Who speaks for students without a voice?

Greg Kovich

August 11, 2020

Create a consistent and safe learning environment for your students with disabilities and non-native language students.

Who speaks for students without a voice?

With this fall’s emphasis on remote learning, reaching your students is a big challenge. Reaching your students who have disabilities or are non-native language students is an even bigger challenge because distance learning curriculum, teaching methods and technology are not as well established for these groups. This can leave students who have extra needs and their parents feeling overwhelmed or left out.

Can you advocate for remote students with extra needs?

Special needs students

First, let’s look at your students with special needs and disabilities. By law, in most countries, these students must be granted the same opportunities as other students. But replicating special education services remotely – individualized and specialized instruction, physical therapy sessions, and behavioral management – can be a struggle for both students and teachers when their only connection is through a computer screen.

My friend’s son teaches autistic students and he emphasizes how critical it is that his students with disabilities continue to receive instruction during school closures. But keeping them engaged from afar is a challenge and he is looking for help limiting verbal outbursts, controlling maladaptive behaviors and keeping students’ attention on lessons rather than simultaneously watching YouTube videos or chatting.

Hearing and sight disabled students

For his colleagues with hearing and sight disabled students, text to speech and speech to text capability integrated into conferencing solutions helps provide students with a voice and consistency that they need.

Non-native language students

Let’s talk about engaging your non-native language students. Keeping up with class lessons while also learning and speaking a non-primary language requires a level of understanding from students and dedication and individualized instruction from the teacher. Some language nuances can be hard to pick up over a computer monitor, so wouldn’t it be helpful during video classes if your instructors could translate lessons into their students’ native  language as they are speaking?

Teaching students in their new language while providing a text backup in their native tongue enhances comprehension and is now possible in some video conference applications through the support of artificial intelligence.

WOW!

So, who helps speak for students without a voice? You do.

Create a consistent and safe learning environment for your students with disabilities and non-native language students through Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise products, solutions and services. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise can help you create a consistent and safe learning environment for students with extra needs by providing audio calls, video calls, text messaging, text to speech/speech to text capability and AI supporting first language translation.

Learn more in the Continuity of Learning section.