by a teacher and the teacher may or may not be able to understand what it was that she said that made the student react that way. The teacher may feel that the student came “unglued” for no apparent reason. In the case of individualized traumatic events such as abuse at home, these kinds of outbursts can lead to exclusion of the student from education. In larger contexts of group trauma however, students and teachers may have to learn what topics or words to avoid if at all possible to prevent such disruptions. Also, the outburst itself may be seen as traumatic to the other students, or to the student himself, and the embarrassment that he feels may add one more event to his list of intrusive thoughts that come to him at the worst moments.
Methods of dealing with PTSD in the L2 classroom
Little work has been done to develop methods for teaching in educational environments where PTSD is prevalent. In the United States some research has been done on the behavior of PTSD students in the class room (Pope and Campbell, 1992). Research has also been done with American students who have suffered through a group trauma such as a violent hurricane or a school hostage crisis (Pope and Campbell, 1992). In these studies it was shown that students responded and recovered better when they were given opportunities to discuss their feelings and impressions of the event. Because they had gone through the trauma together with their community, exclusion of effected students was not a viable option. Instead counselors were provided through the school along with group programs to help them return to normalcy. These studies also showed that those students who lost their homes exhibited more and stronger symptoms than those whose homes were only damaged or who were merely scared by the storm and nothing more ( Chemtob, et.al.,2002).
