Multidimensional Networks for Functional Diversity in Higher Education: The Case of Second Language Education

This chapter provides a theoretical approach to the multidimensional relationship of the student with functional diversity with his/her own educational and sociocultural context. Inclusion is a key issue in a foreign language classroom where the ability to communicate is of paramount importance. Students with different special needs are bound to find challenges in those language skills that pose problems related to their functional diversity. In order to address these challenges, higher education institutions need to organize multidimensional networks that pay attention to the different stages, events, and situations of the educational process. Furthermore, the ability to communicate that students with functional diversity develop in the foreign language classroom may become an instrumental competence that will become useful for other subjects as well as to respond to daily life challenges. The theoretical model proposed here acknowledges that there are two paradigms that coalesce into a defined educational model. On the one hand, the syntagmatic paradigm ensures that subjects offered in the educational programs are designed bearing in mind the needs of students with functional diversity and are flexible enough to accommodate those needs. On the other hand, the organizational paradigm relates the needs of the students and their teachers to institutional services and protocols

Dysarthria and teaching speaking skills in English as a Foreign Language: A case study

In this article we are concerned with the design of diagnostic assessment tools of spoken English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for students with dysarthria. To this end, a higher education student with dysarthria participated in our case study. Tests in the student’s mother tongue (Spanish) and in English were devised and their results analyzed in order to (1) discuss types of assessment tools that teachers may use to facilitate the student’s self-assessment in EFL (2) promote an enhancement of the student’s achievements and (3) foster the design of a joint (student/teacher) implementation plan during the learning process.En este artículo nos centramos en cuestiones relacionadas con el diseño de herramientas de evaluación diagnóstica de las destrezas orales en inglés como lengua extranjera (ILE) para estudiantes con disartria. Con este fin, una estudiante con disartria participó en nuestro estudio. Se desarrollaron test en su lengua materna (español) y en inglés y se analizaron los resultados con el objetivo de (1) presentar distintos tipos de herramientas de evaluación que los profesores pueden utilizar para facilitar la autoevaluación de los estudiantes en ILE, (2) promover la mejora de los logros de los estudiantes con disartria y (3) fomentar el diseño de un plan de implementación conjunta (estudiante / profesor) durante el proceso de aprendizaje

Criminal Justice. English and Spanish for Law. Enforcement courses

Departament d’Estudis Anglesos. Criminologia i Segureta

Teaching and assessing listening skills effectively in the language classroom: research-based approachers. From the Editors

Teaching and assessing listening skills effectively in the language classroom: research-based approachers

From the Editors: CLIL at university: research and developments

In recent times, the relevance of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) at most educational levels, especially in the university world, has experienced an exponential increase, as recent publications show (Doiz et al. 2013, Fortanet-Gómez 2013, Llinares et al. 2012, or Smit and Dafouz 2012a, among others). Teaching in English seems to be a popular topic nowadays, but it is also a need. The articles included in this issue show three main common features of CLIL and its role in today’s higher education: the process of internationalization of the educational system, the need for a language policy, and the fact that English for Specific Purposes (ESP) as a field of research and teaching as well as ESP practitioners are all very much concerned with CLIL