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Raafat M. A. Gabriel
Member, NileTESOL
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Salama M. Salama
Member, NileTESOL
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From NileTESOL
Motivated and successful ESL professionals seek and seize
every possible opportunity of professional development and do their best
to translate what they learn into actual and successful classroom
practices. It is incumbent upon all ESL professionals to attend relevant
seminars and conventions, to read and participate in ESL journals and
discussions, and to share their experiences with colleagues to
continually grow and maintain their career success. We were motivated to
write this article following a presentation we gave at the 2012 TESOL
Convention; the presentation appealed to everyone who attended it and it
was suggested that we present it again and write a report about it. The
presentation title is titled “A Unique ESL Experience: A Visually
Impaired Teacher (VIT) Teaching ESL to Visually Impaired Learners
(VILs).”
We discuss in detail the first of the three main parts of the
unique ESL experience as presented in the conference: what was done
before ESL teaching to visually impaired learners, what was done during,
and what happened after that experience. As for the second and third
parts of this presentation, links to video recordings of the
presentation are provided at the end of this article.
BEFORE SALAMA STARTED TEACHING
The whole story started when Salama joined a TEFL course at the
MA TEFL program at the American University in Cairo; the course is
entitled “511: Methods of Teaching a Foreign Language II.” This course
is a continuation of another course called “510: Methods of Teaching a
Foreign Language I,” which is a prerequisite to 511.
Salama had to choose a school where he could apply what he
learned in 510 and where he could accomplish the tasks required for the
511 course. Salama’s mentor, Gabriel, was excited as a result of
Salama’s choice to teach ESL at El-Nour Wa Al-Amal Secondary School for
Girls (translated as “Light & Hope High School for Girls”). Both
Salama and Gabriel felt they were about to explore a new territory in
the world of ESL and they met for long hours and discussed the
challenges they expected to meet and the approaches they would adopt to
meet such challenges.
FOUR CHALLENGES AND THREE APPROACHES
Salama and his mentor expected to meet four challenges when
Salama started teaching ESL to the high school VI girls. The first
challenge was that Salama did not want the learners to learn about
English but to learn English―to use the language and do something or a
number of things with it. He wanted the language he was planning to
teach to be part of the learners’ tacit knowledge: something that they
can enjoying receiving, succeed in retaining, and spontaneously or
automatically retrieve and use.
Salama studied a lot of theories related to second language
acquisition, but all the theories, readings, and applications made no
mention of visually impaired learners, so he had to plan a lot of
accommodation and adaptation to effectively apply what he learned and
meet these learners’ needs.
The third challenge is the learning culture rampant in
governmental schools including the school Salama would do his teaching
practice at. The majority of the learners and their teachers
unfortunately focus on learning what, rather than learning how. Salama
and his mentor wanted to empower the learners and provide them with
strategic learning and learner autonomy, and of course Salama expected
to face some resistance.
The fourth challenge is related to assessment; Salama
experienced the great gains of reflective learning and teaching in
addition to self-assessment and he wanted his learners to do the same.
Ironically Salama wanted his visually impaired learners to constantly
keep an eye on their learning and steer it in the right direction.
Salama and his mentor agreed on three approaches to deal with
these four challenges. These approaches are Salama reflecting on his own
experience as a learner of English, reading related literature, and
observing other teachers. As for the first approach, Salama’s mentor
asked him to remember how he learned English; however, Salama’s learning
context was different from that of the girls he would teach. Salama
remembered that his language teachers were kind, warm, encouraging, and
supportive and he planned to do his best to be so with the learners he
would teach.
The second approach was reading the related literature and
browsing relevant Web sites to get as many useful ideas as possible.
Salama read extensively and took notes using the recording facility on
his computer. Below are some of his conclusions:
- The first interesting discovery is “No sight, no problem.”
When people learn to communicate in a foreign language, they may ask,
“Do you speak English? Do you use English?” and they never ask “Do you
see English?”
- Visually impaired teachers have to be exploratory and
creative; they should read about and observe other teachers in action to
explore different methods and techniques of teaching. However, they
should be cautious not to replicate; rather, they need to adapt and
accommodate.
- It is true that visually impaired learners cannot see, but
they can talk, walk, listen, write, smell, taste, touch, and so on. When
teachers think of what these learners can do, they will indeed find
many ways to access them and get any information through.
- The teacher as well as the learners needs to be familiar
with the learning environment, its layout, and the facilities and
equipment available in addition to being notified and trained in case
any change takes place.
- Movement is essential for visually impaired learners and the
fear regarding getting learners to leave their safe seats is
groundless. For learning to exist and improve, these learners have to
meaningfully move.
- Cross-training is an indispensible requirement for teachers
of visually impaired learners; cross-training means receiving training
not only on teaching methods but also on using Braille and/or assistive
technology used by visually impaired learners to access information.
The third approach Salama decided on was to visit other
teachers in action and take notes on effective practices to emulate and
negative ones to avoid. Salama spent 10 hours of class observation
visiting three different teachers. The pluses or merits Salama observed
were mainly two: Teachers enjoyed a high sense of humor, which is
essential to make sure the learners are involved and following the
teacher, and they also had a good rapport with the learners.
The negative points numbered eight:
- LOTS, not HOTS
- Unused technology
- No use of real objects
- Depending heavily on listening/TTT
- Static lifeless classes
- Excessive use of L1
- No pair work/ no group work
- Inappropriate feedback styles
Point one refers to depending mainly on Bloom’s taxonomy LOTS,
or lower order thinking skills, such as knowledge and comprehension with
very little reference made to application. The teachers dealing with
visually impaired learners subconsciously assumed that their learners
need to do cognitively easy tasks and should not be challenged with HOTS
or higher order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, or
evaluation. As a visually impaired professional, Salama himself felt
that was indirectly and unintentionally offensive because visually
impaired learners should be given the opportunities to reach their full
potential in the realm of learning.
As for point two, Salama was shocked to know that one of the
classes he observed was equipped with computers, but unfortunately these
computers were not used at all. Salama was sorry for that because
technology for the visually impaired is the main channel to access the
external world and learning.
Point three refers to the teachers’ ignoring of using real
objects and therefore not using the sense of touch. Visually impaired
learners have a sharp sense of touch as they read Braille mainly using
their tactile skills, and underusing such skills in language teaching is
neither justified nor accepted.
Point four refers to teachers’ lecturing all the time; teachers
focused mainly on utilizing the learners’ listening and spent much of
their classroom instructional time talking.
The fifth minus Salama observed was that the learners seldom
left their seats or did any movement and this indeed affects kinesthetic
learners, some of whom are visually impaired.
Point six refers to the excessive use of Arabic, L1 in this
context. Salama believes that the learners’ first language could be used
only in rare instances while teaching English. The teachers Salama
observed used Arabic a lot and this resulted in the students learning
about English, not learning English. The teachers were also interested
in explaining grammar using Arabic, which resonates with the obsolescent
approach of grammar-translation language-teaching method.
Point seven refers to the absence of both pair and group work;
therefore, there was neither any collaborative language learning nor any
communication among the learners in the target language.
The last point refers to inappropriate feedback problems:
learners’ errors were corrected all the time and in an embarrassing
manner. Teacher never thought of being eclectic or selective regarding
the type, timing, and manner of error correction and this definitely
discouraged the learners and negatively influenced their
motivation.
For more details on Salama’s observation in addition to the
other parts of this interesting experience plus other useful additions,
please view these slides: Report
of Class Observations and PowerPoint
presentation.
VIDEO LINKS
Presentation at TESOL:Part 1, Part
2, Part 3, Part
4, Part
5
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SUGGESTED READING ONLINE
Raafat . A. Gabriel is currently working as a program
manager at the English Studies Division, School of Continuing
Education, American University in Cairo (AUC). Gabriel also works as a
TEFL teacher and teacher trainer at the same place. In addition to 20
years of TEFL experience, Gabriel has a BA in English pedagogy an MA in
TEFL from AUC and is currently earning an EdD at Aspen
University.
Salama M. Salama is currently working as the manager
of academic affairs and English studies at Zohor Elyasmin Language
School. After getting a BA in English linguistics and an MA in TEFL from
the American University in Cairo, Salama has been a TEFL teacher,
teacher trainer, trainer of trainers, curriculum designer, and
consultant for visually impaired learners. | 
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