Job Discussion Forums

[Hod]

Unusual for me, a serious topic.

Anyone done it? Care to share experiences?

[naturegirl321]

never done it. BUt I would think that they would be better at pronunciation than your average English learner. Their memories might be better as well. Texts in braille might be hard to find though.

[denise]

I had a blind student in my class at the beginning of the year. I went straight to my program coordinator and said, "Help!!" Nobody really knew what to do--we didn't have any special resources for her, the university itself had very limited support services (I think that has changed just within the last month), and it was hard even getting other students to help her out, because of the male/female situation. She brought in a tape recorder and I would record the texts, vocabulary, etc., for her, but the sound quality was poor and I felt like I was spending too much time away from the other 19 students in the class. In the end, she was transferred into a different class that also had a blind girl so that at least they could be together. I'm not sure how she has done.

Anyway, I guess my first suggestion would be to go to your supervisor and ask for help. (Based on my fundamental belief that supervisors are meant to provide help...)

Good luck,
d

[MikeySaid]

I have a few years experience with university students with disabilities and my experience is this...

vision impaired foreign language students will generally need to focus (and want to focus) on oral production and listening comprehension. given that a student has no other challenges present, a teacher might assume that outside of a special education setting braille printers and telebraillers will probably be unavailable.

well provisioned students MAY have access to a screen reader like kurzweil 3000 but this really doesn't take the place of reading, but does provide the opportunity for written response (generally typed on a computer)

good luck to you.