The Effectiveness of the Sighted Teachers’ Use of Deictic Expressions for Blind Students in Mainstream Classrooms Having Majority Sighted Students

Abstract

The main objectives of this study are to shed light on the difficulties of visually impaired students regarding deictic markers in inclusive classrooms and to inform the teachers’ community how effectively they can teach such students. Not much research has been done on this subject, therefore, lack of information regarding special needs of visually defective students creates hurdles for them in getting education. The main idea is that as deictic markers rely mostly on visual cues then how a visually defective student can grasp these markers with equal informativeness. Semi-structured interviews of eight visually impaired students were conducted who were pursuing their education in different universities of Pakistan. More or less all the participants voiced this observation that they have to face a lot of problems in inclusive classrooms due to the use of deictic markers. This study recommends that professional training seminars should be organized to improve the skills of the teachers in tackling such classrooms where visually impaired students are also present.