The results of national tests indicate lower achievements of pupils with special needs in comparison to their peers. When reviewing the data for the period from 2008 to 2015, we can see that throughout the whole period the lowest results are achieved in the school subject English, and the comparison of results between pupils with special needs and their peers indicates a large gap (National Testing, 2015). Based on the results we can conclude that pupils with special needs need extra help and support in English. Pupils with specific learning difficulties, including dyslexia, need a different way of teaching, which allows them to overcome the deficits and experience success in learning a foreign language, English. The master's thesis exposes the communication approach of teaching English, in addition the author discusses special-pedagogical approaches, methods, adaptations and strategies for learning and teaching English, that are appropriate for pupils with dyslexia. In the empirical part of the master's thesis a systematic, multi-sensory special-pedagogical training is discussed. The training was designed in cooperation with a foreign language teacher and is based on the explicit teaching of the structure of tenses, and teaching stand-alone strategies of learning English. The success of the training was evaluated by a comparison of the initial and final results, which were obtained by a questionnaire on learning strategies and a language progress test which assessed the forms, understaning and the use of grammatical tenses. The purpose of the master's thesis is to define the reasons for for problems in learning English by students with dyslexia in English as a foreign language, and design a training in English, which will enable the pupils with mentioned learning difficulties to be successful in the process of learning and acquiring English as a foreign language. A comparison of the initial and final results of the testing in the assessed pupil shows a progress in the field of reading teaching strategies as well as progress in the forms, understaning and the use of grammatical tenses, which were practised as part of trainign. The presented training will be of benefit to special and rehabilitation remedial teachers in the implementation of additional professional assistance, and English language teachers, who teach pupils with dyslexia, will be able to use some of the approaches, which are useful for all pupils.
|