Amaia Arregi
Fina Pons
Loli Pastoriza
Amaia Urain
Ana Oses
Interview information
Organization responsible for the interview: Errotu
Country: Spain
Occupation: Special education teachers
Small bio / CV:
Amaia Arregi: Phycologist, specialized in children with special needs. Ten years of experience in different companies and schools with children under 12 years old.
Fina Pons: Special needs teacher. More than 30 years of experience in public and private schools and in academies.
Loli Pastoriza: Retired phycologist specialized in children with special needs. All her working life has been around children with special needs.
Amaia Urain: Special needs teacher. 5 years of experience with children with special needs, actually in a private reinforcement academy working with children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.
Ana Oses: Retired special needs teacher. Most of her working life has been a support teacher for children with special needs in a public school.
Date of the Interview: 14.06.2024
Short Summary of the interview:
5 women with a very different background around children with special needs participated in this focus group.
Depending on the age and the professional background their knowledge and experience varies a little, but they also have a lot of common points of view.
These are highly motivated professionals too who feel very connected to their students. They all admit that sometimes they are who, under their initiative, look for examples, experiences or materials that can help their students in their learning process.
But they recognize that with time, dedication, methodology and appropriate materials, many of these children are capable of learning much more than a priori believed.
Most important statement
They agree that many times the families are the ones who refuse to accept the difficulties or disabilities of a child and because of this reason, communication with them can be complicated.
The knowledge of new technologies varies depending on the age of the professional, but they all agree that game-based learning could be an appropriate and useful tool to teach any topic to a child with learning difficulties.
But, teachers should be trained in these topic, and how to apply them in an environment where some of the children may have learning difficulties and some may not.
Also they point, that many times, foreign language teachers lack the basic knowledge about learning difficulties or disabilities and should be trained in this topic.
In formal training, to have a foreign language teacher with a special needs teacher as a support together in the classroom could be also an option.
