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BULLYING
Know what bullying is.

Bullying is the strong preying upon the weak. It can be a

physical advantage or a social advantage. It can be one
student or many. It often takes the form of threats,
intimidation, repeated cruelty, and/or forcing someone
against his or her will to do what the bully wants.

Work within the school policy.

At most schools a student who physically bullies another

student is suspendedas they should be. Also, cyber-
bullying can have certain legal complications that can only
be handled by an administrator. Make sure you understand
what your responsibilities are vis--vis your schools policy,
and be sure to follow them Coexistence Plan
(Educational Project)

Have your own bullying policy.

In addition to your schools bullying policy, you must have

your own policyor steps you take when bullying occurs.
You are in a better, more influential position to stop bullying
than any principal or administrator. To effectively stop
bullying, students who bully must answer to you and his or
her classmates. Classroom rules
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Supervise.

Watch your class like a hawk. Always. Notice body language.

Keep an eye on students who are socially awkward, smaller
in stature, or less confident. Be aware of those students who
have fewer friends, who are alone frequently, or who play
by themselves at recess. They are often, though not always,
most likely to be bullied.

Talk to your students.

When youre working with individual students, ask them,

How are things going? Anyone bothering you? Do you know
of any student picking on others? It takes only a few
seconds and if you have good rapport, theyll give it to you
straight.

Dont discourage tattling.

You cant protect your students from bullying if you

discourage them from telling you about it. The truth is,
frequent tattling is a message that the teacher is not
protecting the rights of students to learn and enjoy school
without interference.

Prepare an apology.

Sometime during the one-week extended time-out, ask the

bullying student to write an apology to the victim and then
memorize it. Ask the victim privately for permission to have
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the bully address the class. Most of the time they will
enthusiastically say yes. If not, writing the letter is
instructive and therefore still worth doing.

Be an expert in classroom management.

The truth is, bullying rarely if ever happens in well-run

classrooms. When standards of behaviour are clearly
communicated, when students are held accountable using
an effective classroom management plan, and when the
teacher is well-versed in fair, effective strategies, then
students dont bully.

Build rapport.

One of the keys to effective classroom management is to

build trusting rapport with students. When students like
you, trust you, and believe in you and your message, they
are tremendously influenced and much less likely to be
involved in bullying behaviour.

What Schools Can do to Prevent Bullying

School-Level and Administrative Interventions

Increase reporting of bullying. Assess the awareness and

the scope of the bullying problems at school through
student and staff surveys. To address the problem of
students resistance to reporting bullying, some schools
have set up a bully hotline. Some schools use a bully
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box: Students drop a note in the box to alert teachers

and administrators to problem bullies. Others have
developed student questionnaires to determine the
nature and extent of bullying problems in school.
Establish a clear procedure to investigate reports of
bullying.
Develop activities in less-supervised areas. In these areas
(e.g., schoolyards, lunchrooms), trained supervisors spot
bullying and initiate activities such as having roving
personnel visit those locations, and having closed circuit
television that limit opportunities for it
Monitor areas where bullying can be expected, such as
bathrooms. Adult monitoring can increase the risk that
bullies will get caught but may require increased staffing
or trained volunteers.
Assign bullies to a particular location or to particular
chores during release times. This approach separates
bullies from their intended victims. Some teachers give
bullies constructive tasks such as tutoring other
students, cleaning up trash, involved in sporting
activities, to occupy them during release times.
Post classroom signs prohibiting bullying and listing the
consequences. This puts would-be bullies on notice and
outlines the risks they are taking. Teachers, leaders, and
staff must consistently enforce the rules for them to have
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meaning. Schools should post signs in each classroom

and apply age-appropriate penalties.
Provide teachers with effective classroom-management
training. Because research suggests that classes
containing students with behavioural, emotional, or
learning problems have more bullies and victims,
teachers in those classes may require additional, tailored
training in spotting and handling bullying.
Form of a bullying prevention coordinating committee (a
small group of energetic teachers, administrators,
counsellors, and other school staff who plan and monitor
school activities.) This committee should develop
schoolwide rules and sanctions against bullying, systems
to reinforce prosocial behaviour, and events to raise
school and community awareness about bullying.
Schedule regular classroom meetings during which
students and teachers engage in discussion, role-
playing and artistic activities related to preventing
bullying and other forms of violence among students.
Encourage parent participation by establishing on-campus
parent centres that recruit, coordinate, and encourage
parents to take part in the educational process and
volunteer to assist in school activities and projects.
Develop strategies to reward students for positive,
inclusive behaviour such as pizza parties, recognition
reward, certificates
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Teacher Interventions

Provide classroom activities and discussions related

to bullying and violence, including the harm that they
cause and strategies to reduce their incidence. Involve
students in establishing classroom rules against
bullying and steps they can take if they see it happening.
For example, students could work together to create the
classroom signs mentioned previously.
Teach cooperation by assigning projects that requires
collaboration. Such cooperation teaches students how
to compromise and how to assert without demanding.
Take care to vary grouping of participants and to monitor
the treatment of and by participants in each group.
Take immediate action when bullying is observed. All
teachers must let children know they care and will not
allow anyone to be mistreated. By taking immediate
action and dealing directly with the bully, adults support
both the victim and the witnesses.
Confront bullies in private. Challenging bullies in front
of their peers may actually enhance their status and lead
to further aggression.
Provide protection for bullying victims when necessary.
Such protection may include creating a buddy system
whereby students have a particular friend or older buddy
on whom they can depend and with whom they share
class schedule information and plans for the school day.
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Notify parents of both victims and bullies when

confrontations occur, and seek to resolve the problem
expeditiously at school.

Cyberbullying

Email, websites, and screen names in chat rooms are masks

for electronic bullies, who can attack without warning and
with alarming persistence.

What Teachers and Administrators Can Do About

Cyberbullying

1. Communicate. Keep everyone affected by electronic

bullying informed. Peer-support and parent-involvement
groups also can help.

2. Encourage openness. Bullies thrive on secrecy,

intimidation, and humiliation. They count on their victims
silence. Openness is a key to reducing or eliminating
bullying. Urge students to talk to their parents and teachers.

3. Monitor email, Internet, and cell-phone use.

4. Hold bullies responsible.

5. Contact law enforcement personnel to give professional

development training to school staff to look for how to
identify cyberbullying.
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What Students Can Do To Stop Bullying

Students may not know what to do when they observe a

classmate being bullied or experience such victimization
themselves. Classroom discussions and activities may help
students develop a variety of appropriate actions that they
can take when they witness or experience such
victimization. For instance, depending on the situation and
their own level of comfort, students can do the following:

Seek immediate help from an adult and report bullying

and victimization incidents to school personnel
Speak up and/or offer support to the victim when they see
him or her being bullied (e.g., picking up the victims
books and handing them to him or her)
Privately support those being hurt those being hurt with
words of kindness or condolence
Express disapproval of bullying behaviour by not joining in
the laughter, teasing, or spreading of rumours or gossip

In-class activities to prevent bullying

Watch videos, documentaries and short films, such as

Speak up and engage in debate about the causes and
effects of bullying.
Invite a victim of bullying or a bully to give a talk to the
class about their story and the consequences.
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Carry out activities to develop emotional intelligence to

help students identify, interpret and act on their emotions
correctly.
Writing a collaborative book or comic about a person
suffering bullying and leave it at the school library.
Establishing playing partners to avoid students being
along or toxic relationships. They can also vary each week
or month to give students the opportunity to get to know
all their mates.
Plan, rehearse and record a video for an anti-bullying
campaign, to make the learning process more
personalised and meaningful for students.
Activity: Be a detective in which two or three students
are in charge of analysing behaviours, body language and
verbal language of people during break time or in class
with a checklist. Then, they report to the class without
giving names so that people are aware of the behaviours
they are having without maybe realizing.
Perform role-plays in which different students are bullies
and bullied, changing the roles. They need to recreate
different types of bullying (verbal, physical, emotional...)
and different responses to it (submissive, aggressive or
assertive). Then there is a debate on which is the most
appropriate, giving learners strategies to be more
assertive.
ICT.
o Visit anti-bullying websites and compile a guide
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o Use a digital camera to create storyboards and

cartoons about bullying. Encourage thinking about
stopping bullying, not being a bystander. Use word
processors to paste speech into thought and speech
bubbles and to make captions.
o Create an Anti-Bullying Week newsletter, with
pictures, stories, poems and accounts of how people
stop bullying in your organisation or school.
Distribute it to adults in the community.

GOOD IDEAS SOME SCHOOLS HAVE STARTED:

1. BULLY BOXES...

Kids can put notes in the box if they are too worried to tell
someone. If your school has boxes like these use them
wisely. Advise the kids to always make sure that anything
they write about is the truth.

2. SET UP A BUDDY-SYSTEM...

Older students can sometimes volunteer to help new or

younger students coming into the school or your program
by getting to know them.

3. SPECIALS CAMPAIGNS

such as a "no-bullying day" can be a big help.

4. COUNSELING
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is a good way of talking to someone.

Can you have someone come in and talk about Kids who are
being bullied, or who are bullying others? Some schools
have set up PEER COUNSELING where kids volunteer to
learn how to help other kids.

5. MEDIATION

Some schools and programs have introduced mediation

where two people who disagree about something agree that
a third person, either an adult of another student, HELPS to
find a solution to a problem. This can be helpful in many
situations, but not in all cases of bullying...

A bully may refuse to take part because they have no

interest in ending the bullying. A victim may feel that a
negotiated solution is not fair when it is the other person
who is completely in the wrong.

6. Taking part in PLAYS AND OTHER DRAMA ACTIVITES

can help people to understand what it feels like to be bullied

and to think about what they can do to stop it. This is
something that Classroom and After School programs can
facilitate.

7. PEER SUPPORT
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where older students volunteer to discuss things such as

bullying, friendship, or drugs with groups of younger
students.

POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES FOR BULLIES...

Counselling.

Confronting the Bully with the victim.

Have the bully listen to the victim's hurt.

Initiate peer mediation with the victim.

Contact parents/guardians.

Insist on and monitor a behaviour contract.

Take away privileges.

Suspend Bully from school.

Ask Bully to leave the school.

Take legal action. If you are bullied or harassed you CAN

do something about it!
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CLIL
A CLIL lesson should combine elements of the following
4Cs:
Content- progression in knowledge, skills and
understanding related to specific elements of a defined
curriculum
Communication- using language to learn whilst learning
to use language
Cognition- Developing thinking skills which link concept
formation, understanding and language
Culture- exposure to alternative perspectives and shared
understandings, which deepen awareness of otherness
and self. (Coyle 1999).

Content relates to the learning of subject matter, such as

science or geography. Cognition reflects the development
of learning and thinking in the subject context during the
lesson, contributing to the linking new knowledge and skills
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to existing understanding. Communication emphasises

language development through the use of language which
occurs in interaction and learning in the classroom. Culture
reflects the socialisation benefits of the learning experience,
both in terms of the meanings underpinning the subject
knowledge, and identity aspects of using more than one
language.

The 4Cs framework emphasises the language of learning,

for learning and
through learning. Language of learning includes the
required knowledge to
understand content. Language for learning includes the
grammar and rule-based knowledge of language, and
awareness of effective strategies which learners need to
communicate and learn in a foreign language environment.
Language through learning emphasises the active
involvement of learners in the learning process.

All four skills should be used: LISTENING, READING,

SPEAKING & WRITING

Strategies to support understanding and learning need to

be in place
Incorporating different learning styles (Auditory, visual,
kinaesthetic etc.)
Planning lessons to support language and learning needs
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Varying classwork to include whole-class, small-group,

pair and consolidation
Use multimedia in all stages of lesson as appropriate and
if possible!!!
Lots of recycling and consolidation

Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)

The PROCLIL framework for implementation outlined below,

and throughout this handbook, emphasises attention to
BICS by promoting the use of English for classroom
communication, and attention to CALP through discussion of
subject concepts and processes in both the first language
and English.

Techniques which can assist CLIL teachers in responding

effectively

Verbal scaffolding: CLIL teachers need to find ways and

methods to make their input comprehensible for the
students, which means that they have to adapt their
language according to their students language
proficiency. Moreover, CLIL teachers need to find methods
by which to enable their students to participate in the
lesson actively and meaningfully, despite possible
limitations of their current linguistic competence.
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o a) input-oriented scaffolding techniques, which

focus on making teacher L2 input accessible to
students;
Using language appropriate to the students L2
proficiency level
Animating language use
Building redundancy into the lesson
Teacher modelling of correct language use
Scaffolding through careful mother tongue use
o b) output-oriented scaffolding techniques, which
focus on how students can be assisted in expressing
understanding and to participate actively in a CLIL
lesson even with limited L2 competence.
Providing key vocabulary and phrases
Using supportive error correction
Allowing for sufficient wait time for student
responses
Code-switching
Offering verbal scaffolding to students
(bridging/prompting)
Offering alternative ways of expressing
understanding (or misunderstanding)
Content scaffolding: Consistently applying techniques
to assist and support students understanding of and
engagement with the content is central to CLIL teaching
and needs to compliment making the language input
comprehensible.
o Selecting and adapting content knowledge to
students developmental and cognitive level
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o Referring to previous knowledge and

experiences/learning linking to students interests
and lives
o Defining, displaying and reviewing content and
language objectives with students KWL chart
o Explaining content concepts. Several methods exist
with which CLIL teachers can convey content
concepts more successfully:
Visualisation techniques
Active discovery of concepts
Group work on content concepts
Review of key vocabulary and key content
concepts during lessons
o Explaining tasks
Using clear instructions for assignments and
activities
Providing a model of a process, task, or
assignment
Checking the understanding of task instructions
Learning process scaffolding: These are techniques
which assist CLIL teachers in supporting students working
processes as well as their learning processes. They can
involve strategies to improve learning or to develop
reflection skills and promote learner autonomy.
o Reading texts
o Using scanning techniques to read a text
o Teaching content specific working strategies:
surveys, charts...
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o Teaching with the help of advance or graphic

organizers
o Using mnemonics

BLOOMS
TAXONOMY
Three domains of educational activities or learning (Bloom,
et al. 1956):

Cognitive: mental skills (knowledge)

The cognitive domain involves knowledge and the

development of intellectual skills (Bloom, 1956). This
includes the recall or recognition of specific facts,
procedural patterns, and concepts that serve in the
development of intellectual abilities and skills. There are six
major categories of cognitive an processes, starting from
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the simplest to the most complex (see the table below for
an in-depth coverage of each category):

Knowledge

Comprehension

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

Examples, key words (verbs), and technologies for

Category
learning (activities)

Examples: Recite a policy. Quote prices from

memory to a customer. Recite the safety rules.

Remembering: Recall or Key Words: defines, describes, identifies,

retrieve previous learned knows, labels, lists, matches, names, outlines,
information. recalls, recognizes, reproduces, selects, states

Technologies: book marking, flash cards, rote

learning based on repetition, reading

Understanding: Examples: Rewrite the principles of test

Comprehending the meaning,
translation, interpolation, and
interpretation of instructions
and problems. State a problem
in one's own words.
writing. Explain in one's own words the steps
for performing a complex task. Translate an
equation into a computer spreadsheet.
Key Words: comprehends, converts, defends,
distinguishes, estimates, explains, extends,
generalizes, gives an example, infers,
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Applying: Use a concept in a
new situation or unprompted
use of an abstraction. Applies
what was learned in the
classroom into novel situations
in the work place.
Analyzing: Separates material
or concepts into component
parts so that its organizational
structure may be understood.
Distinguishes between facts
and inferences.
Evaluating: Make judgments
interprets, paraphrases, predicts, rewrites,
summarizes, translates
Technologies: create an analogy, participating
in cooperative learning , taking notes,
storytelling, Internet search
Examples: Use a manual to calculate an
employee's vacation time. Apply laws of
statistics to evaluate the reliability of a written
test.
Key Words: applies, changes, computes,
constructs, demonstrates, discovers,
manipulates, modifies, operates, predicts,
prepares, produces, relates, shows, solves,
uses
Technologies: collaborative learning , create a
process, blog, practice
Examples: Troubleshoot a piece of equipment
by using logical deduction. Recognize logical
fallacies in reasoning. Gathers information from
a department and selects the required tasks for
training.
Key Words: analyzes, breaks down, compares,
contrasts, diagrams, deconstructs,
differentiates, discriminates, distinguishes,
identifies, illustrates, infers, outlines, relates,
selects, separates
Technologies: Fishbowls , debating,
questioning what happened, run a test
Examples: Select the most effective solution.
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about the value of ideas or
materials.
Creating: Builds a structure or
pattern from diverse elements.
Put parts together to form a
whole, with emphasis on
creating a new meaning or
structure.
Affective: growth
(attitude or self)
Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (skills)
Hire the most qualified candidate. Explain and
justify a new budget.
Key Words: appraises, compares, concludes,
contrasts, criticizes, critiques, defends,
describes, discriminates, evaluates, explains,
interprets, justifies, relates, summarizes,
supports
Technologies: survey, blogging
Examples: Write a company operations or
process manual. Design a machine to perform a
specific task. Integrates training from several
sources to solve a problem. Revises and
process to improve the outcome.
Key Words: categorizes, combines, compiles,
composes, creates, devises, designs, explains,
generates, modifies, organizes, plans,
rearranges, reconstructs, relates, reorganizes,
revises, rewrites, summarizes, tells, writes
Technologies: Create a new model, write an
essay, network with others
in feelings or emotional areas
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FLIPPED
CLASSROOM
Flipped Learning describes an increasingly common practice
of doing more of what is traditionally done in class at home
and more of what is done at home in class. The Flipped
Learning Network defines it as an approach in which direct
instruction moves from the group learning space to the
individual learning space
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There are a number of potential advantages to organizing

learning like this:

1. If teachers spend less time talking, students have more

opportunities to practise speaking and really use the
language.
2. If students are given the instructional content to study on
their own, they can listen at their own pace and review
parts they havent understood without disrupting others.
3. Teachers have more time to focus on individuals in class.
4. Teachers cover more of the syllabus in the little class time
they have.
5. Students have the tools to learn independently, to catch
up on missed lessons and to revise and review at times
which suit them.

The reality of the situation that were in now is that theres

so much learning content on the internet, there really is a
need to empower students and to help them become more
independent. The flipped classroom fits that scenario quite
well. It puts a bit more onus on the students to work.
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Another way to think about this is to think of Blooms

Taxonomy of Learning. At home the students are
memorizing information and perhaps checking their
understanding. The focus is on the lower order thinking
skills. In class the students are applying their knowledge,
analysing, evaluating etc. The focus here is on higher order
thinking. The more challenging work is taking place when
the teacher is present. The work the students do alone is
based around the lower order thinking skills and in theory
perhaps the time when they need less support from
teachers.
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Is the Flipped Classroom relevant to ELT?

Most ELT classes are not teacher centred. Students are often
working in groups and pairs and teachers are aware of the
need to get students to communicate and use the language.
This is largely due to the impact of Communicative
Language Teaching. In other classes teachers may even be
using discovery techniques and inductive/deductive
approaches to learning as well as task based approaches. In
reality then, in ELT we already flip our classes to a certain
degree.

That doesnt mean that the Flipped Classroom doesnt have

a place in ELT. We dont have to flip all our classes, but the
model could be useful for certain lessons or certain part of
the syllabus. For example we often need to teach grammar,
explain different writing genres, or focus on the construction
of paragraphs. A lot of this teaching stuff could be put on-
line so that the teacher is able to spend more time in the
class getting the students to use what has been taught via
the homework.

What sort of tasks and activities do we set up in the class?

In ELT, we tend to do lots of imaginative things with our

class time and it is quite common for us to organize our
students in groups and pairs and get them working on
tasks. In the Flipped Classroom, we should be doing more of
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this than ever. The Flipped Classroom works well for

discussions, debates, presentations, group planning etc. We
could, for example, get the students to watch a video about
fracking for homework and then in class set up a debate in
groups. The groups would then write a basic essay plan that
would answer the question about fracking as well as writing
an example introduction. Some of the group members could
then present their plan and introduction to the rest of the
class. If done well, the Flipped Classroom does allow more
efficient use of class time.

MULTIPLE
INTELLIGENCES
The theory of MI provides that there are nine areas of
human intellectual development which we all have in
greater or lesser degrees individually. Briefly the nine areas
of the multiple intelligences according to Gardners theory
are:
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Howard Gardner states that its not only about the learning
but also the comprehension and understanding.

Learner Learns best

Is good at Activities
type by
Linguistic Reading, writing Saying, hearing Memory games
and stories and seeing Trivia quizzes
words
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Stories.

Crosswords

Wordle
Puzzles
Asking
Problem
Logical / Solving puzzles, questions,
solving.
mathemati exploring patterns, categorising and
Order the
cal reasoning and logic working with
events in the
patterns
story
Flashcards
Colours

Visualising, Pictures
Visual / Drawing, building,
using the mind's Drawing
Spatial arts and crafts
eye Project work.

Using maps
and models
Using songs
Singing, listening to
Using rhythm, Chants
Musical music and playing
with music on Drilling.
instruments

Bodily / Moving around, Moving, TPR activities

Kinaesthet touching things and touching and Action songs

body language doing Running
ic
dictations
Miming
Realia.
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Surveys around
the class

Hot and cold

Mixing with others, Mingle
Co-operating,
leading groups, activities
Interperso working in
understanding Group work
nal groups and
others and Debates
sharing
mediating Discussions.
Working
Working alone and
Intraperso individually on
pursuing own Working alone
nal personalised
interests
projects
Working outside
Naturalisti Environmental
Nature and observing
c projects.
nature

Howard Gardner has written about the possibility of a NINTH

INTELLIGENCETHE EXISTENTIAL (Gardner, 1995, 1999)
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and so I would like to examine what some of the potential

applications of this candidate intelligence might be in the
curriculum. Gardner defines existential intelligence as "a
concern with ultimate life issues." He describes the core
ability of this intelligence as "the capacity to locate oneself
with respect to the furthest reaches of the cosmos the
infinite and the infinitesimaland the related capacity to
locate oneself with respect to such existential features of
the human condition as the significance of life, the meaning
of death, the ultimate fate of the physical and the
psychological worlds, and such profound experiences as
love of another person or total immersion in a work of art"
(Gardner, 1999, p. 60). Gardner explicitly states that he is
not proposing here a spiritual, religious, or moral
intelligence based upon any specific "truths" that have been
advanced by different individuals, groups, or institutions
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DYSLEXIA
Firstly, we must examine dyslexia to understand what it is
and how it affects our students. While many people are
under the assumption that dyslexia just affects reading and
writing skills, it actually affects all four skills. Each case of
dyslexia varies from the next and the symptoms can be
different among students, however, theres one difficulty
that all dyslexic people encounter and thats with the
written word and their failure to decode or recognize and
interpret letters. Other signs of dyslexia can be reversed
shapes, skipping words or phrases while reading, incoherent
and inconsistent spelling, word blurring, confusion between
left and right, illegible writing and even difficulties
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pronouncing certain phonological sounds. The biggest

misconception with dyslexia is that it can be cured. While it
cant be cured so to speak, we can help train the brain in
order to manage dyslexia properly. So how can we help
promote learning among dyslexic students and facilitate
their learning so they get everything they need out of their
ESL lessons?

Facilitate Dyslexic Students Learning in an Efficient Way

Recognizing Consonant Blends

One of the biggest problems that dyslexic students face is

recognizing and distinguishing different letters. While its
difficult for them in their own language they probably have
an even harder time with their L2 not because their L2 is
more difficult, but because they not only have to manage
their dyslexia but also try to learn English at the same time.
If youve caught on to the fact that your student has
dyslexia from the onset then youll be more prepared.

Using a simple 10x10 squared grid, randomly place three

different sounds in the different squares for example, SN,
SP, ST. After this ask your student to count how many SN
sounds they can see and so on. This will help your students
scan across the lines looking for specific information and
learning how to recognize the letters within a smaller cache.
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Another way to practice consonant blends is to make

flashcards. Each consonant blend will be made up of two
different cards one with only the sound e.g. CL and the
other with a word that features the consonant blend and a
picture e.g. CLIP. Have the students match the cards and
read the words after having matched them. This activity can
be used not only with dyslexic students but any lower level
student that is learning phonological sounds and word
recognition

Practicing Spelling

While most dyslexic students can train themselves to read

without too much trouble they still continue to have
problems with spelling, which is made worse when learning
English as it is not a phonetic language and there are too
many exceptions to the rule. There are number of fun
different ways to help a dyslexic student improve their
spelling which in turn will also be beneficial to your other
students as spelling in English is notably harder than most
other languages.

Chunking is a great way to help students learn to spell

longer words correctly. Take one word, break it up into
different sounds and write the sounds vertically down the
board. E.g. com mun i ca te. Have the students read
out each sound one by one without telling them that it
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makes a word. Once the students have learned the different

sounds and memorized the simple two or three letter
combinations have them put them all together as one word.
This activity will give students more confidence in tackling
longer words and dealing with spelling difficulties.

Do not ask them to copy text from a board or book

Give a printout. Suggest they highlight key areas and draw

thumbnail pictures in the margin to represent the most
important points.

Give the opportunity to answer questions orally

Often people with dyslexia can demonstrate their

understanding with a spoken answer but are unable with to
put those ideas in writing.

Expect less written work

A person with dyslexia may be verbally bright but struggle

to put ideas into writing. Allow more time for reading,
listening and understanding.

Dont ask person with dyslexia to read aloud

Words are likely to be misread or skipped, causing

embarrassment.

If your dyslexic student is in a class, your lessons should be

varied.
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Try not to bombard the students with just worksheets or

exercises to benefit a student with special needs, instead
integrate it with other methods and remember the golden
rule of ESL teaching, have something for everyone and
something for every style.

You may be tempted to simplify the content that you teach

when you have a student with dyslexia. Dont. A better
option is to change your teaching strategy. Make sure you
are appealing to all of the learning styles aural/oral, visual,
and kinaesthetic. This will benefit not only your dyslexic
students but everyone in your classroom. But it is especially
important for supporting how your dyslexic students learn.
Hands on learning can make a big difference for these
students.

Most of all, use positive reinforcement for all your students

and particularly your dyslexic students. While dyslexia can
be frustrating and discouraging, it is a manageable
condition for your students and for you. Try to be patient
and encouraging to your student with dyslexia, and dont be
afraid to treat them differently from your other students by
giving them more attention or designing your lessons to
help them out.
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PRACTICAL TEACHING TIPS FOCUSING ON THE FOUR

LANGUAGE SKILL AREAS of listening, speaking, reading and
writing.

1. Listening

A dyslexic child may struggle to process incoming auditory

information efficiently in his/her first language.

If possible, explain important things in the childs first

language.
Try to use a small tape recorder to record new vocabulary,
stories, homework instruction so the child can listen to it
as many times as necessary.
Using visuals and pictures along with the listening task
will aid the childs understanding.
The following exercises might be useful if they have
difficulties differentiating between certain sounds, for
example e-i, a-eetc.
o Sorting. You will need a range of cards showing
pictures of objects with the problem sounds, and two
boxes. First, the teacher names the object, the
student picks the correct card. Second, the student
repeats the word, and places in the right box that is
labelled for the sound.
o Odd one out. This can be played with the same cards.
First, the teacher shows four pictures. For example,
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hat, pen, cat, map. Next, the pictures are named and
the student has to point out the odd one out.

2. Speaking

In foreign/second language acquisition understanding,

reading and writing usually precedes speaking, therefore we
have to be very patient with our students.

Never force a dyslexic child to speak, always wait until

they volunteer.
If necessary, ask them to speak when the question is easy
and you are sure they know the answer.
Encourage them with lots of positive feedback.

3. Reading

Reading in English must be a pleasant experience

regardless of the age and ability of the child.

Always have the child read with a purpose.

Discuss vocabulary before reading, as this will aid
prediction and understanding.
Dyslexic children benefit from cloze exercises as they are
useful to develop predictive skills.
Have the child dictate his own stories to you. It will
provide the student with relevant and motivating reading
material that can be further exploited.

4. Writing
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Dyslexic children may have the most difficulties with

learning to spell English words.

Pointing out the difference between the letter-sound

correspondence of their first language, and English can
often be a very helpful start. For example, in Hungarian
each letter has its corresponding sound, whereas in
English there are 26 letters referring to 44 sounds.
Build a structured, systematic, spelling program focusing
on one rule at a time.
Repeat and reinforce stimulating the use of all the
pathways (eyes, ears, hands, and lips) to the brain
simultaneously. For example, have them vocalize the
words as they write them. Younger children enjoy building
words using plastic, wooden, or rubber letters.
Dont forget to teach the irregular words on a whole word
basis. These words are frequently used and the dyslexic
child needs a great deal of exposure to them.
Teach the words in context as well.
When writing to communicate, teach them different
planning techniques, such as mind mapping, and break
up the process into small, manageable steps.