TEACHING VISUALLY IMPAIRED AND BLIND BACHELORS OF LINGUISTIC FACULTIES: FEATURES, PROBLEMS, AND SOLUTIONS

ОБУЧЕНИЕ СЛАБОВИДЯЩИХ И НЕЗРЯЧИХ БАКАЛАВРОВ ЯЗЫКОВЫХ ФАКУЛЬТЕТОВ: ОСОБЕННОСТИ, ПРОБЛЕМЫ И РЕШЕНИЯ

Шамова Екатерина Дмитриевна

магистрант, институт международного образования, Московский педагогический государственный университет,

РФ, г. Москва

ABSTRACT

The article presents an overview of the process of teaching English in groups with visually impaired bachelor students of linguistic faculties. The problems of achieving educational results by such students are analyzed and their possible solutions are described.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье представлен обзор процесса преподавания английского языка в группах со слабовидящими студентами языковых факультетов бакалавриата. Анализируются проблемы достижения образовательных результатов такими студентами и описываются их возможные решения.

Keywords: inclusive practices; specific educational needs; English language teacher education; professional education.

Ключевые слова: инклюзивные практики; особые образовательные потребности; образование учителей английского языка; профессиональное образование.

Inclusive education provides every student with the opportunity to participate in the educational process and the process of interacting with the people around them in a particular environment, despite their physical or intellectual disabilities. In later life and study, this will help the student to become an equal member of society without the risk of being excluded by certain characteristics. The term "inclusive education" helps to take a fresh look at the education system and the place of a person in society as a whole [1, p. 303]. The inclusion of people with various disabilities in the educational process helps to eliminate the problem of education and training of people by adapting the educational environment to the capabilities of individual students.

Inclusive education provides all participants of the educational process with opportunities for the implementation of educational activities. This includes a systematic approach to the organization of education for students with disabilities, as well as for their parents and the administration. Inclusive education organizes educational activities in all areas of general and additional education [5, p. 3-6].

The methods of research in this area are used to monitor the progress of the educational process and the development of the student, as well as conversations and evaluation of students' work. The key issue of typhlo-pedagogics is the need to use adapted material in the classroom, the usage of special modern technical equipment in classes [2, p. 219]; and the change in the time of studying the course material in accordance with the degree of visual impairment of the student.

The process of teaching blind and visually impaired people is quite a complex process with its own distinctive features. Perception processes are fundamental in this field and an important factor is the processing of information and its selection for the correct representation of the studied objects of reality.

It was found that for people with visual impairments, auditory perception plays a key role, so it should be in the process of continuous development. It is scientifically proven that auditory perception as a means of obtaining information is the second most important mental process after vision [4, p. 312]. Using this perceptual channel, people with visual impairments and blindness can identify and analyze the objects of their surrounding reality.

Blind and visually impaired people make extensive use of hearing in the process of playing, studying and working, so it is very important to take these factors into account in educational activities and exclude extraneous noises and sounds, as they can interfere with visually impaired people to recognize signals and complicate spatial orientation. Hearing is important in compensation processes.

Students who are blind or visually impaired facing different problems achieving educational results. And the biggest one is that they are not autonomous in their learning and their teachers do not have tools to help them and conduct the lesson the way every student of the inclusive class is involved in the process. These students have to seek help in finding educational information from normally seeing friends or relatives. This problem is caused, first of all, by the lack of educational literature published in special formats (on audio media or in relief-dot Braille) in the libraries of educational institutions of higher education. Students with deep visual impairments need more time to work with information "by ear" than their normally seeing classmates [7, p. 339]. In addition, there is another problem which occurs when blind students work with educational materials from the Internet - It's simply impossible for them to find necessary information.

Since the performance of research works is part of the educational program in many educational institutions, students with visual deprivation need to look for ways to perform them efficiently. In the process, they face a lot of difficulties. Because of their physiological characteristics, it is much more difficult for them to independently search for new information, check their work, many resources are not adapted to their characteristics, and this often affects the quality of the work itself. Another problem noted by all blind students is that teachers present part of the educational information in the form of multimedia presentations during classroom sessions. Of course, the educational information presented visually is not available for students with visual disorders.

Possible solutions:

1. It is scientifically proven that auditory perception as a means of obtaining information is the second most important mental process after vision. The communicative method of teaching spoken language is an active type of teaching foreign languages, which has a positive effect on the learning process in groups with blind students, since the main channel of perception and obtaining new information for them is hearing
2. Blind and visually impaired people make extensive use of hearing in the process of playing, studying and working, so it is very important to take these factors into account in educational activities and exclude extraneous noises and sounds, as they can interfere with visually impaired people to recognize signals and complicate spatial orientation. Hearing is important in compensation processes.
3. The implementation of the principle of systematicity in inclusive classes will help to accumulate and expand knowledge and cognitive capabilities not only for students with visual pathologies, but also for students with normal vision.
4. Since the teacher needs to approach all students, including those with visual impairments, he needs to carefully analyze the cognitive styles of his students. Knowledge of psychology helps to implement the principle of individual approach, this should be remembered by the teacher who works with blind students, as they require the most attention and sensitivity in the process of organizing training.
5. Blind and and visually impired people have difficulties with spatial thinking and creating visual images that the teacher needs to combine various methods of consolidating the educational material with the students [6, p. 757].
6. Software that incorporates text to speech enables students to access content and information by having text read aloud and might be used as a compensatory technical mean of conducting classes in groups with blind students who are learning English [8]. Modern information technologies allow teachers to adapt the material intended for reading by translating it into audio material.

Conclusion

Thus, in order to give blind and visually impaired students in inclusive classes of higher education institutions all the opportunities to fully meet their educational needs, teachers need to adapt the educational material so that during the educational process for such students, all educational principles are observed, technical equipment is used. An important role is played by the communicative method of teaching English, which includes a sufficient percentage of listening tasks, since hearing is the most important perceptual channel for people with visual impairments. As a result of taking into account all the above features, the program built using these principles will help to improve the effectiveness of achieving the educational goals of all students in inclusive classes.

References:

1. M. Cay Holbrook, Tessa McCarthy, “Foundations of Education, Third Edition, Volume I: History and Theory of Teaching Children and Youths with Visual Impairments”, AFB Press, 2017 — 550 p.
2. Dudeney, G. How to teach English with technology, 2014 — 219 p.
3. Mackey A., Gass S. G. Second Language Research Methodology and Design. N. Y.: Routledge, 2010 — 405 p.
4. Passov, E. I. Communicative method of teaching foreign language: Textbook for pedagogical institutes, 2001 — 352 p.
5. Alekseeva N.A., Fisunov P.A. The analysis of the current state of pedagogical research in the field of teaching foreign language to the blind and visually impaired people. Cheboksary, 2017 — p. 3-6.
6. Corn, A. L, Silberman, R.K. et al., 2004. “Personnel preparation programs in visual impairments: a status report.” Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness 93 no. 12 — 755–769.
7. Sapp, Wendy, and Hatlen, Phil. 2010. “The expanded core curriculum: Where we have been, where we are going, and how we can get there.” Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 104 — 338-348.
8. Kassem C. L. McCraw P.A., Student Perceptions of Web-Enhanced Instruction [Electronic resource] http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/win2003/web-enhanced (15.05.2021)