Abstract

Today, higher education (HE) faces new challenges, such as incorporatingconsideration of diversity and inclusion into its operations. Suchchallenges, many of which are part of strategic institutional plans, offerteachers an opportunity to introduce new practices in the classroom. Inthis paper, we look at introducing language students to the task of audiodescription (AD)–that is, making visual content available to blind andvisually impaired people by verbal means. Wefirst present a frameworkfor evaluating the learning that might derive from such an activity in thecontext of FL study, and then use this framework to evaluate a sequenceoffive tasks undertaken with Irish learners of Spanish. The tasks providedopportunities for the students to reflect on the communication needs ofblind and visually impaired people and to understand how these couldbe addressed effectively in AD. The students practised AD in variouscontexts: both‘improvised’or‘spontaneous’AD as well as more carefullyprepared AD, and undertaking AD in both the L1 (English) and the FL(Spanish). The pedagogic approach investigated here was inherentlymultidisciplinary and aimed to help learners become self-reflectingagents and mediators in their L1 and FL.