TEACHING ENGLISH AT SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOOL : AN ENGLISH TEACHER PERSPECTIVE (A NARRATIVE INQUIRY STUDY)

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to find out how English teachers who are not from Special Education Schools can adapt to Special Schools as a place to work, as well as the teaching strategies they use in the classroom to teach children with Special Needs. This type of research is using the Narrative Inquiry research method which has stages, namely identifying problems that are suitable for narrative research and selecting one or more participants to study. The researcher then collects stories from the participants about their life experiences and retells the stories to form a chronology of events that may involve characters, areas, problems, actions, and resolutions. Throughout this process, collaboration occurs with participants, and stories composed by researchers tell about the participants' life experiences. Data collection was obtained from interviews with 2 English teachers Mr. Dirman and Mrs. Titis at SLB Wiradesa and the school principal Mrs. Juhariyah as field data validation. Based on the results of the study, the researchers found that the adaptation processes of the two teachers had their own processes so that in the end they were able to adapt to the environment at school. As well as the strategies applied by English teachers who are felt to be optimal for teaching students with mental disabilities through the Differentiated Learning strategy. teachers provide guidance to students based on their abilities or the level of mentally disabled students. Teaching strategies that are carried out as in learning English, lesson plans, learning methods, learning media and the role of the teacher are very important for the development of learning for mentally retarded students, because they have limitations in accepting learning, this problem comes when learning something.