Challenges and Options Concerning the Inclusion of Special Needs Students at Our School (Grade 5)
Especially in our younger students we observe a lot of initial struggles in adapting to the new learning environment and a considerable number of pupils is in need of additional support. Since we aim to include all of these pupils, we consider it necessary to adapt our classes to a number of different needs.
In our class 5 (age 10-11 years) two of the pupils have got hearing disabilities. One of them suffers from a moderate hearing restriction. However, he is not completely confident when it comes to dealing with this challenge and does not have hearing aids. The other pupil suffers from a very severe hearing disability. She wears hearing aids and in addition to that the teacher needs to wear a small microphone, so that the teacher’s voice is transmitted directly into her ear. The school psychologist, who sat in on our classes in order to evaluate the pupils’ behaviour in class, recommended that the teachers remain in front of the class so that their face and mouth is visible at all times. However, this can be challenging because it restricts the teacher’s flexibility and his or her options to deal with the other pupils. Therefore, we consider it important to present all our tasks in a written way and to use as many visual aids as possible. Moreover, we aim at using exclusively written and illustrated tasks when we examine and grade the pupils.
Unfortunately, this is not always possible when it comes to the foreign languages. Listening exercises are mandatory tasks when it comes to teaching English. In the case of such exercises the respective teacher ensures that the pupils are seated very close to the CD-player and that they can listen to the text at least twice. Furthermore, we observed that both of the pupils struggle a lot more with pronunciation than their class mates. Due to these problems we decided to introduce the IPA transcriptions at a very early stage. We used a playful and rather intuitive approach in order to introduce the first IPA symbols. We focussed especially on vowels and tried to demonstrate the pupils that they can guess a lot of transcribed words without any assistance (All of these words contained a number of consonants whose IPA symbol is very similar to the actual letter. The only striking difference was the appearance of the vowel.) Going from there we introduced a greater amount of basic vocabulary in the IPA.
The problem was, however, that these exercises pose a particular challenge for the pupils they are meant for, that is to say those with hearing disabilities: The intuitive approach might be less accessible to them because especially the pupil with severe hearing problems has got difficulties in differentiating between similar vowels in her everyday life. Because of this, we offered “idea cards” which can be picked up by those pupils who need additional help. These cards (“idea cards” for pupils who need additional support and “challenge cards” for those early finishers who need additional challenges) are a device for internal differentiation that we frequently use and that the pupils are already familiar with. The following example consists of an “idea card” that offers for example both German and English words in conventional letters that contain the unvoiced ə in order to make the sound more accessible. The respective “challenge card” offers additional words written in the IPA that the pupils have to rewrite in normal letters.
Especially in our younger students we observe a lot of initial struggles in adapting to the new learning environment and a considerable number of pupils is in need of additional support. Since we aim to include all of these pupils, we consider it necessary to adapt our classes to a number of different needs.
In our class 5 (age 10-11 years) two of the pupils have got hearing disabilities. One of them suffers from a moderate hearing restriction. However, he is not completely confident when it comes to dealing with this challenge and does not have hearing aids. The other pupil suffers from a very severe hearing disability. She wears hearing aids and in addition to that the teacher needs to wear a small microphone, so that the teacher’s voice is transmitted directly into her ear. The school psychologist, who sat in on our classes in order to evaluate the pupils’ behaviour in class, recommended that the teachers remain in front of the class so that their face and mouth is visible at all times. However, this can be challenging because it restricts the teacher’s flexibility and his or her options to deal with the other pupils. Therefore, we consider it important to present all our tasks in a written way and to use as many visual aids as possible. Moreover, we aim at using exclusively written and illustrated tasks when we examine and grade the pupils.
Unfortunately, this is not always possible when it comes to the foreign languages. Listening exercises are mandatory tasks when it comes to teaching English. In the case of such exercises the respective teacher ensures that the pupils are seated very close to the CD-player and that they can listen to the text at least twice. Furthermore, we observed that both of the pupils struggle a lot more with pronunciation than their class mates. Due to these problems we decided to introduce the IPA transcriptions at a very early stage. We used a playful and rather intuitive approach in order to introduce the first IPA symbols. We focussed especially on vowels and tried to demonstrate the pupils that they can guess a lot of transcribed words without any assistance (All of these words contained a number of consonants whose IPA symbol is very similar to the actual letter. The only striking difference was the appearance of the vowel.) Going from there we introduced a greater amount of basic vocabulary in the IPA.
The problem was, however, that these exercises pose a particular challenge for the pupils they are meant for, that is to say those with hearing disabilities: The intuitive approach might be less accessible to them because especially the pupil with severe hearing problems has got difficulties in differentiating between similar vowels in her everyday life. Because of this, we offered “idea cards” which can be picked up by those pupils who need additional help. These cards (“idea cards” for pupils who need additional support and “challenge cards” for those early finishers who need additional challenges) are a device for internal differentiation that we frequently use and that the pupils are already familiar with. The following example consists of an “idea card” that offers for example both German and English words in conventional letters that contain the unvoiced ə in order to make the sound more accessible. The respective “challenge card” offers additional words written in the IPA that the pupils have to rewrite in normal letters.
In conclusion, we can say that in case of pupils with hearing disabilities we consider it to be particularly helpful to introduce IPA transcriptions in the foreign languages at an early age. We use a playful approach in order to accustom them to considering the IPA transcriptions as a welcome support in learning the pronunciation.
In addition to the students with hearing disabilities there is one pupil with dyslexia in this class. Unfortunately, it has turned out to be rather difficult to solve her orthography problems during the regular lessons. Because of this, we have proposed additional support which could be arranged by the school psychologist. During the lessons it is important to split up writing tasks in small portions so that the pupil can manage them without getting discouraged or frustrated. One option is to replace task sheets that require complete sentences as answers with task sheets that rely on gap exercises. This enables pupils with dyslexia, who are struggling to produce written texts in the given amount of time, to participate in the lesson and to produce a solution in a short time frame. However, the long term goal is for her to write in a consistent way. Moreover, we were advised to print her work sheets and her exams in very big letters (at least 14 pt.) and use (particularly in exams) very few pictures in order not to offer too many visual distractions.
Example for a modified task sheet (topic prepositions):
In addition to the students with hearing disabilities there is one pupil with dyslexia in this class. Unfortunately, it has turned out to be rather difficult to solve her orthography problems during the regular lessons. Because of this, we have proposed additional support which could be arranged by the school psychologist. During the lessons it is important to split up writing tasks in small portions so that the pupil can manage them without getting discouraged or frustrated. One option is to replace task sheets that require complete sentences as answers with task sheets that rely on gap exercises. This enables pupils with dyslexia, who are struggling to produce written texts in the given amount of time, to participate in the lesson and to produce a solution in a short time frame. However, the long term goal is for her to write in a consistent way. Moreover, we were advised to print her work sheets and her exams in very big letters (at least 14 pt.) and use (particularly in exams) very few pictures in order not to offer too many visual distractions.
Example for a modified task sheet (topic prepositions):