Study of the English language as L2 in students with dyslexia: a study on Catalan speakers

Abstract

[eng] This paper examines the difficulties dyslexic students encounter while learning the writing English system as a foreign language. The theme of second language acquisition with diagnosis of reading difficulties, especially, dyslexia has been broadly studied by linguists internationally. This tendency of clinical linguistic studies emerged due to the fact that a great amount of the population worldwide suffers from a reading disorder, which hinders the proper acquisition of a foreign language, apart from their native language. For this reason, it is not only about stating that dyslexic students have problems when learning a foreign and opaque language as English, but also about finding out where the difficulties rely on. According to some researchers, English spelling is an “opaque” language that causes difficulties due to its consonant clusters and its complex syllabic structures. The main aim of this essay is to discover the difficulties Catalan speakers encounter when learning this language. This goal has never been published before as the Catalan language has not been studied in depth from this point of view. Consequently, it is essential to have it done as it will provide a lot of information regarding this language in addition to the effects of bilingualism (Catalan and Spanish) within the possible results. Hence, although the principal focus of this project is addressed towards the English language, the Catalan language is also present and examined. Throughout this paper, there is an identification of the main characteristics of Catalan dyslexic students within English learning. This experimental proposal is aimed at analysing the effects of this reading disorder when learning a foreign language with the methodology of participants taking two tests. The first test is in English while the second test is in Catalan. Each test contains four different activities: a line rhyming exercise, choosing the right option which is a word correctly spelled, fill in the gap with one or two letters as well as the final activity, which was the most difficult, a dictation task. By doing this, it seeks to demonstrate the most complicated groups of consonants syllabic for dyslexic students.