Thomas and his wife, Mary, have a daughter who married an Italian man and now lives with her husband in Milan; the young couple are expecting a baby in the New Year. Both Thomas and Mary are really looking forward to spending time with their daughter and new grandchild and plan to make extended visits. They have enrolled on an ‘Italian for beginners’ course so that they will be able to communicate with their daughter’s family and friends in Italy.

Thomas has a visual impairment and can read Braille, though he prefers to receive information electronically via email; he has installed software on his home PC that reads the text on screen out loud to him.

To begin with the Italian classes involved a lot of pair work and Thomas worked closely with his wife. More recently, the class has been required to work in groups and Thomas has found this harder to cope with. He is a little embarrassed about having to have Mary read everything to him, or describe what’s in the pictures that are often used as the basis for some of the learning activities. He thinks that the other people in his group feel that they are not getting as much practice (and value for money) from the course since so much time is taken up with Mary having to read everything to him before they can get started.

The teacher was very experienced in working with people from a range of backgrounds but had never worked with someone with a visual impairment before. She expressed her concern about Thomas’s progress on her course and the impact on the other people in his group to her line manager; she was able to offer a number of suggestions that resolved all of the issues for both Thomas and his classmates.

• The college has a Brailing machine which was used to produce lesson materials in a format that is accessible to Thomas. The college also has an administrator who is competent in using the device, so the teacher was encouraged to provide her with the relevant teaching materials for Brailing. Many of these materials can remain with the course for use by future class members who might require them.
• Following discussion with Thomas and Mary, the teacher also arranged to provide the relevant course materials in electronic format a week in advance of each lesson. This allowed Thomas to use his PC screen reader to access the information relating to the lesson ahead of the group work activities - and also meant that he and Mary managed to fit in some extra practice!

Two people with the same disability can experience different effects. Furthermore, the effects of one disability can be similar to the effects of another (for example, deaf learners and learners who have autistic spectrum disorders may both experience difficulties in using abstract language).