Teaching English To Special-Needs Children

The 6th International Seminar 2012 “Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?” Salatiga, November 21-22, 2012Times have changed. Parents of children with special needs have realized that their children have the same opportunities as other children. Children with special needs generally benefit most from a highly structured environment and treatment. Tender care, patience and continuous, correct therapies are very important for the proper development of special-needs children. Their homes, which are their most immediate environment, must be organized in such a way as not to "marginalize" them. A good and affordable inclusive school prepared to help children with special needs, as a matter of fact, is hard to find since it does not have adequate human resources, particularly teachers. We, therefore, consider that this study is significance since it allows an access to our knowledge about teaching special-needs children. The research question that we seek the answer is “What is the essential meaning of teaching English to special-needs children?”. It can be answered through observations, in-depth interviews, documents and interpretation of the result of text data. These texts are analyzed using a qualitative progressive model. Moreover, since this is phenomenological and hermeneutical study, the result will be the description and interpretation of teacher‟s experience in teaching special-needs children. Our study takes place in SD Tumbuh, Yogyakarta and involves three special education teachers as the participants. The expected result is the description and interpretation of the participants‟ narrative. Actually, the description of the life world of teaching English to special-needs children is ultimately interpretation. There are two benefits of the study. First, for the scientific benefits, it will help show the essential meaning of the life world of teaching English to special-needs children as lived-experienced by the participants. For practical benefits, especially for the teacher participants, us as the researchers, and audience in general, the study will improve our understanding on effective English teaching of special-needs children