--- Forwarded Message from Mary Ball <[log in to unmask]> --- >Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 13:51:18 -0800 (PST) >From: Mary Ball <[log in to unmask]> >To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Re: #5581 Languages for Visually Impaired >In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]> ------------------ Dear Linda, There are several plaintive messages on this subject in the LLTI archives from a year or so back. You might want to review them, but I'll tell you what we are doing here in our first-ever case. It happens that the student is in my elementary French II class. From my first-time experience, I'd suggest that your institution's disability services office and the textbook publisher can offer a lot of help. In this case, the publisher made the textbook available in cassette-tape form. That is, all the material in the textbook that is written out in text is read out loud on tape. The student can listen to the text readings, exercices, grammar notes, etc. The disability services office took care of ordering the book from the publisher. Actually, that office had already handled all the student's other courses last semester and has a lot of experience getting publisher's materials. Disability services also has several computers set up with a screen reader program called Jaws, which reads text from many common programs (word processors, spreadsheets, web browsers) out loud, albeit in a somewhat machine-like voice. The Windows version reads Spanish,French, German, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish, if I'm not forgetting anything. I have not seen the program in action, though I downloaded a sample from the company's website <http://www.hj.com/>. So I give the student a diskette with handouts, assignments, etc., and she goes to the Jaws computer to hear the assignments. She already goes there regularly for assignments for her other courses, and to read her e-mail. I also asked her whether she would prefer to read web pages, et this way or have another student read the page to her and discuss it. By chance, I had also just digitized--with permission, of course--the video clips for the semester and put them on CDs, so the student can answer questions on the video assignments by playing the videos on computer and hearing the questions on Jaws. Fortunately for me, she does read and write Braille, so she can write her answers down, and she can take notes in class. She has the lab tapes, but I do not have her record answers to the lab materials. On the one day per chapter when class meets in a comptuer lab for a session on Daedalus Interchange, I have recruited a French major to come and act as typist and screen reader for her. In summary, we have been able to provide a lot of the materials so that she can access them to study from, and some things I just don't ask her to do. Obviously, when we read maps and gave street directions recently, the student couldn't do this task. However, she could act as a grammar and pronunciation checker for her partners in class. Mary Ball Director, Language Lab Ashland University Ashland, OH 44805 tel (419) 289-5945 fax (419) 289-5791 [log in to unmask] On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, LLTI-Editor wrote: > --- Forwarded Message from Linda Jones <[log in to unmask]> --- > > >Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 13:34:22 -0600 (CST) > >From: Linda Jones <[log in to unmask]> > >To: [log in to unmask] > >Subject: Languages for Visually Impaired > > Hi all, > > There is a student at our University who is visually impaired and does not > read braille due to problems with diabetes. With that in mind, she is > very interested in learning the Spanish language. We are trying to > determine how to go about teaching her since she will be unable to write > the information or read the information with braille. One thought by some > was to let her speak her assignments into the computer. However, those > voice capturing programs are not reliable, not even for native speakers. > So, her language learning strategies are limited to listening and > speaking (speaking probably into a cassette for her assignments). > > Have any of you worked with students who were visually impaired? If so, > how were you able to help them out? > > Thanks! > > Linda Jones > Director, Language Learning Center > University of Arkansas > [log in to unmask] > (501) 575-7608 >