This article struck me because it’s topic is something that I had no personal experience with. The challenges that L2 learners face are daunting, but to combine that with a visual impairment presents a number of obstacles for traditional teaching methods for ESL. I was intrigued to see what best practices were shared and if there were any technology solutions that seemed to work in these situations.
This article was written by educators in India and I was fascinated with the section of the paper that detailed the struggles of teaching visually impaired students that the authors feel are prominent in India compared to other countries around the world. Particularly, I was shocked by the shared statistic that 75% of disabled children in India don’t attend school. It was eye-opening for me to see how differently the entire system of education is handled in another country.
The authors shared a couple of common assistive technology examples (text to speech, voice recorders, etc.), but it was their writing on human assistance that I found the most interesting. They wrote about how visuals will need to be described for students that are unable to see them and the idea of having to explain what a color is like to a student who was born blind almost seems like a discussion from a philosophy class! The idea shared about describing colors as “feelings” like blue being “cool” and red being “hot” is something I had never thought about before, but I suppose that’s the best way that you could describe such an abstract idea as color to someone that cannot see colors. The idea of verbalism is also something I had never considered before, but it makes sense that students with visual impairments would have difficulty understanding language that uses visual words to explain things, possibly doubly so for L2 students with a visual impairment.
The research that backed drama activities or role playing as effective language teaching tools seemed like a novel idea to me, but then it got me thinking about the language classes I’ve taken. For me, a typical quiz in my high school Spanish class had a portion where we would individually sit with our teacher and answer her questions in Spanish. She would give us a sheet explaining who we were and we’d have to respond with some of that information in mind. I realize now that we were taking part in a basic role playing exercise and that was probably the most effective way to make us feel like we were truly communicating in a real life situation. It really clicked for me how beneficial that could be for all L2 students, and particularly for visually impaired students who will feel most comfortable with audible communication.
Overall, this article has given me an appreciation for how much effort that our school system puts into assisting students with disabilities. I’ve also come away with a new perspective on things to avoid when teaching students with visual impairments, particularly where language learning is concerned.
Citation:
Zaki, S. A., & Khan, U. (2021). Teaching Visually Impaired Indian ESL Learners In Inclusive Classrooms: A Review of Pedagogical Approaches. International Journal of Language and Literary Studies, 3(3), 244–255.
Wow, great read. Verbalism was new to me too. I have actually never had a student who was visually impaired. I can't imagine them having to deal with that and be in a place that is somewhat foraging to you. As a teacher, it could be really overwhelming but only because we want so desperately to make a difference. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteSome really interesting points. One thing that I've never thought about was the way language uses words can be describing colors or other visuals, such as red being hot. That is a serious issue for visually impaired and as you mentioned, anyone that may also be a language learner. I think that using drama is an interesting concept but it does make sense that students learn when they are actually "doing" something, such as acting out via a skit.
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