Hello everybody, could you help me here?

Can anyone recommend  any readings, books or magazines which deal with the problem of stutter, if possible connected to education? This year is the first time I have one student in the classroom with this problem and I don�t know how to handle it in the right way. I �d love to get some info on this topic.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Hi Julia,

 

I only have a personal experience to draw on, when I had a private student with a speech impediment. I actually wondered at the time whether the stress of having to produce speech in a foreign language (where you are more likely to be less confident and to make more errors) might not be the best thing for her. Anyway, the thing I learned very quickly is to be patient and not to try to �help � the student by finishing her sentences or guessing the word she is trying to produce, and to be as relaxed and encouraging as possible.

 

I am sure there will be colleagues who can give more scientifically-based advice, but what I did was use the same materials as I would with other students, but to try to make the student feel as comfortable as possible in having time to speak. I guess that will be harder to do in a group. Perhaps you could talk to the student herself and ask what makes her feel better/worse?

 

If you find out more about this, please let us know because it �s an interesting subject.

 

Tap

 

Yes, I �d also heard that people with speech problems can sometimes get around them by singing and also for some people, blocking their auditory feedback (by listening to music through headphones) while they speak can help, though I think both of those might be difficult to realise in a classroom with other students, unless, as Dale said, you can get everyone doing the same thing.

 

I found a British Council article here that might be of help:

Speech and Language Impairment | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC 

 

@Dale - He was really ordered to sing?? Wow. That �s so bizarre.

 

Tap

PS Hope you�re feeling a bit more chipper today.

 

Sorry for the delay in my answer! Christmas holidays kept me busy. Thanks for your suggestions. Spinney, singing is Always a nice activity, which I frequently use in my lessons. But it is not good if the student with the problem must read an extract from a text or give the answer to a questions. He would even get more nervous to the idea of having to "sing" his answer! :-)

I have found a book about this problem, which I have ordered, as I feel that I must know more about how to deal with this problem in the classroom. If I find it useful and someone is interested, I could tell you about it.

To start with, the title is "Can I Tell you about Stuttering? A Guide for Friends, Family and Professionals". Maybe someone knows it already and can tell me something about it or about any other book which is about this topic.

Thanks again for your colaboration!

Julia