TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN WITH INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FOR EFL TEACHERS

This study aimed to investigate the challenges faced by English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in teaching children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The study used a qualitative approach to understand the difficulties teachers encountered in interacting with and teaching children with special needs, as well as the efforts they made to overcome these difficulties. The results show four main categories of difficulties in teaching students with special needs: providing suitable learning materials for students' needs and abilities, communicating lessons effectively, repeating materials, and developing appropriate learning materials. Furthermore, the study identified seven practical efforts made by teachers to overcome teaching difficulties. These included using effective strategies for managing an active classroom, employing techniques to reduce classroom tension, utilizing the best approaches to build relationships with students, establishing clear classroom rules and effectively communicating them, addressing learning problems, resolving conflicts between students, and making efforts to engage students who were bored or less interested in the class material. In conclusion, this study provided an in-depth look at the challenges EFL teachers faced in teaching children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, along with practical solutions to help teachers surmount these challenges and establish an inclusive and productive learning environment for all students.