Teaching French to a non-sighted undergraduate: adjusting practices to deliver inclusive education

This article sets out to illustrate the needs of a registered blind undergraduate student embarking upon a post-A-level French course at the University of Northampton. It also reflects upon (1) some of the challenges faced by the higher education (HE) tutors concerned and (2) the key adjustments put into place with a view to adopting differentiation strategies and creating a supportive, enabling, and inclusive teaching/learning (T/L) environment whilst maintaining academic standards. Because language students' exposure to the written word is deemed essential to the development of their accuracy, many effective traditional 'sighted' activities are generally used to that effect. This article outlines the alternative tasks that had to be designed, some with a user-friendly handheld electronic voting system named Qwizdom, others with WimbaCreate, a Microsoft Word add-on for converting Word documents into accessible web pages. Last but not least, this article also provides suggestions for future, anticipatory adjustments to teaching strategies and (T/L as well as assessment) materials in line with the lessons learnt from the last two academic years.