Needs Analysis of Blind Students in Teaching Practice Program

Abstract

As an inclusive university, Brawijaya University has accepted students with special needs in some different
study programs. Two of those are blind / visually impaired students who enrol English Language Education
Study Program in which the program prepares the students to be English teachers. As a consequence, the
students must be ready to do teaching practice in a public school when they are in the seventh semester. This
study is going to find out the problems of the visually impaired students in conducting teaching practice in the
school. It also elaborates the teaching media and method that they need to support them to do teaching
practice.  The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative. To get the data, the researchers interview
the visual impairments, the two volunteers who become their peer assistant them during learning process in
the university, and the lecturer who becomes the advisor of the visually impaired students. Besides,
observation is also important to know the application of teaching practice in their real class. The observation
is done by recording the teaching activity conducted by the visually impaired students. The results of the
interview and the observation are used to formulate the needs of the visually impaired students in teaching
process in the real school. This study gives benefit not only for the students in preparing their teaching
practice, but also for the institution to accommodate the needs of the visually impaired students for their
teaching process.