Supporting foreign language learning for a blind student: a case study from Coventry University

Abstract

This article outlines the adjustments made to provide an accessible learning environment within the first-year undergraduate curriculum of the languages degree course at Coventry University. Marina Orsini-Jones, Kathy Courtney and Anne Dickinson describe how language staff collaborated with the Centre for Higher Education Development and the Teaching and Learning Support Unit both to raise awareness amongst all students about accessibility issues and to adapt materials for a blind student reading French, German and Spanish. The article includes a discussion of the challenges faced, and provides an action plan for future adjustments to the languages materials in line with the lesson learnt from the case study.

Measures for inclusion: coping with the challenge of visual impairment and blindness in university undergraduate level language learning

“…As previously mentioned (Orsini‐Jones et al ., 2005), despite the fact that staff in languages had attended many training sessions on how to make adjustments for a variety of disability issues and had read relevant literature (for example, Curriculum Close Up , 2007; NIMAS), the reality of teaching languages to visually impaired and blind students presented many challenges, particularly for part‐time members of staff who were teaching these students. It is undeniable that adjusting materials for language learning can be time consuming.…”

“…Two of these students have a serious visual impairment and one has been totally blind from birth. The evidence collected both via quantitative (students' results) and qualitative data (focus group interviews with students, semi‐structured interviews with staff and students and written feedback in the students' European Language Portfolio and in electronic discussion postings) on the one hand corroborated some of the results of the first research carried out about one of these students (Orsini‐Jones et al. , 2005).…”

“…It concludes by evaluating these students' language learning journey at Coventry University, reporting on their feedback on their experience and on whether or not they feel that staff have successfully catered for their individual needs. It is argued here, as in the previous related work (Orsini‐Jones, et al. , 2005) that ‘there still exists some tension between the reasonable anticipatory adjustments that lecturers can put in place and the necessary ad hoc ones that will be needed for a disabled student with very specific needs’.…”

“… This paper develops from previous research (Orsini‐Jones et al. , 2005) and reports on the experience of three students, two visually impaired and one blind, reading languages at Coventry University, on the adjustments made to meet their needs and on the challenges encountered on their learning journey both from their point of view and from the point of view of the staff involved.…”

What is meant by ‘support’ in higher education? Towards a model of academic and welfare support

“…These more recent legislative changes and the consequent increasing student diversity have forced HEIs to look more critically at student support. For instance, Orsini‐Jones, Courtney and Dickinson (2005) have questioned the culturally specific changes needed within an HEI in relation to supporting a blind student, and Taylor (2005) has explored the possibility of a Special Educational Needs Co‐ordinator (SENCO) role in higher education. It was as late as 1993 that the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) started to make funding available to improve provision for disabled students (similarly, SHEFC in Scotland) and in the early 1990s it was rare for disabled students to enter higher education: for those who did, the arrangements for support tended to be fairly ad hoc (Tinklin, Riddell & Wilson, 2004).…”