Teaching a second language to students with down syndrome

Abstract

The purpose of the current research synthesis was to recognize what strategies are helpful to teach a second language to students with Down syndrome. For this exploratory bibliographical research synthesis, twenty-two empirical research studies were selected by means of online sources and categorized based on the aims of this paper. There were no limitations related to the design or year publication of the selected studies. In order to address the purpose of this research synthesis, the strategies to teach an SL to DS students, the effects of each type of strategy, and teachers’ perceptions about teaching an SL to DS students were analyzed. The results revealed that various strategies were effective when teaching an SL to DS students. Therefore, these strategies were organized into shorter categories such as intrinsic, extrinsic, technological, and motivational. Moreover, the results demonstrated that students with DS could learn an SL by applying different teaching strategies. Thus, the most predominant teaching strategies were intrinsic and motivational. Also, regarding teachers’ perceptions, this paper remarked the importance of training, curricular adaptations, collaborative work, classroom environment, and motivation.