Language, Power, Learning Difficulties, and Assessment in Education

This essay delves into the intricate relationship between language and power dynamics within educational settings, examining how language is used to form, maintain, and transform power relations, particularly in primary education. It further explores the significant influence of socio-cultural backgrounds on the learning process, highlighting the disparities in language acquisition and learning responses among children from diverse social strata. The essay also addresses the impact of learning difficulties and disabilities, such as dyslexia, ADHD, and Down syndrome, on children's literacy skills and overall learning experience. Finally, it discusses various approaches to initial and diagnostic assessment of learning, including documentation, discussion, self-assessment, and the use of assessment tools to identify learners' specific needs and monitor their literacy development. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of these tools in providing supplementary diagnostic information about students' learning strengths and challenges, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness of teaching and literacy interventions.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Language and power relations
 Language can be used in formation, maintenance then transformation
of the power relations.
 These are related with the learning process of the children learners
when they learn their first language.
 Effective use of language in the communication, effectively refer to
the feeling, thought, behavior and appearances of the human beings.

Language and power
relations (contd.)
 Through appropriate use of
language, the teachers of the
primary classes can effectively
form a power relation with their
students in the class (Neighbour
2018).
 Proper communication helps
them to convey messages
perfectly so that the formed
power relation can be
maintained.
 Properly chosen words as well as
styles help them to present
themselves efficiently.
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Language and power
relations (contd.)
 Language is a natural human system of
conventionalized symbols which have
already understood meanings.
 After the power relation is formed and
maintained, through proper method of
communication, the teachers can then
transform this relation into an
advantageous position for both the
teacher as well as the students.

Social and cultural effect on
learning
 The learning process gets greatly manipulated by
the individual’s social and cultural background.
 This is the reason why the children with different
social background reflect different response in the
learning process.
 The children’s backgrounds can be easily seen from
their ability to language acquisition and use of
them.

Social and cultural effect on
learning (contd.)
 The social and cultural
differences can have
distinctive features in
themselves.
 These can be easily
found out among the
children growing up in
the western middle-
class society as well as
children with villages or
tribal background.

Social and cultural effect on
learning (contd.)
 Socio cultural mainly influence the literacy learners greatly as the
children parent or children teacher interactions which prepare the
children to communicate effectively in the schools.
 The socio-cultural background teaches the children to assume mature
responsibilities.
 This also prepare the children to participate in the works in schools.

Impact of learning difficulties and
disabilities in learning process
 Impact of learning
difficulties and disabilities
has a far-reaching effect on
the learning process of the
children studying in the
primary classes.
 These children can have
many types of disabilities
but among all, the deaf and
dumb children suffer more
than others (Van
Merriënboer and Kirschner
2017).

Impact of learning difficulties and
disabilities in learning process
(contd.) In discussing this, the interactions of the children with the parents
can be referred.
 The children earn languages initially from their parents but when the
parents have some type of disability to talk, the children do not get
opportunities to develop language skills.

Impact of learning difficulties and
disabilities in learning process
(contd.) Learning difficulties can be of many types but what affects the
learning process of the children of the primary classes the most, are
dyslexia and attention hyperactive deficit disorder (ADHD) to Down
syndrome (Savery 2015).
 Due to these diseases, the children find learning process difficult and
they fail to read and write.

Impact of learning difficulties and
disabilities in learning process
(contd.)
 These learning disabilities may effectively
interrupt the developments of the chief
literacy skills compulsory for the students to
surpass in all the areas of their curriculum.
 These learners struggle with their
spelling or reading skills who often do not
receive appropriate support from the
teachers.

Approaches to initial and diagnostic assessment
of learning
 The approaches to initial and diagnostic assessment
of learning involve the process of finding out the
learner’s level to help the students to select
appropriate program
 The initial assessment and diagnostic assessment
are quite different from each other but identify the
learner’s specific needs so that the teachers have
get the opportunity to meet all the requirements.