Multiple approaches and techniques during education

Sociometric methods, personality questionnaires, personality tests, intelligence and intellectual development tests, skills tests, creativity tests should (even some require) be conducted by professionals. They allow a large number of students to be investigated in a relatively short time and give details about different features of personality, mentality, influence of certain people and events, situations, behaviors, aspirations, professional choices, originality, fluency and so many more. Combining multiple approaches and techniques gives flexibility upon the lesson, respects the particularities of the learners and the class itself, and last but not least, would highlight the possibilities of each student in order to harness it and mold education according to each individual, in terms of their intellectual and general aptitudes and interests.

The classes in our inclusive high school are not homogeneous, since students without disabilities are included alongside students with mental disabilities, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Down Syndrome, physical and speech disabilities and so on. The particularities of each student must be well known in order to be able to make appropriate curricular adaptations and to support their recovery. The process of educational integration of pupils with special education needs include designing of individualized intervention plan, in which the use of effective curricular adaptation plays the essential role. On the one hand, their curriculum is simplified in terms of knowledge that has to be acquired by learners, and on the other hand it is amplified by introducing additional individualized activities to compensate and recover the disability state of each pupil. For example, in the case of mentally handicapped students, the curricula is reduced both in terms of the number of subjects to be studied and in terms of informational loading. Instead, it increases the number of additional individual activities in which the mentally handicapped pupil is to be included for the purpose of recovery. In the case of the Romanian special education, such activities are speech therapy, correction of physical deficiencies, socialization, promotion of manual skills, occupational therapy, training for social autonomy, and so on. Students with sensory impairments (deaf or hearing-impaired learners, blind or visually-impaired learners) and those with physical disabilities, do not face particular problems regarding following the same curriculum as for students without disabilities, providing they have a normally intellect. Specific activities introduced in the curriculum mainly concern with aspects of spatial orientation, socialization, communication, acquisition of additional languages (sign language, Braille) or practical activities aimed at training in professions appropriate to the type of disability in question. All these lead to a good adjustment to the social environment for an autonomous life.

Demonstrative activity is of the upmost importance, given that students with disabilities do not have an enriched imagination and have a low capacity for understanding abstract items. In addition, their patience and attention are shortened, and practical activities are more attractive and accessible to them than assimilation of theoretical notions.

The agreeable character of a teaching activity comes from the fact that, in general, the tasks is accessible to learners, they feel they can achieve it, stimulates students, gives them confidence in themselves. The learner becomes aware of his own abilities, and will no longer feel inferior, but trust his future social life, his future job and his peers. These transformations give the teacher the opportunity to use motivation to help learners overcome some lack of interest, and contribute to the psychological, many-sided development of the pupil and to his socio-productive integration. The lessons done both in individual and group settings educate students in the spirit of collective work, to make them understand the purpose and necessity of cooperation in the work field and our social nature. Lessons should be flexible, agreeable, efficient, attracting all types of multiple intelligence and learning styles, dynamic but not tiring, filled with interaction and positive emotions, link notions from many other subjects and shaped in the interests of the learners. Parents or social workers in charge of educating students should be actively involved in school education, as partners. Teachers have to continuously perfect their methods and keep in touch with the latest scientific discoveries. Imperfection gives birth to the ideal (Rozorea, 2003: 303) an therefore any individual should be encouraged to progress and evolve, to harness his strengths and overcome weaknesses.

Both students and the school must adapt to each other, for the benefit of the learners in particular and the education in general. Each individual with or without disabilities have the right to a proper education, to a proper integration in society and a role in the future of society. Throughout of the school year various ways of assessing progress have been taken place, whether through conversations or through small tests that have been applied. For example, in assessing the degree of internalizing food vocabulary at special class of X B, the following have been uncovered. Out of thirteen students that were asked to enumerate seven vegetables and eight fruits, all of them meet the requirements but various alternatives of the correct nouns were produced. The most written was lemon, with eight correct spellings and one leman, apples with six correct spellings, bananas with six correct spellings, two banas and one banănăs, proving that the pronunciation was internalized but spelling rises difficulties, plums with five correct spelling, pear with three correct spelling, two correct spelling of blueberries, four oranges with correct spelling and one oringi (an attempt to phonemic transcription), grapes with two correct spellings, one grapels and one gtapes, four correct spelling of cherries, one chereys and one chery, four correct spellings of kiwi, four correct spellings of watermelon, one peach and one pech, two correct spellings of beans, one strawberry and variations: strawbery, strobery, strabewry, one correct pumpkin, and one melon, some presented in the picture below. In terms of vegetables, the following were reproduced: the most common is potatoes, with five correct spellings and alternatives such as patatas and potatos, followed by tomatoes with three correct spellings and alternatives such as tomatos, tomates, tometos, tomateas, onions with five correct spellings and one onios, two beans, three correct mushrooms, four correct carrots, one carout and one carretts, two correct radishes and two alternatives ridiches (as the Romanian form ridichi but adding the s plural to sound English) and one radis, four correct lettuce and one letuce, one correct eggplant, four correct corn, four correct cucumbers and alternatives such as cucumberrs, gabbage for cabbage, brocori, brocholi and brocoli as alternatives to the correct form of broccoli, and salad for the correct form of lettuce.

Another exercise was to fill in an identity card, as shown in the picture below, which students in special education classes have filled in accordingly, more or less correctly. When asked to write simple statements about themselves, learners with disabilities preferred to state their age, their gender, and others like: I like gaming fifa, I’m sociable / a good friend / smart / friendly; I have a dog; I live in Constanta; I am good at playing foorball; I like to play games / football and swimming; My favourite color is orange / blue and so on. As inexact as these sentences are, one must bear in mind that these students were not able to form any of those sentences the previous school year. This particular identity chart was adapted after the models presented in English Grammar Worksheets. 101 Worksheets for English Lessons, where audio files are also available.

Some students in special education classes were not able to make sentences of their own, or were convinced that they cannot do, because of their low self-esteem and fear, and preferred to write separate English words, like seen in the picture below, without trying to connect them to form sentences, however, after a year of practice, this has changed and students with disabilities do not fear failure but are brave enough to make up small sentences of their own and be proud of it, even if there are grammatical mistakes present.