Teach English in Jincheng Zhen - Shuozhou Shi

Learning Difficulties is now a global issue that we are facing in this Era. There’s the uprising of professions and specialist like speech therapy and occupational therapy who helps in dealing with children with Learning Difficulties. Many institutions, organization, schools, and government were creating programs to be able to give service to families who needed help in building the future of their child and it is a tough responsibility for parents. This condition can also be categorized from mild to severe, sometimes can be accompanied by another disability, or simply acquiring a purely reading skill or speaking skills disorder. What is Learning Difficulties? According to Kid Sense, “Learning difficulties are a group of disorders involving significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities”. In terms of a health matter, their brain has difficulty processing information. So, it hampers a child’s learning to develop his/her communication skill whether it’s a foreign language or its mother tongue. These are children who needed ample time to accomplish their task and who required to be supervised their work. These can be categorized into two (2): verbal which pertains to skill in speaking and non-verbal which refers to skill in reading or absorbing the concept. In identify children with learning difficulties in a classroom environment, we basically recognize them through general observation. Then, we go deeper into our investigation through assessments which can be written or oral and paying attention to their milestone. As we proceed, we prepare our plans, we need the support from the parents, colleagues, heads of school and specialist if there's any in the premises or help from the outside professionals. A list of factors that will affect or that we need to take into consideration in providing the assistance to our challenging children like lesson planning, strategies, methods, school program, classroom management, equipment, resources, teacher-made materials, printed material, classroom space, facilities, human elements and more. We normally prepare lesson plans for the whole class, others for individuals like IEP (Individual Educational Program) and another school program, either using differentiation or modification. However, whatever we decide to use, we make sure we are able to provide the needs of each individual in the classroom. In the English language, for example, Dyslexic children, we can give more exercises using the magnetic or moveable alphabet in constructing words, phrases, and paragraph. These types of materials are not only visual but it is also tangible to learn the letter form and to be more familiar with b, d, g, p, and q. In terms of classroom management, I find it helpful to have an essential agreement amongst students, and between student-teacher. The common goal is always to be able for our student to independently function in the classroom and as a result, they become a useful citizen and be self-reliant. For students with learning difficulties, they might have a problem in reading, comprehending and executing the rules. We could provide a buddy system. We also need to establish routines and later teaching them to become flexible. Scaffolding is also another way to help them digest the steps in accomplishing his/her goal. With school equipment and facilities, students with or without difficulties in these generations were fortunate for the accessible use of gadgets like overhead projector, cassette recorder, smart board or interactive whiteboard, computers and many more in completing their task or improving their skills which can be decoding sounds, spelling, practicing parts of speech, vocabulary enrichment and others. It is very rewarding to work with them, and we have the opportunity to upgrade our skill in teaching the English Language. How? You must know how to use modern gadget, software programs, websites to make their work easier for them, you have to be updated with the current trends. There are ample resources from the net and workshop that provides the latest approach. Actually, I find them smart, if you’re unable to really know their strength and weakness. Acceptance, respect and at the same time providing appropriate limitations are also important in dealing with children with learning difficulties. Hopefully that I will be able to use and practice what I have learned from your program.