Education should be inclusive at all levels and it should ensure equal access to the same general education offered to all.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities – 2006
I have been an English teacher for more than 25 years and I have been promoting and working for an inclusive education system for 16 years.
Now, a new IATEFL Special Interest Group has been proposed, Inclusive Practices and SEN. In order for the proposed SIG to be established, 50 current members of IATEFL must express their intention to make this their first SIG (included in their membership) or add this SIG to their membership at additional cost.
Anne Margaret Smith (@amsELTwell) , one of the proposers, will be at the IATEFL conference in Birmingham next week. If you are willing to join the SIG and will attend the IATEFL conference, you can meet Anne Margaret Smith before or after one of the Forums at the conference:
- Forum on special educational needs – creating positive inclusive learning opportunities in the ICC Hall 7, 17.20 to 18.25 on Wednesday, 13 April
- Forum on learners with SpLDs in the Hyatt-Andante, 17.25 to 18.30 on Thursday, 14 April
Aims of the proposed SIG focusing on Inclusive Practices and SEN
- To raise awareness of the challenges facing learners with physical disabilities, sensory impairments or cognitive differences in the language classroom, in order to promote a more inclusive learning environment.
- To share best practice and experience in terms of accurately identifying language learners’ additional needs.
- To disseminate information about inclusive teaching methods, materials and resources for working with learners who have additional needs in the classroom.
The SIG would carry out the normal SIG activities such as F2F and online events and a minimum of three mailings a year.
The proposed SIG would have an on-line discussion forum where teachers could ask questions and share experiences and resources. It would also publish a quarterly online newsletter for members, letting them know of forthcoming events and new resources that may be of interest to them.
The SIG committee would organise an annual ‘research round-up’ to disseminate the findings of small scale research projects (such as MA dissertations, PhD research and teachers’ action research) in this field.
It is also anticipated that the proposed SIG would work closely with the other SIGs to organise conferences on specific themes (e.g. literacy activities for dyslexic learners / developing accessible materials / inclusive practices in the business context / disability and assessment issues). In this way we would hope to promote inclusive practices in all ELT contexts.
I would like to invite you to join this new IATEFL SIG – you can do so by sending an email to email@example.com
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION URUTESOL EVENT – September 2015
Source: Inclusive Education – What we should be doing