Have you ever thought that local dialect may be cause difficulties in the learning process?

I would agree that idioms and colloquial language can impact on students with learning difficulties, especially those students with issues pertaining to recpetive language and/or abstract thought. What are some of the impairments the children contend with?

I agree with that, in my country, the people at least know two languages, local and national/Indonesian language, almost every year, the national exam's result shows that the students are more motivated to learn English than local and national languages

Thank you for your answers...

Last month a research program started in Milos Island (greek island-population 6000). This project is about the experiences of parents with children with special educational needs from support services (services - mainly- for identification and diagnosis of learning difficulties). During the research identified that many students use the local dialect/idioms of Milos 'language' and it seems this situation frustrates pupils especially those with SEN. As most of their teachers are from big cities (so they have not Milos' accent or they do not use language idioms), they use the 'normal' greek language. However, students use Milos' idioms not only orally but written as well...Many of those students felt frustrated of what is finally right and what is wrong....

Students use these idioms written...we face major problem with grammar!

This is a clear issue of differences between a local dialect and the standard dialect taught in a school setting. Children acquire language spontaneously from their environment. The ones growing up in areas where a local dialect is spoken will acquire the local dialect, which may have different characteristics from the standard dialect at different levels - sounds, vocabulary, grammar, meaning of words, expressions. It's important to keep in mind that both local and standard are dialects of the same language. Local dialects are not 'wrong' but 'different' from the standard dialect. It is not helpful to view dialects as a problem, they are part of our cultural heritage and we should try to protect them. In fact many dialects are disappearing. Having said that, I share with everyone the concern that teachers don't know how to deal with children who speak a local dialect, especially when the teacher doesn't. There are several things that can be done. First, teachers who live and work in a school where a local dialect is spoken may want to consider learning the local dialect, at least at the level of being able to understand and communicate with the children and their parents. This is what we would do if we moved to a different country where a different language is spoken. We wouldn't expect everyone else to speak our language. The children and their parents usually have no difficulties to understand standard Greek, which is also the only language used in the media. Second, children should be made aware of the difference between standard and local dialect, both are dialects of the same language and the standard dialect is not better than the local one. Of course school books are written in the standard dialect because the education system in Greece is centrally organised and regulated and this creates the tension. Children are being asked to use the standard language at school. At the beginning of the primary school this will be difficult, but they will get there. The evidence is that thousands of people who used to live in the countryside and moved to big urban centres in the last 50+years now speak the standard dialect to the extend that local dialects are under extinction. A good example of being able to learn the standard dialect along with local dialects is a gentleman in his 80s I met recently. He lived as a child in Kefalonia, Lesvos and Thessaloniki. As a result, he can now speak all three local dialects and the standard one effortlessly.

There is a definite problem with local dialects in Spain which apparently has no parallel in Greece. Dialects which have generated a rich literature (like Galician in Western Spain and Catalan in Northeastern Spain) were suppressed under the centralism of the Franco dictatorship as of 1939. Texts in the Castilian dialect substituted for those in Galician, Catalan, and other dialects, which were forbidden. With the passing of Franco in 1975 and the institution of constitutional monarchy, Spain restored dialects everywhere. Any professor who wishes to teach in Barcelona (Catalonia), I understand, today needs to know how to communicate in Catalan. Therefore dialects in Spain have political and ideological implication that they may not have elsewhere. I know of no case where this situation impedes learning because the dialect-speakers are politically motivated.