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Integrating Women and Girls with Disabilities into Mainstream Vocational Training
4. Teaching people with disabilities

As a vocational training instructor, you share the common goal of everyone in education to identify and remove barriers that restrict learning and that prevent the student from reaching maximum potential. When teaching students with disabilities, you should keep these in points mind:

• Disabled students want to be treated as much as possible like other students. They do not wish to be singled out for special attention.

• Like other students, they wish to be seen as individuals, each with individual special learning needs. Just as with students who aren’t disabled, not all physically disabled people, nor all those with visual or hearing impairments, have the same learning needs.
   
• Observe your students. Are they experiencing difficulty during or following the class or the activity?
   
• Ask if there are specific actions you can take to help them follow the lessons in class. Disabled students, and especially disabled female students, often lack the confidence to ask for help for fear of appearing slow or stupid. You should therefore take the first step, but try to do it discreetly without embarrassing the students. Their requests should be kept confidential.
   
• Monitor the students’ progress through their written work.

There are various measures you can take to ensure that you are communicating and using your teaching materials effectively with the disabled students in your class.

Physically disabled students

The needs of physically disabled students are related to the limitations they have in the use of their legs, arms, or hands.

Lectures

Note-taking during lectures is a problem for those who have lost or have limited dexterity in their hands.

Suggestions:

• Record the lectures on audio cassette. (The student may need to sit near an electric outlet.)
   
• Photocopy the lecture notes or notes of a fellow student.

Practicals (demonstrations, fieldwork, laboratory or workshop activities)

In general, if the training (and the subsequent range of job choices) requires a lot of fieldwork and therefore the ability to move without difficulty, the VTC and the student should consider changing to a more suitable training programme. Laboratory work would be difficult for those with disabilities related to the use of their hands but should not pose difficulties for students with walking disabilities.

Other considerations

For easy movement into and out of the room, allow them to sit in front and nearest to the exits.

Visually impaired students

These students’ needs are related to their limited ability to see and read ordinary print as well as mobility.

Lectures

Visually impaired students cannot see what is written on the board, on flipcharts, or on overhead transparencies. They cannot see – or can see only with difficulty – pictures, movies, or videos.

Suggestions:

• Read aloud as you write or read what has been written on the board, flipchart, or transparencies.
   
• Provide students with a photocopy of the transparencies.
   
• Describe briefly the pictures used during the lecture.
   
• Let students with weaker vision sit up close while watching a film or video, or let them see it separately, preferably ahead of the others.
   
• If using colours, the red colour range is easiest to differentiate; greens and blues are more difficult.
   
  • Let these students take notes with a portable computer or Brailler. (People who are visually impaired find it easier to use DOS as the graphics in Windows are difficult to differentiate.)
     
  • Let these students record lectures on audio cassettes.
     
  • Encourage other students to take turns reading their notes to those with disabilities.

Practicals

Again, general training programmes requiring fieldwork, laboratory and workshop activities requiring good eyesight would not be suitable. When demonstrating or showing an object in class, keep these suggestions in mind:

• Say what you are doing.
   
• Let the visually impaired student feel the objects you are using in the demonstration.

Other considerations

Reduce glare from windows. Glare further blurs contrasts for visually impaired people.

Hearing-impaired students

Hearing-impaired students rely on their sense of sight and touch. As with other disabilities, there are varying degrees of deafness. It is normally recommended that third-degree deaf people should have special education and training. The first language of many of these students is sign language; the spoken and written language that you use in the class is a very different language to them.

While many students with hearing impairment can lip-read, always ask them if they can. Also remember that lip-reading is never wholly reliable and that it requires intense concentration and is therefore very tiring.

Lectures

If there is no sign-language interpreter, and if the hearing-impaired student can lip-read, here are some tips for including her in your teaching:

• Allow the hearing-impaired student to sit in front.
   
• Face her as much as possible when you speak, and speak clearly and never too quickly.
   
• Provide photocopies of lecture notes or of fellow students’ notes.
   
• Write the most essential information on the board.
   
• You can also carry on a discussion by writing down what you both wish to say.

Practicals

Hearing-impaired students should have no difficulty with laboratory and workshop activities which do not require listening. But some special considerations are required.

• Instructions for carrying out the activities must be clearly written down.
   
• Allow these students to sit up close to observe any demonstrations.

Other considerations

• When speaking with the assistance of a sign-language interpreter, speak directly to the hearing-impaired person and not through the interpreter.
   
• Reduce glare or allow the student to sit where the glare least affects her.
   
• Reduce background noise, such as from fans or fluorescent lighting, which can seriously affect the hearing of a hearingimpaired person.

The adaptations you make to your teaching to include your disabled students also make your teaching more effective for the rest of the class. Remember that many disabled students have to spend more time keeping up with their lessons because not all materials are available in a suitable medium.

Special considerations are required for students with disabilities when they take examinations, whether written, oral, or practical.

For written examinations

No special arrangements are necessary for hearing-impaired students and physically disabled students who have no difficulty writing or typing. Those who write or type slowly because of arm- or hand-related disabilities will require more time during written examinations. The amount of extra time should be judged case by case.

Visually impaired students need to have the question papers in Braille. If these are not available, then time should be allocated before each paper for the questions to be read and for the students to take them down in Braille. The students should be allowed the use of a computer during the examination.

For oral examinations

Hearing-impaired students and students with speech difficulties should be allowed to write down the answers in oral examinations. If the purpose of the examination is to evaluate speaking skills, hearing-impaired students should be exempted.

For practical examinations

The allowances made for students with different disabilities in the written and oral examinations should be made in practical examinations too.

The key principle is flexibility, so that examinations can accommodate the particular needs of each disabled student.

4. Teaching people with disabilities
Integrating Women and Girls with Disabilities into Mainstream Vocational Training

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