Inclusive Learning and Educational Equity 5

7.5 Overcoming Learning Barriers While Becoming 
a Knowledgeable and Resourceful Student
During the research, the learning barriers encountered by Maikas and Timotiejus 
became particularly apparent. It was noticed that these two students encountered 
problems related to information perception and processing.
Maikas lives in a family where only Russian is spoken. However, his family 
decided that the boy had to attend a kindergarten with Lithuanian as the language of 
instruction and later a Lithuanian school. The boy learnt the Lithuanian colloquial 
language very quickly and is able to use it very well but learning of Lithuanian and 
the English language in particular, causes difficulties to him. Teachers see bilingual-
ism as one of the essential reasons for the learning problems faced by this student.
Timotiejus, just like Maikas, encounters problems related to the use of language. 
However, the reason for his problem is hearing impairment, which is compensated 
for by a cochlear implant. Although the report on the standardised assessment of 
special educational needs emphasises that Timotiejus is characterised by good con-
centration, visual discrimination and persistence in attaining results, his learning is 
impeded by a low level of vocabulary understanding, verbal awareness and difficul-
ties seeking to express abstract ideas in words. His language is grammatically 
incorrect.
Expressing Identification of a Favourable Learning Method and Its Application 
While Overcoming Educational Barriers
While planning education, the teachers 
who apply the UDL approach foresee possible barriers and plan ways of coping 
with them in a targeted way. Classical scaffolds for removing barriers to listening 
and language perception are related to presenting information through visual, tac-
tile, and other sensory modality channels. Means, ways and assignments of various 
types that target thinking and creative application of knowledge in various contexts 
are of particular importance to language comprehension and memorisation.
Selective perception
, which emerged during this research, refers to the student’s 
ability to adapt to the current situation. Modelling the attitude towards one’s own 
learning enables the student to access the information that is available to him/her at 
this particular moment.
At the beginning of the observed English lesson, the students revised the spelling 
of verbs and wrote down some examples. Later, the whole lesson aimed at the anal-
ysis of formal and informal letter writing. While analysing this topic, the written 
texts were used and teacher-pupils discussion was held. Although the written texts 
were assigned through methods that complied with the needs of Timotiejus, the 
language used during the lesson created a serious obstacle for him due to its com-
plexity. The material used for revision of grammatical forms and a way of learning 
that is convenient to him (combination of commenting and writing down) allowed 
him to understand and memorise information. Despite the fact that the spelling of 
verbs was revised shortly at the beginning of the lesson, Timotiejus emphasised this 
aspect as an outcome of his activity after the lesson was completed.
7 Development of Knowledgeable and Resourceful Learners

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Timotiejus: I remember writing verbs -ing and to. (Observation, 3).
This evidences the relevance of scaffold versatility and concern for student’s 
needs, which can be achieved with the help of student’s reflection on own learning. 
It is obvious that a classic scaffold (visualisation, in this case) is not always a suffi-
cient method for understanding basic information. Although the student, who per-
ceives his or her own learning activity and possesses a positive attitude towards 
learning, is able to use at least part of the information accessible to him or her, 
selective perception of information creates considerable gaps in the process of the 
student’s learning.
In the meantime, by employing his/her ingenuity and creative powers, the teacher 
can constantly saturate the daily leadership of the educational process with scaf-
folds that enhance understanding and memorising. For example, vivid linguistic 
expressions may be related to content meanings in a targeted way:
Teacher Alma: If the action – zap! - happened one time. What tense do we use?
Grit
ė: Past Simple.
Teacher A: If we want to say that something happened at indefinite time in the past (she says 
slowly and prolongs the words), we will use Past Continuous. (Observation, 24).
Emotional and meaningful expression during dialogue with students helps to attract 
their attention and, observing the teacher’s emotion, allows them to link the rhythm 
of language and time flow and to differentiate the meanings of discussed grammati-
cal forms of verbs.