SPELLING TEST FOR LEARNERS WITH DYSLEXIA LEARNING GERMAN AS A SECOND FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Spelling is a basic skill as well as means of acquiring knowledge over the school years. Moreover, it is a complex cognitive process, which can be challenging for learners with specific learning difficulties (dyslexia) in their mother language as well as when learning a foreign language. A challenge, that foreign language teachers face in everyday practice, is being able to respond to the needs of all learners within the mainstream classroom in primary education, including learners with dyslexia. Foreign language teachers need to become equipped with further knowledge and skills, so that they are able to identify these difficulties and teach learners with dyslexia more effectively in an inclusive way (Tsakalidou, Koufokotsiou, & Gaganis, in press; Tsakalidou, 2021, 2020, in press). In the present study we examined the spelling difficulties of learners with dyslexia, when learning German as a second foreign language. The aim of the study was twofold: (a) the comparative analysis of the spelling difficulties across two populations (95 learners between 10 and 11 years, twenty of who had dyslexia) and (b) the evaluation of the effectiveness of spelling intervention in respect to learners with dyslexia. In this article we will describe the Spelling Test constructed and adjusted for the doctoral research, which was undertaken in order to record the spelling difficulties that the learners with dyslexia face, when learning German as a second foreign language in primary education. This test was based on a standardized Spelling Test in the Greek language (Mouzaki, Protopapas, Sideridis, & Simos, 2010). As far as the Spelling Test, we constructed is concerned, satisfactory construct validity and internal reliability were demonstrated, as the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .944 and revealed a high degree of internal consistency of the instrument. Article visualizations: