Dyslexia and learning English as a foreign language: the phonological/orthographic teaching through the multisensory method.

This project is based on my personal experience of being tutor of students with special needs and of all ages. However, in this paper I focus on dyslexic students of the Lower Secondary School in the process of learning English as a foreign language. Moreover, i attempt to present how the phonological/orthographic teaching can help pupils to progress in all other skills. In the first part I provide insight into learning disabilities, in particular into dyslexia and its connected difficulties from both a learning and a psychological perspective. Moreover, I will introduce a part dedicated to the Italian question regarding dyslexic students at school compared to UK and USA. In the second part i focus on the main problems a dyslexic student has to face with the Italian mother tongue in order to understand the learning obstacles which can influence the study of English as a foreign language, examined in depth in the fourth chapter. The third chapter deals with dyslexia from a psychological perspective, taking into account that students have to cope with high levels of anxiety and stress; for this reason it is pivotal to highlight how working on self-esteem can influence both the students’ motivation and the scholastic achievement. As a consequence, an early diagnosis appears to be significant in the process of language acquisition. Thus, the Educational Helper’s role becomes a key figure to support dyslexic students at home to find useful strategies with the aim of becoming independent learners. Finally, the research project of two case studies attempts to provide a future suggestion in teaching English as a foreign language to dyslexic students, that means concentrating on phonological/orthographic competences and words acquisition through the use of multisensory techniques.