accommodations like extra time, but she HAD to take and pass the class (she sued to have the required class waived). They actually really wanted to keep her in school as she was from an underrepresented part of the state, but she just couldn’t do the required work. She dropped out.

My daughter (who has a disability) had to have a math class to graduate. It’s a university core requirement and they would not waive it. If she had taken it at her school, it would have required THREE remedial math classes and then the required course. The remedial courses were basically ALL of her high school math repeated because while she passed them in high school, she doesn’t test well and bombed the ACT math section. Anyway, we found a course at the local university, she took it over the summer (she didn’t need the pre-req because of her high school gpa!) and she transferred those credits to her university.

I don’t know how many FL courses are required, but maybe he could take them at a community college and transfer the credits in. Some schools have a lower standard for passing or allow a pass/fail option and maybe he can find something that he can complete.

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Foreign language requirements are sometimes waived based on a disability/ sometimes not. It depends very largely on policies of the school.

This is a question that can be asked of a school disabilities office before enrollment. Not whether they wil waive the requirement in a specific instance – because they won’t make that determination ahead of time — but they should be able to answer about their general policies and experience. Are the requirements ever waived? What type of showing is needed to get the waiver?

One very common accommodation offered by colleges is to substitute a foreign cultures course for the language course. Or in some cases, a class in the foreign literature taught in English.

Simply having a diagnosis of a disability will not generally be enough to qualify – there would need to be a report or an evaluation documenting the specific area of difficulty. Although dyslexic students often seek accommodations or waiver of foreign language requirements, dyslexia in and of itself does not preclude successful study of a foreign language. Many dyslexic students struggle with foreign languages, and many are successful; there are also many dyslexic people who are bilingual or multilingual.

This would be true of other issues and accommodations as well. Dyslexia is essentially an umbrella term that covers a wide range of abilities and limitations.

I’m just posting this as a general observation, as it seems some posters are now questioning or challenging the OP — and I don’t think that there are really enough specifics in this thread for anyone to know what the OP’s sons chances are of having the requirement waived.

Here are some examples of policies at various colleges – I am listing these particular colleges simply because they are the ones that came up first for me with a Google search:

William & Mary: https://www.wm.edu/offices/deanofstudents/services/studentaccessibilityservices/students/policies/foreignlanguagerequirement/index.php

U Mass Dartmouth: https://www.umassd.edu/dss/documentation-guidelines/foreign-language-waiversubstitution-courses/

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs: https://www.uccs.edu/disability/foreign-language-substitution

Univ of Washington: https://depts.washington.edu/uwdrs/current-students/accommodations/foreign-language-culture-course-substitution/

So these pages provide good examples of what a university might do and what it criteria it might apply … but again, without knowing where OP’s son is enrolled, there is no way whatsoeve to know what his universities policies are.

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Thanks, @calmom. I was particularly interested in the William & Mary case. They say, “When possible, a student with a disability will be expected to make a good faith effort in a language course with accommodation before substitution will be considered.” Although I suggested just that solution in a previous post, in a somewhat snide tone, I didn’t know of any college that actually has the policy of having the student try to pass the language courses before being granted dispensation to substitute different courses.

I also didn’t realize that colleges object to “waiving” foreign language courses and prefer that disabled students “substitute” other courses. My son has no problem substituting other courses in English for foreign language courses.

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@“Cardinal Fang”, long time no hear. We had sons in the same HS class, I believeI confronted this with my severely dyslexic son. It is not just the reading that is difficult, but the inability to hear sounds. in middle school Spanish, ShawSon said “No Mass” I said, it is “No mas” and he said, "That’s what I said, “No mass.” To this day, he cannot pronounce the name of his Chinese girlfriend, and they have been living together for 3 years.

I considered a one or two month immersion program in Mexico (it involved art and Spanish). But, when ShawSon was applying to college, we included a number with no language requirement and a few that had limited distribution requirements but still had language requirements. When ShawSon was admitted to schools, I then went to negotiate with the schools. With one Ivy, they said they would initiate the review process after he chose to attend. i said that didn’t work for us and that he needed to know before deciding to attend (which is when you have the bargaining leverage). The head of the DSO then requested ll kinds of information and particularly raw scores from the tests the neuropsychologist had done (which the neuropsychologist felt would provide no additional information. After futzing around for a while, he decided to allow ShawSon to waive the requirements. But by that time, ShawSon decided that another school’s DSO was much more responsive and decided to attend there. I talked to a friend who was a trustee of the Ivy , who was really unhappy that his alma mater was losing students because its DSO was causing bright dyslexic kids not to attend

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MODERATOR’S NOTE: The 30 year old son is already enrolled in the unnamed college, so the only thing left to do is for him to go to the disability office and ask the question and then perhaps the OP can return and tell us the outcome. I am closing the thread for now. @“Cardinal Fang” if you have an update at some point, PM me and I will reopen the thread.

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MaineLonghorn graciously opened this thread again, so I can report back.

The college is not budging. Fang Jr will take the classes next year. What recommendations do you have for a student who is not skilled at languages?

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Sorry to hear it @“Cardinal Fang”

Not sure what language your student will be taking, but children’s songs and books can be a great tools for learning a new language. Also children’s televisions.

What level will your student need to get to?

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Does your son’s college allow students to opt for pass/fail grading in some classes? I wonder if having the pressure of worrying about the letter grade will help.

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Consider a phonetic language. One of our friends’ dyslexic kids did ok with Swahili. Also, could be do some of it at summer term at a community college and get transfer credit for part of it?

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@“Cardinal Fang” -

My S17 is also severely dyslexic, as well as dysgraphic and dyscalculic. He has to take 2 semesters of FL in college (it would have been only one had he stayed in the BFA, but…) and he spoke with the disability office and it can’t be waived. Therefore, he is going to take ASL over the summer at our local CC. As long as he gets a C, the credits transfer and grade doesn’t go into the GPA. Perhaps an option like that might work for your son?

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Rosetta stone and watching kids television in Spanish. There are so many shows on Netflix in Spanish. My daughters would watch their favorite movies- one’s they’ve memorized in English. With Spanish there should only be a few verb tenses he has to learn, have him start working on it. Luckily, there are not different vowel sounds in Spanish and only a few letter combination sounds. Most verbs follow the same format for conjugation.
One of my daughter’s teachers uses Sr. Wooly- lots of songs and repetition. My favorite book The Everything Learning Spanish Book and there are also workbooks- one for verbs would be good. Don’t forget about quizlet- also a great source for learning vocabulary. Working on it everyday is key. I’m not familiar with dyslexia enough to know what would work for him, but hopefully one of these will.

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Thanks for the suggestions. He can easily watch his favorite movies on Netflix online, and he certainly should use quizlet and other online quizzes, of which there appear to be a zillion.

(A “few” verb tenses. Right. Present, present progressive, preterite, imperfect, imperfect progressive, future, conditional, present perfect, past perfect, present subjunctive, imperfect subjunctive, future perfect, conditional perfect, present perfect subjunctive. And the passive voice, and the imperative mood. Fortunately Spanish other than verbs is easy for Americans, as languages go. The pronunciation is straightforward, nouns are not inflected, adjectives only have gender, the alphabet is similar to ours. And I guess verbs in Spanish are not harder than verbs in most languages.)

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Spanish grammar is relatively similar to English grammar. The biggest issue for a lot of English speakers is understanding the rules for using the subjunctive which English has lost except for “If I were…” However, some of those patterns can be memorized if the student is good at that kind of thing, and was enough to get me through exams.

If your student wants to avoid verb tenses, Chinese seems to be the go-to.

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They may not get far into the unusual tenses in a one year course.

Thing is, even with challenges, he did learn English. Pronunciation and listening, mostly before learning to read. It’s one reason kiddie tv may work. You don’t learn “rules” this way, but actual usage.

One issue with later learners is we try to match sounds to our understanding of spelling. It may be why No Mas comes out No Mass, even with dyslexia in the way. It can help to skip any reading initially. (The teacher did this purposely when I first learned French. It takes a bit to get used to, but is worth considering, even if he struggles with sound recognition. )

Problem with Chinese is the characters, for someone with dyslexia. And I’ve heard some pronunciation needs to be precise or word meanings change.

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In my one-year Spanish class at community college, we got into all of the tenses and moods I listed. One of the parts of the final exam for the class was for two students to be prepared to have a five minute conversation on either a topic of their choice or a topic the instructor chose. The pairs of students had to prepare for both topics, because they would not know which topic would be chosen until they walked into the exam. Memorize a script? Not so fast! The instructor could interject himself into the conversation at any time.

I expect the classes at my son’s school to be of similar difficulty. I don’t think this challenge is insurmountable. At least, I hope it is not. But I do think my son will have to spend a whole lot of time and energy studying Spanish.

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Does Latin count? Or can it be substituted? I don’t recall having to converse in Latin and it is fairly orderly.

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Fang, re conversation testing. When I lived in Germany and went with no knowledge (except. “Sorry, I don’t speak German” and, “I’d like a glass of wine,”) I realized this, as I learned- and emphasized it to my kids, when they took langs:

If you can’t say what you want to say, then say what you can.

I.e., using what you do know. KISS principle. Fools many.

Best to you and him with this.

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If the college offers Latin, that would get my top vote. Typically, there would not be an oral component to graded work.

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I think you are over estimating what they can get through. I had Spanish at two different 4 year universities- it wasn’t nearly all the tenses- at least not in 2 semesters- I learned more in high school, than I did in college. It really depends on the professor- is there a syllabus he can get a hold of? At least then he knows what he needs to study- he could get ahead over the summer.

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I think you need to dig a little deeper beyond “dyslexia / bad at languages / which language to choose”

You need to consider:


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What the individual student’s specific area of difficulties are or are likely to be? For some it may be difficulties tied to processing the sounds of a new language; others might be ok with oral & listening, but have a huge problem with the writing part.

What the overall expectations of the college & individual instructors and the approach that they take. It’s hard coming into a new college as a transfer, but there may be internal resources to get a sense of which teachers or courses are perceived by student to be easier. A lot depends on a teacher – one teacher can make learning seem fun and easy, while another teaching the same language can make it seem like an impossible slog – depending on what is expected of students. Not every teacher is going to expect that students in their first year of language study are going to master all the nuances of grammar and spelling.

Also – we don’t have info about the type of college or extent of offerings. At LAC’s or smaller colleges, generally the introductory classes will be taught by a professor, but at larger universities it is common for language sections to be taught by TA’s. That allows them the flexibility to have smaller sections and very often the grad student TA’s are native or heritage speakers… but may make it a lot more difficult to get information about the quality of the instructor before enrolling.

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