[Trainer-talk] Teaching students with limited English Skills

[John Rempel]

Hey Terrence, I have some questions that might help to better determine how
to help this woman.
1. What are her goals with the computer? Is she using it primarily for
personal use, or is she seeking employment down the road with the skills
she's acquiring?
2. Is she able to access large print?
3. Is she in the process of improving her English skills (i.e., Hadley's
free courses on learning English)?
4. Are there any other resources in the community that would help her to
improve her English skills?

Many of the language barrier issues will move way beyond simply learning the
keyboard. If her language barrier is getting in the way of her learning the
keyboard, how will computer related terminology and concepts be taught? If
she is low vision,. can she benefit from words or sentences that have been
increased in size, both on the pages she's typing from, as well as on the
computer? If she will be a speech user, how well can she understand the
speech synthesizer? You may be dealing with literacy issues, keyboard skills
and the inability to understand accents and speech synthesizers all rolled
into one. If you have unlimited time, dealing with all three may work.
Otherwise, the language barrier may need to seriously be addressed first
before she can consider being a competent computer user. Is there anyone
available to provide a reading and spelling comprehension test? I realize
that I probably provided more questions than answers, but with the little
bit of information that was provided it's hard to come up with a meaningful
action plan for this woman.

John




On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:20 PM, Terrence Vanettinger <
Tvanettinger at alaskabvi.org> wrote:

> Hello, everyone,
>            I am working with a student who has very limited command of the
> English language.  She does not speak up any more than necessary, and it is
> often difficult to determine how much of what I say she is actually able to
> understand.  I am trying to start with the basics of typing, but feel I am
> hitting a barrier when trying to explain finger positions to her.  Does
> anyone have any ideas on what might work well when working with such
> situations?
>
> Thanks,
> Terrence
>
> Terrence van Ettinger, Braille and Assistive Technology Instructor
> Equipping Alaskans for success
> Alaska Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired
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