Visually impaired learners’ perception of English as a foreign language

Kopačević, Janja. (2019). Visually impaired learners’ perception of English as a foreign language. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of English Language and Literature
Department of Pedagogy. [mentor Geld, Renata and Ivanković, Iva].

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Abstract

English as a foreign language is a compulsory school subject for all learners across the European Union, including the special needs students. One such group are the visually impaired students. For visually impaired people, learning English might be challenging due to many obstacles they have to overcome because of their lack of vision, yet it can be extremely beneficial. Foreign languages open different possibilities for their future and the visually impaired students see language as one of the most important tools for finding their way around the world. The aim of this thesis was to study the attitudes of 29 visually impaired high school learners towards English as a foreign language, all of whom are students of the Center for Education and Rehabilitation Vinko Bek in Zagreb. The instrument used to investigate their attitudes was a semi-structured interview the results of which were then discussed according to the five research questions. The results have shown that the participants find English very useful because of its status as a lingua franca. They believe that they will use English in their future employment, however, most of them declare having limited knowledge of the English language. Furthermore, they expressed they enjoy their English lessons, but have many ideas on how to improve them and adapt them to their needs and desires. Most importantly, they feel completely alienated from everyday English and have very little knowledge about native speakers of English and their culture.

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