Multisensory structured learning approach in teaching foreign languages to dyslexic learners

Abstract

Considerable reluctance of language teachers as regards implementing research-validated approaches, methods and techniques of teaching foreign languages to learners with dyslexia can be observed. Teachers’ disinclination and unwillingness to accept and exploit the specific educational approaches and instructional practices whose effectiveness has been verified and confirmed by research is claimed to result from insufficient training with regard to specialized thorough knowledge and understanding of the concepts that are to be successfully converted from research and applied in practice. This paper aims at bridging the research-practice gap with regard to foreign language teaching approaches applied in the dyslexia context. It characterizes the principles of the Multisensory Structured Learning (MSL) as well as reviews and summarizes the findings of the studies in which the effectiveness of the MSL approach in teaching foreign languages to learners with dyslexia has been verified.