Enseñanza De Inglés a Niños Disminuidos Visuales

. Let´s have a look now at our needs .
What does a teacher need?
As teachers there are some questions that we generally ask ourselves .When and where, what , and how to teach our students are the most frequent ones before starting a school year and when you are told that a visually impaired student is going to be in your class some extra considerations need to be made.

when and whereproved to be the easiest, at least for me, since as part of the school curricula we had to deliver lessons in the classroom most of the time and together with the rest of the student that were in Fede´s course. (Let me remind you that Federico is the name of the student we had in 1st and 2nd year . Having Fede in the class room proved to be satisfactory not only for him but for us all, studentsand teachers.

As regards what to teach to a visually impaired student, this is tied up to the student ´s capabilities so a good idea might be to check first what he can do , which his difficulties are, what his tactile abilities are, since not all visually impaired students can read three dimensional information or read and write in braille . We should also bear in mind that blindnessis what it is , a physical inability to see and that special work is all we need to maximize your student intellectual potential.
After an informal meeting with Federico and with his resourse teacher our decision was to teach him whatever I had planned in my course design for the rest of the students and then the last question arose and it was probably the most difficult one.How to teach a visually impaired student?
Well, as Alejandra has already told you we should look for an approach where all the other senses are involved. Blind children learn mainly through the auditory and tactile-kinesthetic channels . Braille is fundamental since it is the only way that a visually impaired student has to be able to read and write. Therefore we should become acquainted with thesystem, although it is not necessary to read dots with the fingertips, as blind people do, since you can just decode the dots.

But you may be wondering what I did in the classroom. How I managed in practice to deal with teaching vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension while fostering integration and motivation .
Let´s see, for teaching vocabulary which is usually taught through picturesto sighted students you can :
-use cards with the lexical item written in braille so that the student can put them in order or following a logical sequence.
- use realia, asking your visually impaired student to match the object with the card containing the name of it. This can be done with classroom objects or toys for example.
- make associations ,when teaching the members of the family,which is quite frequent in the first years, and which is so easily taught through pictures or family trees, you can ask the name of your visually impaired student´s relatives and associate them with the member s of the family
- record a cd with different sounds and associate them to the lexical item you want to teach. This can be useful when dealing with means of transports, animals…-Translation, you can rely on translation when you can not find another way
What about teaching grammar. This is a bit more difficult but you can always find the way. You can give your visually impaired student a copy in braille of what you are going to write on the blackboard , your teaching point for example so that he can follow you as you provide explanation for the rest of the student or if youhave not been able to prepare it you can always relay on dictation.
It´s important to remember that while explaining something on the board it´s of great help for visually impaired students to say out every word you write on the board, to repeat things and to use notions that can be relevant for both visually impaired and sighted students.

When dealing with reading comprehension we...