Tutoring Blind and Visually-Impaired ESL Students
Source: KAIZEN PROGRAM for New English Learners with Visual Limitations
Assessment of Students
The Kaizen Program doesn’t use the ESLOA test for assessing blind and low vision students, since
many of its questions are centered on picture identification. However, it does use actual objects,
including things that range in size from furniture to coins, instead of pictures. People who are totally
blind, whether they have been blind from birth or have lost sight in later life, can usually identify
familiar objects by touch. And people with low vision can often see enough to identify familiar objects
visually (with or without touch), even if they can’t see enough to identify pictures.
Kaizen is a small nonprofit with only two staff members, so, in order to increase the number of
students served, it is currently partnering with the St. James ESL Program and training blind and
visually-impaired volunteer tutors to work with blind and low vision ESL students. In order to make the
intake assessment for blind and low vision students roughly equivalent to that for fully sighted St. James
ESL students it adapted the intake test, including replacing pictures with objects. For example, if a
picture shows a clock face, a tactile clock is used that has “feelable” and movable hands, and both tactile
print numbers and Braille numbers. Also used are such common objects as spoons, napkins, jackets, etc.
Questions that involve visuals such as maps, phone book listings, and traffic signs can be replaced with
roughly equivalent questions involving things that people with visual limitations will be utilizing.
Rationale for Using Blind or Visually Impaired Individuals as Tutors
Consider seeking out and training a blind or visually impaired person as an ESL tutor, so that a
student can learn English oral and written communication at the same time, rather than simply giving
him a tutor to work on speaking and listening, while the state Services for the Blind helps with learning
Braille.
It is much easier for blind and visually impaired immigrants and refugees to learn both functional
oral English communication and literacy in an integrated way than to learn them separately. And they
are much more likely to become truly functionally literate in Braille when they learn both together in the
context of meaningful ESL lessons.
Most programs devoted to teaching Braille to fluent English-speaking visually impaired and blind
people rely heavily on students’ understanding of oral English for instruction. But this is precisely the
area in which immigrants and refugees often face the greatest challenges. Although these agencies
utilize interpreters to help non-English-speaking students at the beginning, many students who have
begun this way have reported that it was a major challenge for them to learn Braille. The exercises and
stories in the books assume an advanced knowledge of English and incorporate many English idioms.
Also, even highly competent interpreters usually are not familiar with the Braille code and have
difficulty conveying an understanding of something with which they are not familiar.
Moreover, new English learners with visual limitations usually have needs which are greater than
and in some respects different from both the needs of fluent English speakers who are visually impaired
or blind and those of fully-sighted new English learners. This means that simply adding together
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training, educational offerings, and services designed for native-English speaking visually impaired
people and those designed for fully-sighted new English learners may not adequately meet their needs.
Additionally, an ESL tutor who is blind or visually impaired will be able to offer the new English
learner help in many things that he will need to know in order to adapt to his situation as a handicapped
person in North American culture:
 how to sign up for and utilize accessible vans and the public bus and train systems
 how to identify coins by touch
 how to fold bills for identification purposes
 what help visually impaired individuals can ask for when performing such basic tasks as making
purchases, paying rent and other bills, asking for and following directions for finding streets and
addresses, or dealing with accidents and emergencies.
In addition, the blind or visually impaired tutor will be able to provide the student with a positive role
model for what he can hope to achieve in the future, despite his loss of vision and current difficulties.
About the Kaizen Program
One of the purposes of the Kaizen Program is to provide consultative assistance to academic
institutions and community-based programs that offer ESL instruction. The two staff members, Robby
Barnes and Sylvie Kashdan, have been tutoring and teaching fully sighted ESL students since 1988.
They have both been teaching blind and visually impaired ESL students since 1997.
Since 1997, both have observed and worked with blind and visually impaired students in many different
learning contexts, including in community college classes and community-based talk times, as well as in
classes where they were learning specialized adaptive skills necessary for becoming independent
visually-impaired people in North American society.
In April 2002, Robby and Sylvie attended and completed the training workshop held by the
American Foundation for the Blind on the impact of low literacy skills on the quality of life of adults
who are visually impaired. The workshop was titled: Bridging the Gap: Best Practices for Instruction of
Adults Who are Blind or Visually Impaired and Have Low Literacy Skills.
One of the purposes of this workshop was to increase participants’ capacity to train other literacy
instructors who work with blind and visually impaired students. The workshop was part of a series that
trained 100 trainers from all over the country to change the way literacy instruction is delivered to adults
who are visually impaired and have low literacy skills. Robby and Sylvie are now both part of the
American Foundation’s corps of 100 literacy trainers. As ESL teachers, they specialize in training other
teachers and tutors who have blind or visually impaired students, as well as giving presentations on
related issues to a variety of other groups, including the general public.
The Kaizen program’s instructors are ESL professionals familiar with the best current educational
approaches and with the special needs of visually impaired and blind new English learners. Robby
Barnes has an MA in education, with a specialization in ESL. Sylvie had over 200 hours of ESL
methods workshops. Both have broad experience teaching refugees and immigrants in a variety of
academic and community-based learning contexts.
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Sylvie is totally blind, and uses both Braille and a screen reader with the computer. Robby Barnes is
visually impaired and reads large print, and uses a screen magnification program with the computer.
Both are authentic users of adaptive skills, including literacy in accessible formats required by people
with visual limitations. They are therefore fully aware of what is necessary to provide integrated models
and practice of literacy and other essential skills in a holistic, meaningfully functional manner. Such
modeling is extremely important in promoting authentic use by students.
11-04.Tutoring Blind PP
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