Foreign Languages for Everyone: How I Learned to Teach Second Languages to Students with Learning Disabilities by I.B. Konyndyk (review)

In Foreign Languages for Everyone: How I Learned to Teach Second Languages to Students with Learning Disabilities, Irene Brouwer Konyndyk provides a comprehensive overview of her teaching practises that address diversity in the learning needs of students of foreign languages. What sets this book apart from other practitioner-oriented texts is the author's sensitivity to the scope of human diversity and her empathetic understanding of what it means to be a student of a foreign language. Konyndyk draws extensively on her own experiences as a learner and as a teacher of foreign languages to set the stage upon which the book unfolds. Also, pedagogical practices have the dual purpose of increasing student's knowledge of a language and bolstering self-awareness and agency.

In the initial chapters, Konyndyk begins the conversation by discussing how a multisensory approach and structured activities can shift students' perceptions about their ability to learn a foreign language. Konyndyk also discusses how individual student profiles help her tailor teaching practices to student identity and student strengths. Every learner is viewed as an individual with a unique history, and understanding this narrative allows for the development of nuanced teaching practices.

In the latter chapters of the text, Konyndyk describes specific teaching practices that aim to help students take ownership of their learning. First, she describes how writing a journal will make students more meta-cognitively aware of the learning strategies that work best for them. In this way, students construct new identities as capable foreign language learners who are ready to take on new challenges when they are presented to them. Equipped with these tools, students are ready for direct and explicit instruction on the language and writing systems that underlie foreign language learning. Two instructional strategies are described in detail: the 1K Correction Method and the 1K Grace Slip Method. Konyndyk claims that the 1K Correction method has been effective with her own students. The method is iterative: students self-correct their own work, then it is monitored for accuracy by Konyndyk; more corrections are made and the process continues until the student is aware of where they are making mistakes and how these errors can be remedied. When the assignment is perfectly corrected, the original grade (that took into account errors) is adjusted and raised to indicate a perfect score. Similarly, in the 1K Grace Slip Method students are provided with the opportunity to be late for an assignment with no penalty (i.e., to maintain motivation when self-regulatory skills are developing) and to be rewarded for not being late (to reward students once they are capable of self-regulating their study schedules). Konyndyk has found these strategies to be powerful motivators for students.

The final chapter guides the reader through a personal reflection on what it is like to teach students who are foreign language learners with learning disabilities, and how everyone benefits from the inclusion of these students in foreign language classrooms. It is in this last chapter when the reader realizes that Konyndyk has intended all along to build capacity in her readership, much like she has done with her students of foreign languages. Through a sensitive portrayal of her own teaching, Konyndyk has provided the foundation upon which teachers can develop self-awareness of their own capabilities as agents of change in their students. As Konyndyk notes, students with learning disabilities are often not enrolled in foreign language classes due to teachers' beliefs that they do not have the skills to teach them. This book goes a long way to closing this knowledge gap.

The strength of this book is that Konynkyk uses plain language and a sensitive, creative approach to illustrate her ideas. While some descriptions and use of language terms (e.g., phonology) are not well specified, and some of the hypotheses generated to explain a rationale for teaching strategies...