Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ strategies for enhancing the participation of pupils with disabilities in selected inclusive basic schools in the South Tongu District. The design employed was descriptive survey. Purposive sampling technique was used to select ten Head teachers, while simple random sampling technique was used to select one-hundred and forty teachers from ten selected pilot inclusive schools. Questionnaire was used to gather data. Data from the questionnaire were analyzed using frequencies and percentages. Analyses of the data revealed that majority of pupils have mild and moderate disabilities for instance reading and calculation difficulties. Learners had difficulty coping with academic work. It was also realized that high percentage of teachers did not use the appropriate methodology in teaching pupils with mild and moderate disabilities in the pilot inclusive schools. It was recommended that, teachers should use the appropriate pedagogy in teaching pupils with disabilities, teachers must offer one-on-one instruction to pupils and the District Education Office must employ more sign language instructors and Braille readers to help the hearing and visually impaired pupils during teaching and learning.

1. Introduction

The population of learners in every classroom setting encompasses learners with diverse learning needs. Diversity as a term means differences; it encompasses abilities, disabilities and difficulties ¹ Learners are diverse as a result of their gender, ethnic or socio-economic background, special talents and abilities as well as disabilities. Besides, in every classroom situation in Ghana some individuals may learn easily whilst others cannot learn easily.

Currently, the demands on schools and teachers are becoming complex as society now expects schools to deal effectively with disadvantaged pupil due to the inclusive policy. Teachers therefore, need to develop good strategies that will build their confidence and knowledge as well as skills in teaching to meet the challenges that they may encounter in the present school climate ².

In Ghana, ³ directs that all pupils with mild and moderate disabilities will be enrolled into the regular schools by 2015 whilst those with severe and profound will be enrolled by 2020. Meanwhile, those that are already found in the pilot inclusive schools now are not well catered for in terms of teaching and learning ⁴.

The South Tongu District was chosen to pilot inclusive education among five other districts in Ghana, and there are a lot of suspected cases of disabilities found in the district. In addition, there are series of reports from head teachers from the various schools in the district complaining about teachers inability to teach pupils with mild and moderate disabilities in the mainstream schools, even some of the head teachers suggested that pupils with mild and moderate disabilities should be sent to special schools for their education ⁵.

The researcher is working at the Sogakope District Education Office as a special needs officer. During work inspection and supervision as part of his schedules, he had observed that pupils with mild and moderate disabilities were not coping with teaching and learning during instructional periods in spite of the efforts of teachers. It is critical to add that suspected cases of disabilities keep on increasing in the South Tongu District. During identification and screening exercise conducted in the district in 2015 there were 316 suspected cases of disabilities; in 2016, 392 pupils were suspected and in 2017, 420 pupils suspected to have various forms of disabilities. Out of the above data provided 62 of the suspected cases had been assessed and referred to Special Schools across the country while the rest of the suspected cases remained in the mainstream classrooms where they are taught by general education teachers. The question one may ask is whether the general education teachers have the background and knowledge in terms of pedagogy to teach pupils with mild and moderate disabilities to achieve success in their classrooms.

The study sought to:

1. Identify children with disabilities that are found in the selected pilot inclusive schools in South Tongu District.

2. Ascertain the methods that teachers use in teaching pupils with disabilities in their classrooms.

The following research questions were raised to guide the study:

1. What types of disabilities are found among pupils in the selected pilot inclusive schools in South Tongu District?

2. What teaching methods do teachers in the selected pilot inclusive schools use to teach pupils with disabilities in their classroom?

The study would be of significance to policy makers at South Tongu District Education Directorate because the data obtained from the study could provide valuable information for enhancing policy guidelines and procedures on good pedagogy for pupils with disabilities in the inclusive schools in the district.

The results of the study, which the researcher hopes to disseminate across the South Tongu education directorate will explain whether teachers are successful in supporting pupils with disabilities to participate in learning.

It would also be used to plan future intervention for pupils with disabilities in the mainstream schools in the South Tongu district in terms of instructional methods teachers need to use in teaching in the mainstream schools.

2. Literature Review

Mild and moderate intellectual disability is one of the categories of disabilities found in the pilot inclusive schools in the South Tongu District. ⁶ opines that intellectual disability, as a condition has been known in virtually all Ghanaian communities. It is a state of complete mental development of such a kind and degree that the individual is incapable of adapting himself to the normal environment of his peers in such a way as to maintain existence independently of supervision, control and external support.

Pupils with mild and moderate intellectual disability in inclusive schools learn more slowly than a typical child. Pupils may take longer to learn language, develop social skills and take care of their personal needs, such as dressing or eating. Learning will take them longer, require more repetition and skills may need to be adapted to their learning levels. According ⁷ pupils with reading difficulty or dyslexia, the regular education classroom may actually be more restrictive than a resource room or special class placement when the instructional needs of the pupils are considered. Nevertheless, virtually every child is able to learn, develop and become a participating member of the community ⁸.

Low vision is another disability found in the pilot inclusive schools in the South Tongu District. It is seen as a functional loss of vision typically seen to manifest with best corrected visual acuity of less than 20/60, or significant central field defect, significant peripheral field defect including homonymous or heteronymous bilateral visual, field defect or generalized contraction or constriction of field, or reduced peak contrast sensitivity with either of the above conditions ⁹.

According to ⁸ pupils with low vision will be able to use the vision for many school learning activities, a few for visual reading, while others may need to use tactual materials. Therefore, to encourage performance of pupils with low vision, teachers need to use appropriate pedagogy and materials to enhance pupils’ participation during teaching and learning process.

Another disability found in the pilot inclusive schools in the South Tongu district is the hearing impairment. According to ⁹ the definition of hearing impairment is always dictated by a number of variables. The degree of the severity of the loss and physiological site of the loss is key factors to be taken into consideration.

Also, ¹¹ explained that mild and moderate hearing loss is a condition of partial hearing loss. A person described as hearing impaired is the one who has problems hearing well or using his ears to hear speech and sound. Such a condition is also found in the inclusive classroom where pupils try to locate sources of sound in the classroom during instructional periods sometimes making it difficult for them to cope with hearing. However, ⁹ asserted that for pupils with mild and moderate hearing loss participate actively in the mainstream classrooms, they need intervention from teachers.

¹² explained mild and moderate physical disability as a limitation on a person’s physical functioning, mobility, dexterity or stamina. Other physical disabilities include impairments which limit other facets of daily living, such as respiratory disorders, blindness and epilepsy.

According to ¹³ pupils with mild and moderate physical disabilities can be of average or above average in intelligence. The major difficulty they may face is environmental barriers, to participate in some complicated physical activities, and irregular attendance at school due to attendance at hospital. The following are some classroom management strategies suggested by ¹³ teachers concern should be how to prevail on other pupils not to imitate the walking for fun, the classroom sitting arrangement should be such that it avoids further injury to the pupils, consider the pupils fine and gross motor defects and provide writing materials to suit, create room for easy movement (traffic zones) and consider other environmental considerations.

The methodology used by teachers during teaching in the mainstream schools is important factor for pupils’ participation during teaching and learning process, especially those with mild and moderate disabilities ¹⁴. Vygotsky’s cognitive development insists upon giving assistance and help to pupils in the classroom to enable them achieve success.It is believed that if pupils with mild and moderate disabilities are given assistance they could perform through participation better in mainstream classrooms.Pupil’s level of understanding differs from one another, so it is important for teachers to use different environments apart from classes to develop a better understanding during teaching and learning process for their easy participation ¹⁵. ¹⁶ also indicated that regular education teachers should adapt and modify the content of the syllabus to increase the success level of all categories of pupils with special needs inclusive schools.

One of the methods teachers adopt to enhance the participation of pupils with mild and moderate disabilities in mainstream classroom are differentiated instruction. ¹⁵ defined differentiated instruction as, “the planning of curriculum and instruction using strategies that address pupil’s strengths, interests, skills and readiness in flexible learning environments” (p.12). Differentiated instruction provides multiple opportunities to support diverse pupils in mainstream setting. It requires teachers to identify the strengths and needs of their pupils and possess a repertoire of strategies to support pupils with and without disabilities ¹⁵.

According to ¹⁷ differentiation allows the teacher to plan and carry out varied approaches to content, process and product in anticipation of and in response to pupil differences in readiness interest and learning profile.

¹⁸ stated that in terms of differentiating instruction in heterogeneous classrooms, there is a complex instruction takes which require pupils to work together in small groups, designed to draw upon the intellectual strengths of each pupil in the group, are open-ended, intrinsically interesting to pupils involve real objects, provide materials and instructions in modified English if needed, integrate reading and writing in ways that make pupils important means to accomplishing a desirable goal, draw upon multiple intelligences in a real-world way and use multimedia which require many different talents from pupils in order to participate and complete task adequately ¹⁸.

To encourage pupils with mild and moderate disabilities to actively participate in mainstream classroom, ¹⁹ opine that teachers can put pupils in flexible grouping. This is a strategy for differentiating instruction that provides for pupils to be part of many different groups based on the suitability of the task to pupils’ readiness, interest, or learning profile. Teachers must ensure that all pupils have opportunities to work with pupils who are like themselves and dissimilar from themselves. All pupils should have rules for working cooperatively and independently and groups can be selected by the teachers, or at times by the pupils.

Also, cubing is a versatile strategy which allows the teachers to plan different activities for different pupils or groups of pupils with mild and moderate disabilities based on pupils’ readiness, learning style and interests. Teachers can create a cube for different groups of pupils. On each of its surfaces, you describe a different task related to the subject and the concept being learned ²⁰ Teachers also provide additional teaching to the whole class followed by additional teaching to particular pupils and in fewer cases, to certain subgroups in the class. Whole-class additional teaching was provided exclusively on languages and mathematics which was practiced during instructional hours ²¹.

However, ²². stated that whole-class additional teaching involved lesson repetition or repetition of specific sections or concepts of a lesson. It was rarely carried out through the application of alternative, modified instructional ways for supporting pupils to gain access to new information and knowledge and it was mainly based on provision of extra tuition to pupils. Additional teaching to particular pupils involved systematic, sporadic support and advice to individual pupils mainly during break hours, while additional teaching to certain subgroups in the class was considered difficult and in some cases, not feasible in its applicability. Furthermore, additional teaching to particular pupils and to certain subgroups in the class was not practiced often and in some cases, was not even perceived to be desirable ²³.

Furthermore, activity adjustment is another pedagogy teachers use to teach pupils with mild and moderate disabilities in mainstream schools for easy participation ²⁴. believed that teachers in the mainstream schools give more time to particular pupils for completing a classroom assignment followed by breaking down activities at various levels of difficulty, using computers for supporting leaning, forwarding diverse activities during the same instructional hour and using specific resources such as perforated boards or resource room setting.

A research conducted on instructional adaptation by ²⁵ indicated that the initial two minimally adaptive strategies, give more time and break down activities were used mainly in the area of Language and Mathematics. Breaking down activities was considered part of the guided practices used by teachers for supporting pupils learning and participation, while providing extra time to some pupils was perceived as an absolute necessity. The ²⁶ state that in applying teaching methods, teachers should bear in mind that there is no single classroom in which all learners will be exactly the same or learn in the same way and at the same pace. As a result, ²⁷ in mainstream classrooms where storytelling, songs, rhymes, dramatization, learning through play as well as questions and answers. ²⁷ found out that only three of the six resource room teachers they observed provided differentiated reading materials instruction to match the individualized needs of their pupils. The collective message of research on outcomes for pupils with reading difficulty in inclusive classrooms and other settings is consistent with the findings for pupils with other disabilities: the location in which a pupil is taught is not as important as the quality of instruction that the pupil receives.

According to ²⁸ some teachers also use storytelling, whereby a teacher tells a story, using pictures and a big book for that matter and also allow the pupils to retell the story and dramatize it. Some pupils learn best through songs; others like rhymes; and others can understand and cope by listening while the teacher is teaching. Some can even formulate a game from an activity, especially in numeracy, when they count. The pupils with mild and moderate disabilities grasp a lot as they play. It is learning by participation through play.

Teaching through songs, rhymes, dance, poems and acting is much fun. For teachers this means that, in planning lessons they need to use visual materials (such as posters, pictures, drawings); to use tasks that involve discussion (listing and speaking); and to provide opportunities for movement of some form (e.g. drama and dance) ²⁸. Therefore, teachers need to use songs, rhymes, colourful pictures and real objects when teaching. Teachers usually used gesture, body and facial expression when teaching so that pupils would better understand and participate actively ²⁹. One other teaching method used by teachers in mainstream schools for pupils with mild and moderate disabilities is co-operative learning. ³⁰ explain that co-operative learning is a process whereby learners work together, especially in solving problems, in making projects and in reading. Teachers include pupils who are good in each group so that they can assist those who experience barriers or difficulty during learning. Pupils are free to share ideas and to interact with each other in the mainstream classroom. Co-operative learning occurs when pupils share responsibility and resources, as well as when they work towards common goals. Teachers walk around to guide pupils, facilitate and also to maintain discipline. Teachers provide the right environment and opportunity for all to learn actively ³¹.

According to ³² differentiated instruction is one method that allows teachers to address this situation while maintaining the intent of inclusion. Teachers are able to create lesson plans based on educational objectives for the entire class, while modifying the delivery, product or assessment for classroom learners. By providing instruction in this forum, classroom learners recognize that they are all learning the same material; however, it is presented in the way that meets their unique needs. Differentiated instruction has been identified as an effective teaching method that can address this issue for variety of pupils ¹⁷This educational method is based on the premise that all learners are different, that learning requires a connection of a pupil’s own abilities and interests and that lesson planning requires providing pupils with the type of instruction that can address their needs and educational objectives simultaneously.

Meanwhile, pupil centered pedagogies, with emphasis on collaborative learning, are generally accepted as effective in encouraging pupils from different backgrounds to participate in learning in mainstream schools ³³. However, not all pupils’ feel comfortable learning in these ways. For example, ³⁵ argues that the fear of not being understood and in the extreme, of being subject to ridicule, are most common barriers to participation in classroom discussion experienced by pupils with disabilities in inclusive classrooms. His study suggests a range of strategies to help pupils with disabilities overcome this fear. ³⁵ found that group working could cause increased anxiety in pupils with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities. This was possibly due to their ‘communication differences’ ³⁶. These studies suggest that situations involving discussion and dialogue can compound difficulties in social interaction for some pupils and act as a barrier to learning.

However, connecting with pupils’ interests, aspirations and future identities have been identified as a key factor in enhancing the participation of pupils with disabilities in mainstream classrooms during teaching and learning ³⁷.

Once the teacher decides on what to teach, he or she then thinks of how to teach, or some of the good ways to present his or her lessons to enhance pupils participation.

A carefully planned sequence for instruction, similar to a builder’s blueprint for a house characterizes systematic instruction. A blueprint is carefully thought out and designed before building materials are gathered and construction begins ³⁸.

³⁹ postulated that, there are so many strategies a teacher can adopt in managing children with mild and moderate disabilities and all other children to benefit from teaching and learning. Some of the teaching strategies provided as a guide for children includes: improving reading skills, overcoming motivational problems, managing attention deficits as one of the teaching strategies, ⁴⁰ stated that attention deficit is a characteristic often associated with learning by some of these children with mild and moderate disability in which they do not pay attention to the task or the correct features of a task to learn and to perform it well. In managing attention deficit teachers should:

*Organize the introductory component well enough to attract the pupils’ attention.

This can be done by using meaningful objects, songs that relate to the lesson and the use of questions that relate to lesson. Begin a lesson by asking a question that stimulates interest in the topic.

*Break instruction into small steps and provide short activities.

*Ensure all distracters are removed if possible.

*Use real or concrete materials in teaching.

*Prompt the children about the new task.

*Keep a level of difficulty that guarantees high rate of success etc. (p.21)

Some pupils with mild and moderate disabilities in mainstream classrooms have difficulty to learn. According to ⁴¹ poor metacognition is difficulties in identify how to learn, evaluate, monitor and adapt the, learning process to meet one’s learning needs. Therefore teachers need to develop enough strategies to enable pupils participate during teaching and learning. To manage poor metacognition, teachers should:

*Reduce amount of work to learn.

*Highlight key concepts

*Provide instruction in self-questioning.

*Provide opportunities for feedback

*Teach pupils to summarize materials.

*Focus on meaning, not memorization etc. (p.56).

⁴² opines that a wide variety of instructional options are required to effectively teach children with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities in the mainstream schools. The following are classroom strategies: Specific strategies must be directed to inappropriate behaviors exhibited or needs to compensate for their uneven skills development, focus attention on the pupils specific needs such as functional communication skills, social skills and self-protective skills. Be creative, innovative and positive in teaching, mild and moderate pupils with intellectual disabilities often are generally very dependent on routines, incorporate this into your teaching and learning process.

The study employed the descriptive survey method in which views and opinions were sampled from Head teachers and teachers on teachers’ strategies for enhancing participation of pupils with disabilities in selected pilot inclusive schools in South Tongu District. This method focused on systematic description or exposure of the salient aspects in that the researchers focused on the relationships between variables and further interpreted the relationship. ⁴³ reported that’ descriptive research is a type of quantitative research that involves making careful descriptions of educational phenomena’ (p. 27).

The main aim of descriptive research is to provide an accurate and valid representation of (encapsulate) the factors or variables that are relevant to the research question. A descriptive survey, by contrast, typically seeks to ascertain respondents’ perspectives or experiences on a specified subject in a predetermined structured manner. For example, a ‘citation analysis’ represents a variation of the descriptive survey method. Descriptive research methods are pretty much as they sound they describe situations.

They do not make accurate predictions, and they do not determine cause and effect ⁴³.

According to ⁴⁴ a population is the total collection of people, things, or event under consideration; it is whatever group the investigator wishes to make inferences about. Also, population according to ⁴⁵ is a general term for the larger group from which a sample is selected or the group to which the researcher would like to generalize the results of the study. The populations for the study are all teachers teaching in the pilot basic inclusive schools in the South Tongu District of the Volta Region of Ghana. The estimated population was about three hundred and twenty (320) teachers ⁴.

According to ⁴⁴ a sample is a group of individuals, items, or events selected from a population for a study, preferable in such a way that they represent the larger group from which they were selected.

From the sample distribution Table 1, ten (10) schools were randomly selected after considering the proximity of the schools to the researcher and by interacting with teachers from 2015 to 2017 when pilot inclusive education programme started in the district.

The main instrument used for the study was a questionnaire. ⁴⁶ noted that questionnaire can be used to gather quantitative or qualitative data. ⁴⁷ also noted that a questionnaire is used when factual information is desired. As the researcher desired to collect factual information on teachers’ strategies for enhancing participation of pupils with disabilities in selected pilot inclusive schools, a thirty three item likert scale questionnaire was designed to collect data from teachers.

⁴⁸ alleged that questionnaires offer an alternative form of data collection to interviews. He noted that questionnaires have the advantage of being easier and less time consuming to administer than interviews and responses of larger number of informants can also be gathered. The researchers considering the number of teachers in the ten pilot inclusive schools chose to administer questionnaire to the teachers so as to save some time. The designed questionnaires of the study were sent personally by the researchers to the schools on an appointed and accepted date. The questions were discussed with the teachers and later distributed to them to be answered.

To ensure validity of the conclusions drawn from the research, the items on the questionnaire noted to be ambiguous were either deleted or reframed to bring about clarity while relevant suggestions to the study were added. Also enough items were developed to cover each research question raised. A reliability test was performed using Cronback’s Alpha to establish the internal consistency of the item on the items on the questionnaire. The Cronback’s Alpha determined for 13 items on questionnaire and twenty items on the questionnaire were .672 and .764 respectively.

The data collected from the respondents was analyzed using the descriptive statistics.

The data were coded and the computer software, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 was used in analyzing them. ⁴⁹ stated that the exploration and description of data helps to identify the distribution of scores and aids researchers in assessing the general trends in the data and more specifically, in answering descriptive research questions. The researcher used the descriptive statistics in assessing the general trends for information gathered by representing the individual scores with numbers in the samples. This was used in answering the research questions raised to guide the study. The questionnaire was analyzed using the computer. Numerical description of the data was calculated providing the frequency of occurrences and the percentages of every individual statement. This gave the direction for answering the research questions.

The options, occurrences and percentages of the various items were calculated for each of the likert-scale responses of ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Not sure’, ‘Agree’, ‘Disagree’, ‘Always’, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Not at all’. The percentage response for each individual statement was indicated. ⁴⁴ noted that ‘the simplest way to describe opinions is to indicate percentage responses for each individual statement. they continued to say that for this type of analysis by item, eight responses, that is ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Not sure’, ‘Agree’, ‘Disagree’ ‘Always’, ‘Sometimes’ ‘Not at all’, individual percentages were indicated based on the responses. The percentages of the respondents who chose each response for each statement was given. A summary of the findings was provided and supported with tables and related literature.

3. Presentation of Analysis and Discussion of Findings

First the demographic characteristics of respondents, followed by the research questions and discussion on the key findings.

Demographic characteristics of respondents

The background information of the selected pilot inclusive basic school teachers in the South Tongu District in Ghana includes gender, highest professional qualification and number of years served in the school as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 shows that 51.4% of the respondents were females and 48.6% were Males, indicating that female constituted the majority of the teachers sampled for the research.

As depicted in Table 2, 39.3% of the respondents have Bachelor of Education Degree (B.Ed) followed by 25.7% Diploma in Basic Education (DBE), Certificate ‘A’ 4-yr Post-Secondary (16.4%). Others include 2-yr Specialist course (11.4%) and finally, Certificate ‘A’ 4-yr. (7.1%).

Considering gender against teaching experience at present school as illustrated in Table 3, 29% of males have served in their current school between 1 to 5 years while 24% of females also served within the same year. On the other hand more females 29% serve between 6 - 10 years against 25%. The high number of teachers, who served between 1 to 5 years and 6 – 10 years as indicated in Table 3, can be explained in view of the GES policy that, one should serve at least four years in a school before qualifying for transfer to another school. However, 12% of both males and females have served between 11 to 15 years. Two percent males and 5% females have served between 16 to 20 years. Finally, 2% females have done 21 years and above in their present schools.

Research Question 1

What types of disabilities are found among pupils in the selected pilot inclusive schools in South Tongu District?

Research question 1 was intended to find out the types of disabilities that are found in the ten (10) selected pilot inclusive schools in the South Tongu District.

Analysis from the data collected revealed that, physical impairments constitute the least disability recorded among our sample; it is the least observed disability in our sample. Reading difficulty or dyslexia is the highest disability recorded in our sample; it is the most observed form of disability recorded in our sample. Pupils with dyslexia experience difficulties affecting the learning process in aspects of literacy and sometimes numeracy. This was supported by ⁴⁸ who argued that for some pupils with reading difficulty or dyslexia, the regular education classroom may actually be more restrictive than a resource room or special class placement when the instructional needs of the pupils are considered.

In addition, placing pupils with reading difficulty in a pull-out programme or special class does not guarantee that he/she will receive the intensive, specialized instruction he/she needs. This is in line with a research conducted by ¹⁷ who found out that only three of the six resource room teachers they observed provided differentiated reading materials instruction to match the individualized needs of their pupils. The collective message of research on outcomes for pupils with reading difficulty in inclusive classrooms and other settings is consistent with the findings for pupils with other disabilities: the location in which a pupil is taught is not as important as the quality of instruction that the pupil receives.

On the general scale, from Table 5: an average of 43.225% was recorded across board, indicating that on the average, 43.225% of all the eight disabilities were observed in the sample. From the Table 4 it is clearly shown that hard of hearing, low vision, fine motor skills, attention deficit, reading difficulty (dyslexia) and calculation difficulty (dyscalculia) are disabilities that are evident in the selected schools. In the cases of physical impairments and multiple disabilities, cases of such disabilities are on the minimal. The findings agreed with ¹⁴ who also indicated that regular education teachers should adapt and modify the content of the syllabus to increase the success level of all categories of pupils with special needs inclusive schools ⁴⁰. ¹¹ confirmed that a pupil described as hearing mild and moderate hearing impairment, is the one who has some problems hearing well or using his/her ears to hear speech and sound, or other disabilities like low vision. They continue to say that such conditions are found in the mainstream classroom where pupils try to locate sources of sound, struggling to see in the classroom during instructional periods sometimes making it difficult for pupils to cope with learning in the mainstream schools.

Research Question 2

What teaching methods do teachers in the selected pilot inclusive schools use to teach pupils with disabilities in their classroom?

Research question 2 was intended to find out the teaching methods teachers use in the ten (10) pilot inclusive schools to promote the participation of pupils during instructional periods.

Table 6 captured the responses of teachers on teaching methods that they use in the mainstream schools to promote pupils participation during teaching and learning. The data analysis suggests that the teaching method one-on-one instruction is the least always used in our sample but to address the individual educational needs of pupils’ differentiated instruction has been identified as an effective teaching method that can address this issue for a variety of pupils ¹⁷ The method one-on-one instruction is based on the premise that all learners are different, that learning requires a connection of a pupil’s own abilities and interests and that lesson planning requires providing pupils with the type of instruction that can address their needs and the educational objectives simultaneously.

The teaching method often used among our sample is simple to complex. This confirmed the study of ²⁴ who found that teachers in the mainstream schools give more time to particular pupils for completing a classroom assignment followed by breaking down activities from complex to simple task, using alternative material for some pupils, implementing activities at various levels of difficulty, using computers for supporting learning, forwarding diverse activities during the same instructional hour and using specific resources such as perforated boards or resource room settings. In addition ²⁵ indicated that teaching pupils from simple to complex were used mainly in the area of language and mathematics as part of the methods used by teachers for supporting pupils learning and participation.

Questions and Answers is the least method used by the teachers in the sample because it has the least percentage from the data. This could be in the agreement with ³⁴ who argues that the fear of pupils not being able to understand lessons and in the extreme, of being subject to ridicule, are the most common barriers to participation in classrooms ³⁵ found that group teaching using question and answers method could cause increased anxiety in pupils with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities. This was possibly due to their communication difficulties in social interaction for some pupils with mild and moderate disabilities and act as a barrier to learning ³⁶.

Teaching using rhymes is the method most sometimes used by the teachers in the sample, ²⁸ remarked that teaching rhymes is much fun however, the method is not beneficial to mild and hearing impaired pupils. From our summary of data on percentage distribution, Table 7 indicates that all the teaching methods are used averagely at 51.328% during teaching in our selected schools. It can also be seen that questions and answers is the teaching method that is highly not used at all by the sample. It suggests that 30.65% of all the teaching methods are always used by the teachers in our sample schools.

Teaching methods (approaches) for ideal results in education is very crucial in special needs education. This is so because there are several components of a curriculum, for example the contents, methods, tools, and the process of the teaching. ⁵⁰ is of the opinion that, the use of appropriate teaching methods bring teachers to the use of appropriate skills concepts in the use of instructional objective of every lesson. It helps the teacher to have idea about the learner. The teacher will have characteristics in terms of knowledge of pupils in areas of age, sex, race, ethnic background to help input good teaching skills. The curriculum itself is developed following its educational goal in respect of the stakeholders, environment, and the education program. Knowledge in appropriate methods of teaching will help the teachers to put in the right perspectives the content which are goal directed. In a classroom teaching setting, of course, the methods are essential; but, its uses have to be considered systematically. The flexibility of the method and utilization can be highlighted with regard to the teaching goal, considering who the stakeholders (actors) are; in this case the environment can be adapted to meet the needs of individuals with disabilities.

4. Conclusion

In light of the findings from the study, the following conclusions are imperative;

* There are pupils with mild and moderate disabilities found in the pilot inclusive schools

* Teachers do not use the appropriate methodology in teaching pupils with mild and moderate disabilities in the pilot inclusive schools.

* Head teachers do not provide appropriate teaching and learning material for teachers to use in teaching pupils with mild and moderate disabilities in the pilot inclusive schools.

*Teachers encounter difficult situations in teaching pupils with mild and moderate disabilities in the pilot inclusive schools.

5. Recommendations

In view of the findings of the study it is being recommended that:

*Teachers must group pupils according to their ability levels during teaching and learning.

* The District Education Office must employ more sign language instructors and Braille readers to help the hearing and visually impaired pupils.

*During reading lessons teachers must plan and provide drill-and-practice program thoroughly to enhance pupils participation and easy understanding of lessons.

References