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The Linguist 19 FEATURES slowly, struggling to understand text and reading aloud. Dyslexics may also have poor organisational and sequencing skills, and find it difficult to process lengthy spoken instructions. In a recent YouTube video, the Dyslexia Group gave a useful analogy: "Learning to read for dyslexics is like running a race where only the dyslexic students have invisible hurdles on the track. The others complete the race easily and quickly while the dyslexic students fall when they first hit the hurdles. As the hurdles cannot be seen, nobody understands why they fall. And all those standing by can say is 'Try harder'." People with dyslexia may become frustrated struggling to decode written words in the foreign language and this can result in demotivation and low self-esteem. They often read more slowly and have trouble understanding what they read because of the difficulty in accessing the printed words. Memorising new vocabulary can prove extremely challenging. It is common for dyslexic students to feel that they are stupid. Strategies to address dyslexia Individuals with dyslexia need more frequent exposure to new vocabulary and more opportunities to practise it. Vocabulary should be introduced in small, manageable chunks, with the number of new words introduced in each lesson limited to no more than ten. Kormos recommends focusing on the pronunciation and meaning before progressing to look at the spelling, and complementing the new word or phrase with a mime or gesture and a visual cue (which could be drawn by the students themselves). This helps to facilitate memorisation. 'Sky writing' (i.e. tracing the letters of the words with large arm movements) is helpful in reinforcing spelling and can be gradually reduced to the size of handwriting on the page. Grammar needs to be presented in a familiar context, building on what students already know, with only one small step being presented at a time. Grammatical rules should be made explicit. A multisensory approach, combining all four skills, is helpful in both the presentation and practice phases. Teaching should incorporate short-term, achievable goals and plentiful praise and encouragement. Slowing down the pace of the learning should give those with dyslexia more time to process information. Teachers can train students to distinguish between individual sounds, and to pick out the sounds in words. Students with dyslexia benefit from explicit, intense and systematic instruction, both in the sound structure of language and in phonics (i.e. how the sounds relate to the letters). It is helpful to highlight the links between the sound and the written form. Where possible, words should be grouped together into rhyming word families, such as 'bright', 'sight', 'might', 'light' in English and plage, nage, fromage in French. The way in which reading texts and tasks are presented is important. Teachers can reduce the length of texts; divide the text into shorter sections; and provide illustrations and a glossary of unknown words. Comprehension questions should be easily accessible; asking students to find key information is preferable to reading for detail. Students can also gain confidence by following a tutor, or peer tutor, as they model reading a text aloud. An audio copy of the text is useful for the student to play back at home. Unfortunately, there is no 'one size fits all' approach to helping those with dyslexia learn a foreign language, as the needs of dyslexic students vary greatly. On a more positive note, MFL teachers may already incorporate some of the recommended strategies in the classroom – or may need to make only slight modifications to their practice to accommodate students with dyslexia. For details of the next free four-week course in April 2018, visit www.futurelearn.com/ courses/dyslexia. For resources and guidance, see www.dystefl.eu or Judit Kormos's The Second Language Learning Processes of Students with Learning Difficulties (2017, Routledge). ndness