Online Teaching English for Visually Impaired Students

School is a part of education institution with different teaching alternatives based on
its types. One of the education institutions for special education namely special needs
school or Sekolah Luar Biasa (SLB) is provided for special needs students in
Indonesia. In this time of COVID-19 pandemic, school activities are conducted
online; hence, schools in Indonesia, including special needs school, have been
conducting online teaching and learning. Therefore, the researcher wanted to conduct
a research that aimed to investigate the challenges faced by teachers and the strategies
applied by teachers in English online teaching to visually impaired students. This
research used qualitative approach with descriptive qualitative research design and
interview as the research method. This research was conducted at special needs
schools or Sekolah Luar Biasa (SLB) in Yogyakarta, Kebumen, and Bangka which
involved three English language teachers as the participants. The results showed that
there were five challenges faced by teachers to teach visually impaired students
online, they were bad internet connection, difficulty in choosing teaching materials,
difficulty in personalizing lesson plan, difficulty in delivering materials, and lack of
parents’ support. Furthermore, there were seven strategies used by teacher to teach
English online to visually impaired students, they were providing individual works,
maintaining good communication, providing comprehensible materials, adapting the
curriculum, motivating the students, using social media platform, and managing the
time.