MODERN LANGUAGES AND SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL-NEEDS - A REVIEW OF RESEARCH

The Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 requires that all p upils of secondary school age should have equal access to a broad and balanced curriculum. The inclusion of language studies within the stat utory framework of the Northern Ireland curriculum has led to a signif icant expansion in the teaching of modern languages to pupils with spe cial educational needs. Many teachers are now faced with the task of t eaching pupils who hitherto would have been excluded from the language department and some teachers in special schools now have to teach a l anguage with which they themselves are unfamiliar. This paper is the f irst stage of a research and development project funded by the Norther n Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (NIC CEA); it examines some research evidence relating to the challenge of teaching languages to pupils with special educational needs.