VI

Applying ICT appropriately to MFL: Case Studies

Case Study: Terry — a Foreign Language Learner with Visual Impairment (VI)

Terry is a boy in your Year 7 MFL class. He has profound sight loss. He is highly intelligent. Your school's Special Needs Coordinator approaches you and asks whether you know of any teaching materials which would lend themselves to additional MFL support work.

The Special Needs department has arranged for a Learning Support Teacher, who is not a linguist, to come into your lesson to assist Terry. You meet before the first supported lesson to discuss what you intend to teach the class in general and how you are going to include Terry in particular in the learning process.

Problem 1: What provision is made under the National Curriculum for Terry's special needs in Modern Foreign Languages?

Problem-solving: Find out how this Additional information for modern foreign languages document contributes to the implementation of the National Curriculum statutory inclusion statement with particular reference to foreign language learners with VI. Then read Carol Gray's article Coping with the National Curriculum in Modern Foreign Languages: An equal opportunities issue? originally published in The British Journal of Visual Impairment.

Problem 2: Your Head of Department asks you to find out more about resources that will help Terry access the subject better.

Problem-solving: Read the Royal National Institute for the Blind Curriculum Close-Up Newsletter Issue 8, whose theme is MFL. Then read about Tim, a blind Chinese-American teenager studying to be a translator. To support other visually impaired young linguists, his adoptive mother Debbie Day has compiled a list of Foreign Language Resources for Parents & Teachers of Blind Kids.

Problem 3: You decide to seek further advice by contacting others with experience of VI and MFL issues.

Problem-solving: Find out how to subscribe to LANGLEARN-L, an online forum created by Kimberly Morrow of the University of Kansas to discuss issues of second language acquisition by individuals with blindness and visual impairment.

Further Reading

The case study of Gita Ganger, a partially sighted University of Southampton student of Spanish and Latin American Studies.
The case study of Clare Mar-Molinero, a partially sighted teacher in the University of Southampton School of Modern Languages.
Blind foreign student lives in the light of learning by Bev Betkowski: the story of Ikechukwu Okoro, a blind Nigerian studying French at the University of Alberta in Canada.
This Modern Foreign Languages and Special Educational Needs portal has a Visual Impairment section with many links.
This Bibliography of Modern Foreign Languages and Special Educational Needs lists many online and print references in its Visual Impairment section.

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