Difficulties of Teachers Encountered in Braille System
Literature Review
Disabilities are great challenge in achieving the potential of a person. However due to some accidents, the disabilities can be part of everyday life. Disables students, like the blinds, are also challenged to face their responsibilities in writing and reading. However, through the use of Braille system, these difficulties in learning are somehow answered. Louis Braille is the propeller of this reading system essentially made for the blind. He used to live in France and Louis became blind as the result of a fall. Therefore, he used a stick to find his way around. While in Paris, Louis enrolled in a special school to learn reading and then he pursued his way to be a teacher. When he reached his goal, he wanted to find a better system of reading for the blind people, which is the history of Braille system or feeling the raised dots began (Yanfu, 2006). Even if there is an introduced way to learn and read, the teaching of Braille system seems difficult.
Teacher attitudes towards Braille, especially the negative ones contribute in the declination of the Braille literacy. There are various reasons that should be considered in the declination of braille use that is attributable to negative attitudes of teachers. Based on the conducted survey of one study, the teachers found positive attitudes towards braille, and that teachers cared deeply about the literacy skills of their students. However, the negative attitudes emerges in the type of school a teacher worked could influence their decisions about a pupil’s literacy medium. The schools have split decisions regarding the system to be used, for such the other are in favor of print or technology while other schools were more likely to accept braille as the norm. In this stands, there is a need for clearer guidelines for teachers to help them decide whether print or braille (or both) was the most suitable medium for pupils on the print/braille borderline.
The standards of braille teaching are largely affected by difficulties that can be encountered by both teachers and students. There are suggestions that there should be reduction in blind students, combinations of blind and little visually impaired students, or introduction of peripatetic teachers. However, there are other perceived problems regarding the sufficient length or frequency for proper braille teaching, or for preparation of suitable teaching materials. This challenge has been traced in the evidence when there is found no systematic approach to teaching braille amongst the teachers surveyed. And because there is no received guidance on methods or approaches to teaching braille and therefore, teachers may have the possibility to display little knowledge of braille at all when they started to teach and in return, becomes their disadvantage in teaching.
In terms of teaching the Braille system on children, it is better to establish the teaching process and ways through listening and speaking. The teaching strategies should be taught from learning in the population of the blind students with other difficulties in learning. On the other hand, the use of technology should be available, since most of the blind students feel the print that has been taught to read and write, which makes the Braille system a complicated system. The electronic devices have been developed which enable a blind person to read and write print instead of tactile symbols. For the first time, teachers may have to consider whether or not braille will be the most efficient means of reading and writing for their blind students. Braille preserves some of the operations of print which are lost in auditory presentations; information is displayed spatially allowing perusal of headings, skipped lines, etc (Mack, n.d.).
Teaching programmes that emphasised the methodology of teaching reading and writing through braille produced teachers who were more confident in their own braille skills and in their ability to pass this knowledge on to their visually impaired pupils. Teacher training courses should not concentrate simply on teaching braille, but should include literacy skills and braille reading methods. Therefore, there is a need to continue beyond mastery of the code; helping pupils to develop their technique will improve their reading speed, fluency and comprehension. As the student increase their level of education, there will also be an increasing need for them to learn specialist braille codes in order for them to access curriculum subjects such as science, mathematics, modern foreign languages and music, which are another series of difficulties in learning, as well as in teaching (Keil & Clunies-Ross 2002).
References:
Keil, S., & Clunies-Ross, L., (2002) Teaching Braille to Children [Online] Available at: http://www.rnib.org.uk/aboutus/Research/reports/edemp/Documents/teachingbraillechild.doc [Accessed 15 November 2010]
Mack, C., (n.d.) How Useful is Braille? Reports of Blind Adults [Online] Available at: http://www.braille.org/papers/visualim/vib8407.html [Accessed 15 November 2010].
Yanfu, J., (2006) Unit 17 Disabilities Period 1 Listening [Online] Available at: http://kg.ftedu.gov.cn/UploadFile/2006613172922685.doc [Accessed 15 November 2010].
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