Barrier-Free Classrooms: The Road to Change and Ideas for Your Classes
By: Alexandra Burke
This is a story of massive educational change in Japan, which has the concept of equity firmly planted at its base and does have the potential to make learning barrier-free. In years to come, this process will become a planning case study in public administration, where it will be compared with policy change in other countries. When I last wrote on learning differences for the Think Tanks in May, 2019, language learning in Japan was in quite a different situation. At that time, I offered several recommendations of things that I felt were possible to help the learners and within the reach of most teachers. Within a month of that publication, the education sector was about to undergo a significant shift because of the introduction of the Barrier Free Reading Act of 2019. Like all major changes, its impact may take years to be truly visible. But this change did not take place in a vacuum and there is also a story of cultural change in the community within the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) and how people are adapting to a new way of looking at their classes. If you find you have a learner with a declared disability in your class, I would like you to appreciate just how rare they are, being only 1.79% of all tertiary students in 2023 (JASSO, 2024). There are many more undeclared learners with barriers. My goal, as someone who was one of these students, is that you do everything possible to create an environment that will keep them in the classroom. Why? Because as multiple studies have shown, the longer you are in schooling, the longer you will live: it’s that simple (Balaj et al., 2024).
History and some numbers
On June 19, 2019, the Japanese Parliament ratified the “Act on Promotion of Improvement of the Reading Environment for the Visually Impaired,” more commonly referred to at policy level as “Aiming for a Society Where Everyone Can Read—Individuals Can Choose the Form of Reading” and in everyday life called “The Barrier-Free Reading Act.” It’s a mouthful but important. One of the indicators of its commitment to the principles of this Act is that the government now uses accessible fonts for its own research publications and the nation’s textbooks. What makes them easy to read is spacing, character height, and the width of individual strokes.
Currently, learners can also be officially recognised as having a specific learning difficulty that does not represent an intellectual difficulty. In 2022, observations by teachers of students in mainstream classes in public elementary and junior high schools showed that approximately 8.8% of students appeared to have a learning difficulty that was not attributable to intellectual difficulty. In public high schools, this figure dropped to 2.2%.(MEXT, 2022), so there is a gap here that represents a barrier to entering public high school for this group. It is also an equity gap, as public high schools are partly free, whereas private highschools or training colleges are not. To attempt to enter public highschools, many families will have spent a considerable amount on extracurricular training.
With regard to higher education, in May 2023, the Japan Student Services Organisation’s (JASSO) annual survey press release – Summary, (released August 9, 2024) reported there were a total of 3,247,212 learners at university, colleges and vocational colleges. Of this group, 1.79%, (58,141 – an increase of 8,469 on 2022) requested support for any kind of disability to educational institutions (JASSO, 2024). This number seems very low, but it is increasing each year, particularly since 2019 (start year of the changes to disability laws). Mining further down into the accompanying Report, of all these, students with developmental disorders (ADHD, Autism, the new category of Specific Learning Differences and combined status) is 11, 706 (up from 7006 in 2019). Finally inside that, students who asked for support for reading (often called dyslexia), writing (dysgraphia), and math (dyscalculia) number 309, up from 254 the previous year (JASSO Report, 2024).1
1 This is why what teachers do in their classrooms to make learning inclusive is so important. We know the minimum prevalence rate is 8.8% but the number willing to ask for help is microscopic. Be the teacher who removes barriers, because few people will document that they need support.
The bulk of the information on this is in Japanese and can be read on the Ministry for Education Website. If you are not a fluent reader of Japanese, you can take advantage of (imperfect) machine translation by right-clicking on the screen to translate in Chrome; open reader mode via the URL bar in Safari or on Edge, right click to open in Immersive Reader, then select the top right toolbar to open the dictionary where you can choose which language to translate it into by word or page.
Ripping down those barriers to education at last!
The enactment of the Barrier-Free Reading Act, (dokusho barria furi hou) which enshrined the right to read by ear, in addition to other senses, was the final step in plans formed nearly two decades earlier, to make school more accessible and to prevent people from becoming recluses. The tools for enactment of long-term hardware infrastructure planning were being unboxed. Training schedules were booked. Shiny new textbooks brimming with QR codes that took the reader to carefully curated audio or video, were being counted and sorted in schools. (I was lucky enough to have seen the prototype digital textbook demonstrated in a meeting at the Ministry of Education: it was very exciting). The new culture of Barrier-Free Reading would roll out across the country, to all, as part of the GIGA Initiative (Global Information Gateway for All) “1-student 1-device.”
Then, media reports of the new coronavirus swept the world. Group training sessions, (always done face-to-face to allow people to reflect and problem solve together) were postponed, then canceled, and we waited. The books stayed in their boxes. For the education sector, the timing could not have been worse. A comprehensive model, which had been designed to show students the linkages between subjects, between parts of their curriculum, right down to the lower years of elementary school, could not be implemented as planned.
Changes in the landscape
As everyone hurried to find ways to deal with education in a model no one was ready for, unexpected things happened. Some people who hadn’t previously come to class or participated, were re-engaging in education, while others were struggling. I heard these stories online and also in staff rooms. What was different? One of the great unexpected discoveries of the pandemic is that people with different brains might adapt to technology differently. And because people had time to notice their routines and to focus, we started to notice that more of the population may be on the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) scale than was previously thought.
Thankfully, Drs. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey also released their book ADHD 2.0 just in time, in January 20212. This book is a mine of useful information on the neurology of ADHD and strategies for classroom and lifestyle management.
2 Now available in Japanese here.
Here, from their book, is a list of traits that resonate with people who have or may have ADHD (p.17-18).
Useful | Problematic |
Naturally creative; ideas pop all the time like in a popcorn machine | Trouble organizing all the ideas and doing something productive with them |
Confident; self-assured | Insecure; despite confident exterior, feels success was all done by smoke and mirrors |
Community Responses
An online community grew up that became known as Online Teaching Japan (OTJ). Jose Domingo Cruz became the face of Zoom training for many language teachers. He and OTJ administrators and members created an environment where we could share practical skills to apply barrier-free learning principles, with rigorous debate, but remarkably without competition. During this period, I did a lot of online workshops and the impact was that a lot more people were talking in detail about their classes and whether they’d noticed certain students having difficulty with classwork. This significantly expanded the number of people wanting to talk about learning differences. Usually in a face-to-face situation, one or two people would want to stay after the workshop or presentation to ask questions or simply tell me that they or close relatives/students were neurodiverse and ask for more resources. In the online workshops, though, people started talking openly about mental health and how to stay physically active, as many had lost their commute and the chance to take several thousand steps a day. At the same time, JALT created the Accessibility in Language Learning Special Interest Group in 2020, which has a newsletter specializing in applied accessibility. Thanks to the interest of intersecting committees across JALT, such as the Mind, Brain, and Education SIG, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee; the Director of Records; Technical Advisory and Support Committee; and Publicity Committee, accessibility is now part of the foundation and future of how members interact with JALT both on paper and online. As we returned to face-to-face events, it was a joy to see accessibility become a standard category of presentations, starting with the PanSIG conferences. Overall, accessibility done well will mean that you don’t notice it, because barriers are gone, and customization options are visible and waiting.
In late 2020, I was invited by Dr. Melodie Cook to work with her and Dr. Davey Young as an editor of what became the book Barrier-Free Instruction in Japan: Recommendations for Teachers at All Levels of Schooling, published in April 2024, by Candlin & Mynard ePublishing. The list I mentioned above has now been expanded to over 40 points of possible action across 11 principles. In addition, the chapters include a wide range of case studies, narratives, and broad suggestions for practice. The book itself took a long time to come out, partly because of my lingering anxiety caused by spending years in doubt of my abilities because of teachers being unable to accept that my reading speed might be high, but my handwriting and math skills are lower. Despite over a hundred presentations and several publications, I still experience the phobias I mentioned in the previous article as strongly as ever. This increases my commitment to keep listening and keep giving neurotypical people experiences that allow them to understand what it is like to be neurodiverse, but also to see past that to the potential that lies in each of us.
In Chapter 2, I included several examples of what people would like others to know about their life as someone with reading disorder, autism, ADHD, aphantasia, developmental coordination disorder, and other barriers. Remarkably, only one person, the ThinkTank’s very own Professor Marc Helgeson, felt comfortable enough to put his name to his experience as a person with dyscalculia. The rest were too worried about career impact, while experiencing some relief at being heard and understood.. Some cried when they saw their anonymous stories on the printed page. The Brain SIG is organizing, for the upcoming JALT International Conference, a poster presentation about Neurodiversity of people who are neurodiverse and comfortable with sharing that information, plus a poster of empty frames containing the stories of those who want others to know about their lives as people with neurodiversity and their suggestions for things that would help remove barriers. Voice actors are going to bring those stories to life to make it reading barrier-free, of course! The long-term goal is that one day, no-one would be worried about being open about their neurodiversity. It is a powerful experience to decide to no longer be alone and move past feeling broken. I had so many people reach out that I eventually set up secret chats for peer support and to build advocacy networks. Trust is incredibly important. It is truly inspiring to see so many articles and research papers emerging from our JALT community on accessibility.
What to do and why
Most people, quite rationally, don’t want to spend time fixing things that don’t appear to be broken. To overcome this problem, we need to step out of our shoes and look at the view from the perspective of others. The X-factor for moving the hearts of people who have never experienced a barrier is making it real. One of the simplest ways is to enable the non-printing character mode on your computer via the view menu in Google Docs or the paragraph mark on the format bar on Microsoft Word. Some of you will love this. Others will find they are rendered unable to read or write. At that point, you are discovering something new about inclusion or exclusion.
So, that brings me to the first point in my list of recommendations.
Start the semester with a statement that you understand that people work in different ways and you are always happy to listen.
Assume that a student who does not submit work may have a technology-related barrier or an executive function difficulty rather than they do not care. Students who know what to do and how to do it will usually do it. When dealing with students who appear lost, or defensive, I keep in mind the words of the late Patricia L Vail, an educator and author, “These [children] are not looking for the easy way out, they are looking for the right way in”.
Passwords: Passwords can be an invisible barrier (and once again, I am a poster-child example of this) for anyone who has executive function, reading and/or numeracy challenges. There is an emerging body of research on this area, and I recommend you to read the work of Karen Renaud.
Reasonable accommodation: Students may appear in your class with a letter stating “reasonable accommodations”; (a list of conditions they are entitled to have, to make the class accessible for them: for example, headphones in certain situations, using a screen-reader to read, rather than their eyes). For some teachers these letters are helpful to prepare for situations. But for others, they can feel like a restriction on their teaching practice, which needs a bit of “tweaking to fit”. These are highly private, legally binding agreements between the specified educational organization and the student and are based on best practice in consultation with psychologists and physicians etc. Trying to renegotiate these is going to stress the student because of the power imbalance.
For example, many teachers worldwide are worried about AI and the originality of student work. So you change your syllabus to require students to handwrite assignments during classes. In your class is a student who has approval to use keyboarding or voice dictation. All students start writing on paper, except for that one student who is on a computer. Everyone looks at them. What’s going on? Why are they special? This is in effect, forcing the student to involuntarily disclose their disability status to others. Because of the stigma associated with being different, they will almost certainly abandon their hard won accommodations to stay hidden. If this is the case, be prepared not to penalize the student for slow or messy writing. Denying a student the right to use their accommodations by intention or by default, could impact on their future career.
Access: Make sure everyone can access your online content within seconds to minutes. Survey your class to see if they can use all the technical tools needed for the class. This could be digital (using a form accessed by QR code) or paper if you prefer. Why a QR code? A student who cannot log into the computer because they can’t remember their password, is not going to be able to “click on a link” in the document management system. But they usually can access a QR code. Follow up during the session with anyone missing in case of failure to comprehend or technical failure.
Conferring about what’s expected: Build in short conferring and question time immediately after you give instructions on key tasks. This will help students with reading difficulties and executive function challenges to all get to the same point quickly. Tell the group you will want three questions and put a marker for each point on the board. Allow students to photograph the board and any notes you have written. This is more efficient for students who cannot notetake quickly or legibly. They can notate the photograph. If you have a student with a visual impairment, give them the slides before class, or allow them to photograph the screen as you present, so they can zoom in on the contents.
Speaking Time: Build in more speaking time along the lines of fast progressive speaking pairs to achieve fluency. Make two or more long rows of pairs, and have the students progress clockwise to a new partner every 2 minutes or less. This builds peer interaction and strengthens speaking skills. Having a predetermined partner reduces anxiety in students who are nervous about being picked. Language courses should be fun. Frequent changes also reduces the likelihood of silence.
Handwriting. Don’t enforce writing by hand because it may affect the student’s output due to stress. If you are someone who feels irritated by “messy handwriting” you may conclude that it reflects on the student’s attitude to study, whereas, it could be dysgraphia or even joint-hypermobility.
Handedness. If your organization has the computers set up for right handed people only, you could eg: ask if extra mouse mats can be provided or if computer mice, which are not surface sensitive, can be bought next time hardware is upgraded. Quietly drop a mat on the table of students you notice writing with their left hand. It is very rare for a student to accept an invitation to come get a mouse mat.
Color vision differences
Think about your classroom and where you use color. Look at the difference color vision can make to the humble board magnet, depending on how your brain interprets the colors you see. Some of them disappear entirely, so think about this if you are using magnets as markers for lesson progression. Show your students and colleagues what the world may look depending on their color vision type by using Professor Kazunori Asada’s app Chromatic Vision Simulator. Color is made up of Red Green and Blue. Different quantities of these colors change the appearance of an object. In software for slides, on color schemes you can click on sliders and see the color wheel.
I use this in class to show the students the impact that color has on signage, clothing, and other things we take for granted, like the red pen. Your “red pen” handwriting on student work is going to look a lot like the rest of the writing on a page of notes to a person who cannot distinguish red and pencil on white paper. If you download the app and look at your classroom, you will see if it is color blind accessible.
Graphs? Are they labeled sufficiently so that the person with colorblindness in your classroom (there will be at least one) can understand the data as well as the others (Moriya, 2024). For younger learners, games involving color can be a minefield for bullying, but if you label colors in the room, students can have a better chance of learning to recognize which one you mean.
Conclusion
When dealing with students who appear lost, or defensive, I keep in mind the words of the late Patricia L. Vail, an educator and author: “These [children] are not looking for the easy way out, they are looking for the right way in.”
References
Balaj, M., Henson, C. A., Aronsson, A., Aravkin, A., Beck, K., Degail, C., Donadello, L., Eikemo, K., Friedman, J., Giouleka, A., Gradeci, I., Hay, S. I., Jensen, M. R., Mclaughlin, S. A., Mullany, E. C., O’connell, E. M., Sripada, K., Stonkute, D., Sorensen, R. J., . . . Gakidou, E. (2024). Effects of education on adult mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2468-2667(23)00306-7
誰もが読書をできる社会を目指して～読書のカタチを選べる「読書バリアフリー法」～(啓発用リーフレット):文部科学省. (n.d.). 文部科学省ホームページ. https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/ikusei/gakusyushien/mext_01304.html
Berisso, K. (2018). Addressing color blind awareness in the classroom. Journal of Business and Management Sciences, 6(3), 93-99.
JASSO (Japan Student Services Organization). (2024). JASSO Reiwa 5th Year “Reiwa 5th year (2023 academic year) at universities, junior colleges and technical colleges Summary of the Results of the “Fact-finding Survey on Study Support for Students with Disabilities”
MEXT (Ministry of Education, Sports, Science, and Technology) . (2022, December 13). Tsujo no gakkyu ni zaiseki suru tokubetsuna kyoikuteki shien o hitsuyo to suru jidoseito ni kansuru chosa [Survey on students with special educational needs enrolled in regular classes]. https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/2022/1421569_00005.htm
Moriya, R. (2024). Colorblind learners: A social model of color blindness in language learning. In A. Burke, D., Young, & M. L. Cook (Eds.), Barrier-free Instruction in Japan: Recommendations for teachers at all levels of schooling (pp. 194-205). Candlin & Mynard. https://doi.org/10.47908/30/10
Alexandra Burke worked for over 18 years in national health policy development, research, and program implementation in Australia. She now teaches in Japan. Alex holds a B.A. in Public Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Health Economics. She is co-editor of Barrier free Instruction in Japan, Candlin and Mynard, 2024.