Fišer, Zrinka.
(2019).
Competence of Croatian pre- and in- service teachers of foreign languages in teaching students with dyslexia.
PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of English Language and Literature.
(PDS glotodidaktike)
[mentor Mildner, Vesna and Lenček, Mirjana].
Abstract
The most widely accepted theory of the cause of dyslexia is the one that explains dyslexia
as cognitive difficulties. According to this theory
dyslexia is manifested as difficulties in recognizing and processing of voices and syllables which
then affects the acquisition of a language. Reading and writing are complex cognitive activities
which include decoding and understanding a language through phonological awareness.
Although measuring phonological awareness was confirmed to be the most efficient way of
predicting future difficulties in acquiring language skills, there is no universal test which could
be applied to speakers of different languages. Croatian language is a very transparent one due to its shallow orthography, meaning its
phoneme-grapheme relationship is mainly unambiguous. English language, on the other hand,
has a very deep orthography with very complex phoneme-grapheme relationship. Dyslexia is in Croatian legislation acts considered as a special education need or
developmental difficulty but it is not specifically addressed in any of the educational rulebooks. It is safe to conclude that EFL teachers in Croatia lack opportunities for developing
holistic competence to teach students with dyslexia due to limited number of relevant mandatory
courses during their post secondary education as well as relevant seminars and workshops during
their professional development. The direct consequence of such teacher training system is the
lack of positive attitudes towards implementing adjusted teaching methods and techniques which
benefit students with dyslexia striving to successfully complete their primary school education.
There is also an issue of differences between teacher training courses of post secondary
institutions which also have a negative impact on the competences of future EFL teachers and an
issue of teachers’ motivation to further enrich their knowledge of dyslexia-friendly practice in
teaching. Some of the subgroups consisted of a moderately low number of participants, therefore
the conclusions based on the findings of this research might need to be confirmed on a larger
number of participants. The findings of this research may be used as a ground point in
discovering which areas of teacher training program and professional development opportunities
might be improved.
Item Type: |
PhD Thesis
|
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
dyslexia, teacher training, competences, adjusted teaching methods, teachers,
students |
Subjects: |
English language and literature |
Departments: |
Department of English Language and Literature |
Supervisor: |
Mildner, Vesna and Lenček, Mirjana |
Additional Information: |
PDS glotodidaktike |
Date Deposited: |
30 Aug 2019 08:33 |
Last Modified: |
30 Aug 2019 08:33 |
URI: |
http://darhiv.ffzg.unizg.hr/id/eprint/11571 |
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