The inclusion of students with disabilities in Spain is not only mandatory since 2007, but also essential in regards to our moral obligations towards society.
ICT, or Information and Communications Technology, could be the key tool in teaching hearing impaired students, since it allows a wider range of ways of interaction and information exchange.
Several video conference applications offer the possibility of enabling captions. On the one hand this would require the lecturer to speak clearly and at the right pace so the application can process the information properly. The results can often be far from ideal and this could create missunderstandings. However, on the other hand we need to take into consideration the reality of our hearing impaired students to realise how the use of captions would actually improve the reception of key information. Considering not every teacher can communicate using Sing Language, either total sign language or bimodal communication (Schlesinger, 1978), Cued Speech or any other Augmentative and Alternative Communication system (AAC), the access to a tool allowing students to actually read what the lecturer is saying would mean an enormous improvement.
Another tool offered by online conference applications is the possibility of both, recording the presentation and taking screenshots anytime. Recording presentations allow our students to go back to key moments and to watch them anytime at their own pace depending on their personal needs. Taking screenshots, on the other hand, allow our students to capture key bits of visual information that can be used in their personal notes and to further research. Taking a screenshot of a fully written blackboard is faster than writing everything down and this is the key factor in improving our students learning process, because the hearing impaired seek and receive information visually. This means that any time our hearing impaired students spend looking down at their desks is a very valuable chance to receive visual information from the lecturer that they have lost. In other words, we as teachers must make sure our hearing impaired students successfully receive the bits of key information throughout our lessons.
In summary, we as teachers must always take into consideration the importance of visual information for our hearing impaired students. ICT could be a great set of tools to improve the teaching and learning processes in our classrooms thanks to the use of online video conference applications allowing our students to record, caption and screenshot throughout their lessons.
References and further reading:
Schlesinger, H. S. (1978). The acquisition of bimodal language. In SCHLESINGER I, M. and NAMIR, L. (ed,): Sign Language of the deaf. Psychological, linguistic and sociological perspectives. N. York. Academic Press. 261-269
Domagała-Zyśk, E. (2013). Using Technology to Teach English as a Foreign Language to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. In Inclusive Language Education and Digital Technology (pp. 84–102). Channel View Publications. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847699749-007
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