Klára Grešlová & Dagmar Kaslová
Special educational centre Vertikála, Prague, Czech Republic
Abstract
Our Special Educational Centre Vertical supports pupils with special educational needs
(especially with mental disability, autism or Asperger´s syndrome) in mainstreem schools.
One of the methods that are used most is adaptation of teaching topics. Adapting reaches two aims. First, reduction and simplification of curriculum (to make it comprehensible), second, synchronization of activities both of a class and a child with SEN.
Three school subjects- English language, Physics and Chemistry are chosen to be representative for all subjects of elementary school. We experience these as the most threatening for teachers who are supposed to adapt the topics for their pupils with SEN. We would like to demonstrate few possibilities in adapting teaching topics in these three subjects.
Key words special educational needs (SEN), integration to common type school, individual education plan (IEP), teaching topics adaptation, special paedagogic centre (SPC), English, Physics,
Chemistry.
Teaching topics adaptation
Teaching topics adaptation is aimed at students with special education needs who attend mainstream (common type) schools, i.e. non-special schools. The SEN are caused by different health disabilities that affect the students to the extent they need their teaching topics plans to be adjusted and particular topics elaborated.
SPC Vertikala clients are students with mental and/or compound disorders or pupils with pervasive developmental disorders (such as autism, the Asperger´s syndrome).
The students, who have been included into maintream schools, are educated according to a individual education plan (IEP) prepared with individual pupils´ abilities taken into consideration. It contains not only the education goals (in the specific teaching subjets) but also the strategy of the student´s integration into the group and specific goals ensuing from the kind of the disorder and specification of their personality.
A team of specialists prepares the IEP. The team consists of specialists in different fields of education - i.e. school ("class" teacher and other teachers, pedagogical assistant), the family, specialised offices, and a psychologist, a speech therapist, or a behavioral therapist if needed.

One of the most used methods of work with the integrated students (included in the
IEP) is the teaching topics adaptation, which is aimed at two goals. They are the teaching topics simplification to the level intelligible for the student and the harmonisation of the student´s activities with the workings of the class.
The teaching topics simplification:
It is often necessary to choose the basic terms, notions, and facts in a form that is intelligible to the student. There is a number of possibilities, e.g. a concrete story implicitly containing the teaching topic, matching the basic terms to figures or photographs, doing "puzzles" and then matching the pictures to terms. for pupils who can read a text can be simplified or otherwise adjusted or they can compile it from individual sentences.
The harmonisation of the student´s activities with the workings of the class, and vice versa:
The teaching topics adjustments enable the student to participate in the activities of the class, thus to become its natural part, i.e. they are examined, tested, evaluated, they work on the tasks given, hand over the results of their work as the other students in the class do. The basis of the topics remain the same for both but the intergrated student´s one is to be simplified and adjusted.
In case the whole class are working on a group basis the integrated student ought to be involved by being questioned according to their IEP whilst the rest of the class should be informed about the subject of their classmates´s work if the task is to be performed individually (e.g. with the personal assistant).
The integrated student should participate in a group work, working on a speacial task that have been specifically prepared for him or her. The group then hands over the results of their work with the special one included and all of them are to be evaluated.
Pairwork is also one of the possibilities. A classmate works on a common task with our intergrated student.
However, there are tasks or situations when the cooperation between the integrated student and the class is impossible at all and the assistant is to work with the student on the individual basis. But even then the student´s activities ought to be similar to those performed by the rest of the class (such as writing in the notebook, taking test etc.)
Selected subjects

English, Physics, and Chemistry should represent the wide range of teaching subjects in the higher levels of basic school. In our experience, these are the ones mostly feared amongst the
"integrating" teachers and we´d like to show the system of teaching topics adaptation using the examples of their adaptation.
English
The formation of the teaching topics adaptation in English (and other foreign languages) is based on several fundamental principles. Firstly the question of the basic teaching goals has to be dealt with - what is it the student should learn? What knowledge and skills should they learn? The fundamental goals are the adaptations of the topics, methods, and forms, which determine the choice of aid teaching tools.
The way of the adaptation of the subject of the topic is the key issue connected to the aim of teaching a foreign language. Studying foreign languages usually serves to two purposes. These are basic ability to have simple conversation (i.e. on holiday) and reading important notices and warnings. This means the subject of the topics is divided into separated units and it should also meet the student´s interests. When teaching conversation, we prefer to teach them the basic sentences as if they were whole phrases due to student´s lack of ability to form a sentence on their own.
Methods include mainly audio-oral approach with reading (and sometimes writing) the basic important words and phrases (again highly specifically according to student´s abilities), and the visualisation of what is being studied.
The forms adjustments involve adaptations of organizing (pairwork, groupwork, cooperation teacher - assistant, etc.) and mediating forms (e.g. language games).
The tools used for the language learnig are: copied materials, pictures and textbooks made of them, compilations, picture cards, audiodictionary (personalized for each individual student), the internet.
A very good source of information and hints is the UK National Curriculum containing a thorough plan for teaching foreign languages. In Czech republic there exists
Czech Framework Educational Programme adjusted for students with mental disabilities.
The topic we have chosen is "In town"
In the town
The topic can be connected to the working of the class (other students learn more vocabulary, different sentence type formation, etc.)

Possible activities of the integrated student:
Learning vocabulary using cards with pictudes of different parts of the town. Matching an apropriate word or phrase to a picture (the methods are the same as the "card" method used for the global reading). The vocabulary is to be adjusted according to the student´s abilities
(e.g. town, city, river, bridge, building, straight on, left, right, on the left, on the right, Yes.,
No., Hello., Please., Thank you., Excuse me., What’s your name?, My name is Dominik.,
How old are you?, I’m fifteen., How are you?, I’m fine, thank you., Can I help you?, How much is that?, One pound., I would like a PC game., Is there a church?)
Working with pictures expressing nouns and verbs - matching them to proper activities and objects, completing a story by fitting a picture to the correct place (walking in the city park, going to a cafe, etc.). the story can be told in English or in Czech using the known words only (vocabulary walk, stand, sit, play, drink, eat, run, read, write, clock, Windows, chair, table, cup, spoon, roll, etc.)
Working with picture cards of different shops - giving their names (baker’s, grocer’s, greengrocer’s, flower shop, stationer‘s, chemist‘s, clothes shop, shoe shop, sports equipment shop, pharmacy, housewares, electrical appliances shop, ironmonger’s, post office, bank, a.o.)

Working with the audiodictionary. It is a tool used with the "audio-oral method". The student has the actual vocabulary recorded on a cd and learns listening to it. Digital recording offers more possibilities, such as recording whole dialogues to help learn phrases.
Noughts and crosses. The playing board is filled with actual vocabulary, students wins the space after having named a picture by its proper name.
What was in the picture? The student observes a picture of a town for a limited time.
After the time has expired, the picture is to be covered or hidden and (s)he has to name all things and events (s)he can remember.
Dictionary. The student with his/her assistant (or all other student) take photographs of buildings, things, or events happening in the town and match names to them. This forms a dictionary. Thus the integrated student learns to read names (e.g. shops) in the dictionary and then also in the reality.
Our town (a project). The students of the class compile the tour-guide of the town they live in. It includes more detailed work with text, pictures, a computer, and the internet. The integrated student helps according to his/her abilities.
The teaching topics are included in the Man and the Nature unit (Framework Educational
Program). Teaching physics we try to connect the topics of the class and those of the integrated student and this may cause skipping some topics due to difficulties with adjusting them to proper and acceptable form. In situations like these we choose the topics that the student may found important in practical use. It means we focus on measuring (thus teaching

different quantities and their units), orientation in time (seasons, months, weeks, days, hours,...) and other topics according to the student´s needs.
The actual topics we´d like to demonstrate is Heat Energy and Change of Phase.
Heat energy, Change of Phase
Heat exchange (convection of energy from the warmer body to the colder one). The integrated student participates in experiments demonstrating the thermal equilibrium (a teaspoon in a cup of hot tea, a hot iron, coca-cola in the fridge)
A picture of a girl with the thermometer; an experiment with the measuring of the body temperature.
An experiment showing the heat convection; a heated oven, two pictures in it - one of them hung in the space, the other lying on the baking pan.
Heat conduction of different materials; dipping objects in hot water - iron nails, aluminium, silver, plastic spoons, wooden sticks.
Insulation in the nature. Gases and liquids are bad heat conductors (wood, wool, fur contain a lot of air thus insulate well). The students can prepare a report on insulation examples with animal body arts (reindeer - hollow bristles filled with air, birds - feathers, whales - hypodermic fat...)
Air convection; affects weather - measuring the temperature, observation

Radiation - two cups (white one and black one) filled with ice put in a sunny place.
Changes of phase; evaporating (liquid - gas) - water in a glass in a room, wet clothes on a clothes line (sunny, windy, rainy, cold...), a cucumber chip on forehead helping against headache (the water in the cucumber evaporates thus losing heating energy being replaced by the body heat)
Change of Phase; boiling (liquid - gas, evaporation in and on the surface of the liquid)
- water in a glass on a cooking-range, observing the bubbles.
Change of phase; condensation (gas - liquid) - a glass lid on a teapot filled with hot water, swallows flying low before rain falls because steam condensates on the wings of the insect which then flies low)
Change of Phase; melting (solid material - liquid). The heat energy causes molecules moving faster which means the phase change - melting snow in a heated room.
Change of phase; freezing (liquid - solid) - a bottle filled with water in a freezer
A test:
1.
what are the three phases of water called?
2.
what happens if water freezes?
3.
what happens if you fill a bottle with water and let it freeze?

4.
imagine that you want to look at your reflection in a mirror in a bathroom after you have had a bath in a very warm water with the door and all windows closed. Do you think you will be able to see yourself?
5.
after you have washed your hankies in your washing machine you want to let them dry. One day the weather is sunny and windy and the other day it is cloudy and cold.
Which day will the handkerchiefs dry up faster?
Chemistry
This subject is also a part of the Man and the Nature unit and the principles are the same as with other subjects, i.e. adaptation and involving the student.
The topics dealing with elements and their compounds are to be taught showing their practical use, objects made of them (e.g. human body - sacharides, fats and proteins...)
We have chosen a few examples how to teach topics concerning metals.
Metals
The student can paint the periodic table with three different colours - one for metals, another for metalloids and one for nonmetals. The picure can be used as an example or a tool for others.
The metals features; gloss, heat and electrical conductivity, flexibility - experiments proving these features - observations, shaping the metals using a hammer, pluging in an eletrical circuit...
Corrosion; the student is to bring a corroded nail to school
Teaching different metals with respect for their use - pictures of metal made objects
(or the objects themselves) and dividing them into groups.

The class competition prepared by the integrated student (and his assistant). The student brings different objects made of different metals (e.g. working tools - pliers /iron/, a coke tin /aluminium/, a piece of a wire /copper/, a battery /zinc/, a bell /tin/, a ring /gold/, etc.) and other students are to fill in a form containing task and questions (e.g. what materials are the objects made from?, etc.). Then they hand the forms over to the integrated student and
(s)he evaluates them, announces the results and awards the winner.
A test:
1.
Choose different formulas of non-metals and use them to form a new word. The student may use a periodical table.
Au, Na, I, Pb, F, Sn, N, Ca (= FIN , also possible combinations: sin, no, on, so )
2.
Find formulas of metals hidden in the sentences and underline them. You can help the integrated student telling him/her the number of the word the hidden formula strats in it.
A flea danced in the National Theatre.
The big old giant walked down the hill.
The greengrocers sold all their onions.
3.
Name the use of metals in the excercise 2. It is possible to use pictures.
4.
Metal formulas criss-cross:
5. metal used for batteries production (zinc)
6. expensive metal used in jewelery and photography (silver)

7. red-brown metal which can turn to green (copper)
8. very light metal (aluminium)
Literature:
Adaptation of teaching topics: materials of SPC Vertical, some of them published in:
Co byste měli vědět o integraci a nevíte, koho se zeptat. Příručka pro školy
.
(2003) Praha: o. s. Rytmus. ISBN 80-7042-228-9.
Grešlová, K., Píšová, R. (2002): Dítě s postižením na ZŠ.
Moderní vyučování , č.1, s. 10-12.
English:
Grešlová, K. (2004):
Výuka angličtiny jako cizího jazyka u žáků se speciálními potřebami integrovaných na základní škole . Diplomová práce, Praha: Pedagogická fakulta UK.
Physics:
Lustigová, Z. (2004):
Fyzika pro 8. a 9. ročník základních škol.
Praha: Fortuna.
Hamerník, P. (2000): Fyzika – pracovní sešit pro zvláštní školy, 7. ročník. Praha: Septima.
Macháček, M. (2000): Fyzika – pracovní sešit pro zvláštní školy, 8. ročník. Praha: Septima.
Chemistry:
Beneš, P., Pumpr, V., Banýr, J. (2002): Základy chemie 1 pro 2. stupeň základní školy, nižší ročníky gymnázií a střední školy.
Praha: Fortuna.
Beneš, P., Pumpr, V., Banýr, J. (2004):
Základy chemie 1 – pracovní sešit.
Praha: Fortuna.
Beneš, P., Pumpr, V. (1995):
Chemie pro 9. ročník zvláštní školy.
Praha: Parta.
Beneš, P., Pumpr, V. (1995): Chemie pro 9. ročník zvláštní školy – pracovní sešit. Praha:
Parta. spcvertikala@seznam.cz