How can I identify an ESL child who has learning difficulties?
Some of the indicators of a learning disability that are exhibited by an English native speaker are also shown by ESL students in the first stage of their English language development. These indicators include difficulty in following oral instructions, poor eye tracking when reading, inconsistent spelling, limited attention span, avoidance of eye contact, etc. The crucial difference is that the problems experienced by the learning-disabled native speaker are for the most part permanent, whereas ESL students display such behaviours for a temporary period only. There are significant variations in the duration of this temporary period for ESL students. It is important, therefore, that mainstream teachers are aware that a normal (i.e. non-learning disabled) ESL student may continue to exhibit ‘learning-disabled behaviours’ for a long initial period. Such students should not be prematurely labelled as having a learning problem when in fact they simply have a temporary language or acculturat
Some of the indicators of a learning disability that are exhibited by an English native speaker are also shown by ESL students in the first stage of their English language development. These indicators include difficulty in following oral instructions, poor eye tracking when reading, inconsistent spelling, limited attention span, avoidance of eye contact, etc. The crucial difference is that the problems experienced by the learning-disabled native speaker are for the most part permanent, whereas ESL students display such behaviours for a temporary period only. There are significant variations in the duration of this temporary period for ESL students. It is important, therefore, that mainstream teachers are aware that a normal (i.e. non-learning disabled) ESL student may continue to exhibit ‘learning-disabled behaviours’ for a long initial period. Such students should not be prematurely labelled as having a learning problem when in fact they simply have a temporary language or acculturat
