Understanding neurodiversity in education (dyspraxia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia)

The world has come a long way since I was diagnosed with Dyspraxia as a child 20 years ago. Of course there is a long way to go, but as someone who grew up in a small working class town going through a somewhat broken education system the changes in awareness give me hope. When I was growing up family and teachers had the best intentions (for the most part) but too often I was met with caring types who wanted to help but didn't know how, other types who could only offer well meaning pity, some types who had a complete disregard for me (and science too apparently), and of course those types who never gave up and walked with me in the dark as I overcame the obstacles I faced. Today dyspraxia and other similar conditions are seen as common and hardly life changing, but when I grew up people certainly made a song and dance and jumped to wild conclusions. which often made me feel a burden, stupid, useless, inferior, or alienated.

These days as a teacher I look at things from the other perspective. Too often the knowledge is there but not everyone is applying it. In schools in the UK (my home country) I hear concerning stories of students of all neurodiversities being sidelined. Teachers tell me about cuts to SEN budgets resulting in a lack of resources and support staff, teachers not being trained and being so overworked they just don't have the time, and assessment systems that have a nostalgia for the mid-20th century. I hear about children with educational needs being left in the corner or sent to isolation.  The international education sector isn't doing too great either. Don't get me wrong, I love the international education sector and think that it is truly innovative in many ways: 21st century learning is a great example of this yet when it comes to special needs and support it is lacking. I have worked in three countries for mostly good schools and yet none have had a clue about what these conditions mean, how they manifest, or what to do about them. Every so often a teacher in the staff room will share concerns about a child with such conditions or I will teach a child with a learning difficulty, yet when it comes to finding support in management or resources there is nothing.


A few months ago i'd had enough of this situation and with the support of my boss I said something has to change! I observed one of my students with dyslexia, researched online, tried things out, got involved with my local orphanage teaching special needs children of all kinds, went onto Futurelearn and took a few courses: Incusive Education (University of Cape Town), understanding autism (University of Kent). I then used what I had learnt and created a workshop for my school. You can find this in previous posts (November 2017) on this blog along with an open source document I composed which has practical ideas, information, and links. I urge people to use this, and to freely update the version on there with any information they find or fee would benefit teachers.

I will take another course next month with Futurelearn on Dyslexia and foreign language teaching (click here to join for free) and add to my this but for now check out the interesting infographics on this post by the people at 'We are teachers'. They explain more detail about dyspraxia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia.

A fantastic resource for professional development

In my professional development, I have come across this fantastic book. It's completely free and inside it contains essays by pioneers and researchers in ELT. They talk about taking literacy beyond reading and writing (visual, pragmatic, kinesthetic, contextual) and provide fantastic lesson ideas to build HOTS (higher order thinking skills), literacies, engagement with learning, and a classroom that is relevant in the 21st century. There are many brilliant ideas and resources with a strong rationale and explanation behind them.

Ideas include:
Gamified learning
Project Based Learning
Interdisciplinary Learning
CLIL
Poetry
Graphic novels
Films
Art
Installations
using classrooms a.d space effectively.

Click here to read

Professional development opportunities - Futurelearn

I have plugged this website before. Futurelearn is a fantastic platform for professional development. It was founded by The Open University in the UK as a way to bring 21st century learning to life. It runs fantastic courses, and programmes by Universities across the world and organizations like British Council. You can take these courses for free (upgrade is possible for a small fee), and learn about many subject areas in depth. Courses use quizzes, video lectures, discussions, articles, tasks, and projects to help you gain skills. I really cannot recommend it enough!

In the teaching section there are some insightful courses coming up.

Understanding Autism by the University of Kent: I have taken this course before and I thoroughly recommend it. It has brilliant lecturers, great resources and you learn a lot in a short amount of time. It can really help you to understand the learner psychology of autistic students. It helped me to develop effective strategies, remove obstacles for learning, and help students engage with learning.

Dyslexia and foreign language teaching by Lancaster University: This course will again look at another common issue for learners. Learners with dyslexia often find language acquisition challenging and too often they can be written off or hindered by teachers who either mean well but don't understand or teachers who give up. This course will help teachers to understand dyslexic learners, and explore how we can overcome this challenge. As a dyslexic who speaks 3 languages I can assure you there are ways ;)

Teaching for success: teachers and teaching, learners and learning by British Council: These are 2 courses. I recently completed the first and found it contained some useful activities although I would say this is aimed more at newer teachers. I will undertake the second as I am sure it has lots of great activities, insights, and strategies to better help learners.

Managing behaviour for learning by National STEM institute: This course was amazing. Even if you don't teach STEM classes the learning is very transferable. It uses fantastic scenarios, the ins and outs of learner psychology, tricks and tips, and many research and practice opportunities.

For more information see this link: Futurelearn teaching courses

Teaching Primary: a story idea

Kids love stories! Any parent or teacher will tell you that a good story can keep children quiet and engaged. The messages of the stories, and the information they contain carries through the years even if the nuance of character and narrative don't.

To do this all you need is a soft toy, some free time, and a camera.

Think of a story for the content. If you're teaching ESL maybe the target vocabulary, If you're teaching history maybe some events, if you're teaching geography some places. Find the items, a place with information, or even print some A3 pictures with a background.

Take some photos with the soft toy and the above (5-10 different photos should be enough). Form some kind of narrative. If you're not a natural storyteller use these prompts.

• One day/Just the other day/once upon a time (name of soft toy) went to...
• he/she was excited/hungry/scared/happy... (introduce any other characters and provide some information about the situation)
• When he/she arrived, they did/saw/ate/played... (you can use a few things and pictures for this)
• but then (something happened: insert a problem)
• Suddenly (something that helps overcome the problem happens).
• Finally (what happens at the end)

To introduce the class topic, you can put the pictures on a google slides presentation and change slides at each scene, or you can print the pictures out and put them on the board like a storyboard. 

If you want to use it as a listening task you can cut the pictures out individually and get students to rearrange. Additionally if you want to get students speaking you can get them to make a story with the pictures.

Alternatively you can use the camera, soft toy, and the other materials for a storytelling project where students go out and make a story.

Meet Hugo

Hugo likes adventures.

No more PARSNIPs

Look in any ESL textbook and I guarantee you won't find any current affairs, religion, or history. Why? Because of an acronym called PARSNIPs which stands for politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms, and pork. The acronym was created by well meaning people who wanted to avoid controversy in the classroom for legal, moral, and/or personal reasons.

Although the rationale makes sense, topics such as religion, politics, and isms allow us to understand our complicated world. Likewise being able to use the technical vocabulary for those topics is a sign of a high level. On another note I would like to address how using those topics correctly can open many doors to developing HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills). These skills and these topics are important to create students who are also 21st century citizens. Many people don't feel comfortable talking about issues due to taboos or fears of looking stupid, or even being verbally abused. Others take a different tone! Log onto social media, look at any news article, or any discussion and you will see entrenched people from across the political spectrum yelling at each other, hurling baseless insults, carrying out character assassinations, and refusing to compromise, listen, or question themselves and others. Open any  newspaper and read comfortable opinions doing the same with an intellectual disguise. Watch a politician and there's some catchy soundbites but not much else. We live in a world with conflict, and disagreement yet too few are addressing the big issues and questions respectfully. This cant go on, too many people across the world, across faiths, and across the political spectrum feel no one is listening, there is so much apathy and anger. We need to create global citizens who although they may never agree with each other will be able to address the issues and make an impact. You don't have to be a liberal, you don't have to be a conservative, you don't have to be a Christian, you don't have to be a Muslim, you don't have to be one thing or another. You just need to be able to question yourself and the world around you, to find the evidence to support your beliefs, respect others who vehemently disagree with you, and most importantly you have to know how to make a difference without a negative impact.

Now on the other hand, I will say this, opposing the rule isn't an excuse to force your opinion  on the class or indoctrinate students into a religion, or ideology. We have to be careful that our own biases don't hijack the discussions. We should always play devils advocate with our students and ourselves, we should set up class contracts which emphasize respect for adverse opinions and beliefs, and respect for questioning and investigating. An opinion is only wrong when there is no evidence to back it up, or is used to bully, harm or harass an individual for any and all characteristics including: Sex, Gender, Race, Culture, Religion, Disability, Sexuality, and Disability. All classrooms should be safe, but all ideas and ways of life including those above should be questioned. There are no two people with identical views even those who share an ideological belief. We should acknowledge this and encourage our classes to be a place for reflection on ourselves and our ideas, for questioning ideas, for active listening and respectful engagement.and being curious.

Whatever is the case we need more debate, and discovery in our classrooms using opposing viewpoints on the topics which define the world we live in.

Food tech - CLIL mini course

Level: Elementary+

Age: Grade 6 - 8

Materials: A3 paper, makers, crayons, pencils, oven, cooker, food prep stations, chopping boards, rolling pins, computer with word processor, work place signs with rules, messy kitchen picture, post it notes, dough, cheese, tomato, mushrooms, sausage, onion, other food items

By the end of this course students will have learned: modals of obligation, cooking verbs, cooking vocabulary, and how to describe tastes and textures. Students will have practiced cooking skills, presentation skills, critiquing, and designing.

The course will use authentic task based learning.

Lesson 1 - Hygeine

Language: Modals of obligation

Skills: Presentation, speaking

1 Students look at signs and match them with the rules.

2 Drill pronunciation.

3 Mini board writing race - show the signs and get students to write the rule. the fastest team wins points.

4 Students are asked what are the rules at home. Pass the ball to each student to find out.

5 Show the picture of the messy kitchen and ask what's wrong? Students discuss for 2 minutes and then share with the class.

6 Get students to brainstorm some rules that will help in that kitchen.

7 Get students to make a poster with kitchen rules.


Lesson 2

Language: Modals of obligation review, cooking verbs, recipe, ingredients

Skills: Listening, Speaking

1 Give students post it notes and get them to write down as many rules and stick them on the relevant parts of the kitchen. Check that they did it correctly, and check for mistakes.

2 Ask students if they like Pizza. Tell them today you are going to make pizza and elicit what is on the pizza.

3 Give students a sheet with ingredients, and cooking utensils for the pizza written on it but no steps for the recipe. Get students to predict what happens next.

4 The teacher makes a pizza describing each step, students listen and write.

5 Check answers.

6 Share the pizza or pizzas depending on the number of students. Tell students they are going to talk to their partner about their favourite food. Students should talk about what food they like, what ingredients it has, and how its made.

7 Students share with the class.

8 Tell students to write the recipe, and other information down with their partner.

9 Check for mistakes.


Lesson 3

Language: Review, and amounts

Skills: Listening, speaking, design

1 Students have pictures of amounts and the words, they must match these.

2 Get students to add this information to their ingredients

3 Students use their computers to type up their recipes and find pictures.

4 Students print them out and you make them into a class recipe book.

5 Tell students to choose their favourite recipe.


Lesson 4

Before class: bring the ingredients to class for the students favourite recipe.

Language: Review, tastes and textures

Skills: Listening, speaking, cooking

1 Get students to label the utensils and foods. Check for errors

2 Give students the recipe but with blank spaces, get them to fill in the blanks. Check

3 Show students pictures of foods with different tastes and textures. Teach them the vocabulary.

4 Get students to volunteer to be blindfolded. get them to and taste foods. Students describe the texture and taste.

5 Let students make the recipe with your guidance (or lower maturity and level groups it may still be beneficial to do it stage by stage with students copying).

6 Competition time - Students go around the room with a check sheet and say whether it's good or bad. Students should think about texture, taste, amount, and presentation. The student or pair with the highest point wins.

Homework - Get students to write a review.