

At first I was hesitant about writing this article because sometimes, when I was
growing up, the people who frustrated me most were those who thought that they
knew everything there was to know about working with visually impaired students.
Still, for teachers who have had no contact with visual impairment, some of
these tips or pieces of information may be useful. This article focuses on
students with little or no sight as I have most experience in this area.
This isn’t intended to be a comprehensive resource on teaching blind students.
Drawing on my personal experience, my favourite teachers at school were not
people who thought they knew what would work best because someone with a similar
eye condition had once done them in that way, but those who said “I’ve never
done this before” and who listened to me so that we could work out solutions
together.
1. Preparation
If you need to email information to your student so that they can have it on
their laptop or get it in another format, it means you will need to be ready in
advance and you can’t dash off a few photocopies 5 minutes before the lesson is
due to start. However, good preparation will benefit the whole class, not just
the blind student, and you won’t be able to give the lesson your best if you
throw it together at the last minute.
However, you may have to cover someone else’s lesson at short notice. If there
is something that you haven’t been able to provide accessibly, avoid asking
other students to read to your blind student. If necessary, read to them
yourself. Particularly if they have to read in another language, students may
feel uncomfortable or resent having to read aloud when others don’t have to and
it can create a situation of unwanted dependency. Also if the other student
isn’t able to read well, the blind student is automatically at a disadvantage.
If you are writing something on the board, you could say the words as you are
writing them. If the blind person has good touch typing skills, they may be able
to copy down what you are writing as you write it.
2. Use of language
Don’t try to change your vocabulary just because you have someone in your class
who can’t see. “See you later” is fine, as are “have you seen this film” or “do
you see what I mean?” Trying to avoid verbs which have something to do with
seeing or watching creates strange expressions which make everyone feel
uncomfortable and most blind people don’t try to edit these words out of their
vocabulary because they are part of everyday expressions.
3. Working with others
Group work is good. It helps people to develop. In a good team, everyone has
something to contribute. Don’t see group working as a way for other students to
help your blind student because that gives the impression that they have nothing
to contribute. A fluent blind student can help a weaker sighted student to read.
A blind student may be able to explain something in a different way so that
another student understands. A blind student may be able to take more
comprehensive notes on an electronic device than their counterparts can by hand.
These three examples are from my past learning experience and each one gave me
something to trade in the giving and receiving process which resulted in
effective teamwork.
4. Listening and using audio
Communicating information verbally is useful and if you’re teaching a language,
listening skills will be a necessary part of your curriculum. However, learning
by listening is not every blind person’s preferred learning style. Some people
need to write things down in order to remember them. Others need the information
in a written form, either on their computer or Braille display, before it stays
in their memory.
Similarly, if you give other members of the class written feedback, giving the
same feedback to your blind student orally may not be the best solution as you
are then expecting them to retain everything you’ve said without having their
own copy. Instead you could send them your feedback by email, use a protected
online space or a USB stick with the information recorded on it.
5. Use of pictures
This depends on whether you are teaching a one-to-one or a group class.
Think about what you want to achieve with picture exercises. If you want the
student to describe something, you could ask them to describe something else or
give them an object to describe. Alternatively, if you know the student’s native
language, you could give them a description in that language so that they can
talk about the picture independently.
If you are using pictures to build vocabulary, you could achieve the same result
with a word association game, an opposites matching exercise (for adjectives) or
if the student has enough vocabulary in the language you want to teach, an
exercise where you describe the object rather than showing a picture of it.
6. Resources
The most important thing is that your blind student has access to the same
information as others in the class. You could either do this by emailing the
documents to them, encouraging the class to work together on collaborative
online projects (for example Facebook and Twitter are generally accessible) or
providing the information in some other format if appropriate such as large
print or audio, depending on how the student works best.
Some students will have access to scanners and OCR software but this can be time
consuming and it doesn’t work for documents which are hand-written, which
contain diagrams or which are poor photocopies of originals.
PDFs can be accessible but it depends how they have been created. A PDF which
was originally a word document is likely to be accessible whereas a PDF of a
scanned image of text, even though it looks like text, will probably appear as a
blank document to someone using screenreading software on their computer.
There’s no need to change lesson plans to avoid using videos. As long as the
blind student understands what’s going on, audio-visual materials can really
help the learning process.
7. Assumptions and stereotypes
There is plenty of good information out there but unfortunately some unhelpful
stereotypes are still alive and kicking. On the whole, blind people don’t
recognise others by touching their faces – the whole idea of doing this is
uncomfortable for most and an invasion of someone’s personal space. Your student
may or may not be able to read Braille. They may or may not enjoy music – it’s
not a given. They may enjoy sports or watching films. They may or may not want
to work with a guide dog and they may or may not want to talk about their visual
impairment at length.
Remember – visual impairment is just one topic of conversation and many people
don’t want to be defined by it. They want to be seen as your student who happens
not to be able to see, rather than first and foremost your blind student.
Chances are they have been blind for quite some time and whilst the situation
may be new for you, it’s not new for them and they are likely to have many other
topics that they would rather talk about because they feel that they are more
interesting.
8. Equal treatment not special treatment
Blind students need to follow all the same rules that apply to the other members
of your class. The difference is that you need to ensure they have the same
access to your materials and the same chance to make a contribution and complete
the exercises as everyone else in the class.
It may be helpful if everyone in the class followed some simple rules that
benefit everyone like not leaving the door half open (either close it or leave
it open), not leaving trip hazards and pushing chairs back under the table when
they are not being used.
Summary: Ask, experiment and find out what works.
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