Allegro - Learners

Janine is 20 years old and has been working for three years in the sheltered workshop at Schotten Reha. She has a learning disability.

The past
Janine attended a school for education in practical skills. For years she made no progress in school and showed no interest whatever in learning.
Janine began the Spanish language course at Schotten Rea two years ago. Before that she had only very weak reading and writing skills in German. She only knew individual letters and could only read individual words falteringly.

The present
Janine is now very interested in learning. This motivation is apparent not only in the language course but also in other areas. She is now taking part enthusiastically in several courses over which she earlier demonstrated great anxiety and misgiving.

ALLEGRO
Janine attends the Spanish course twice a week. She has made steady progress. She now gets great fun out of learning, having discovered it through play in the Allegro Project. Through frequent repetition it has been possible to reinforce what she has learned, so that her knowledge is now available to her long-term. Through learning a foreign language her vocabulary in her native language has expanded.

Examples: In her mother tongue Janine could not name the four seasons nor the months of the year. She did not know her own date of birth. By learning a foreign language through play she now has command of all these terms in both her mother tongue and in Spanish.

The future
Since we shall be continuing this project in limited form, Janine will carry on taking part. Despite her motivation to learn she will never be able to learn a foreign language comprehensively. It is a pedagogic challenge to recognise Janine’s strengths and weaknesses, in order to preserve her motivation and to divert it into other areas of learning. It is important to ensure that she has learning experiences which are challenging, without overloading her.