College students' abilities to recognize the learning difficulties and reasons caused by the peculiarities of pupils' development

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Heterogeniška klasė; Komandos sudarymo sunkumai; Veiksniai; Causes; Heterogeneous dass; Teaming difficulties.

ENPupils with different learning abilities but equal rights to strive for personal results meet in the classrooms of the comprehensive schools today. It is very important for a teacher working in heterogeneous classes to be able to evaluate the learning difficulties caused by the children's development disorders, to see a child's abilities and personal features that would aid to provide the necessary extra help to him. The educator has to understand the peculiarities of a child's development to the extent they affect the learning process of a pupil. However, it is very important to reveal different characteristics of a child with a development disorder: not only typological, specific that enable to distinguish one group of peculiarities from others, but also common and individual ones. Learners with different development disorders have some similarities and differences, the understanding of which helps a teacher to apply teaching strategies more optimally and to realize the individualization of teaching in the context of various curricula applied in one class. The combination of the general and special education actualize the acknowledgement of a pupils' individuality, precise objective, functionality of the implemented teaching content and evaluation, methodical flexibility and communication culture. The training standards of primary education teachers and basic school teachers of English (2008) identify the ability to know the peculiarities, regularities and expression of the development of a child at various ages, to recognize and satisfy the essential and special child's needs (Primary Education Teacher Training Standard, 2008), to analyze pupils' needs, to prepare individual, differentiated and special need development plans (Basic School Teachers of English Training Standard, 2008).The research problem deals with the following issue: what main features do college students distinguish, when giving a short description of children with learning disorders, limited intellect and mental disorders and when describing the reasons causing the learning difficulties? The results of the research revealed that primary education and foreign language pedagogy students are better at describing pupils with learning disorders than pupils with limited intellect or mental disorders. In general, it can be stated that there exists a lack of perceptivity of positive abilities. It was determined that primary education and foreign language pedagogy students indicate learning difficulties caused by the following reasons: psychological and social. However, primary education pedagogy students quite often confuse those reasons with training consequences. [From the publication]