Investigating Teachers’ Attitudes towards Integrating Pupils with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) In mainstream Middle Schools The Case of First Year Pupils at Tebessa Three Middle Schools

Abstract

This dissertation’s aim is to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards teaching autistic learners foreign languages and engaging them in mainstream schools .This research introduces Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) general background. Afterwards, it describes the importance and the benefits of including autistic pupils in general schools. Also, it explains the most beneficial strategies of supporting and motivating autistic students which may help them positively in improving themselves, ameliorating their behaviours, and facilitating their therapies. To realise this researches’ aims and to test research hypothesis, a questionnaire was transmitted to three middle schools Mlayem Mouhamed , Bougaren Mouhamed ,and Souahi Madeni to ten teachers of English to know whether they do have positive or negative attitudes towards teaching autistic learners in EFL classrooms . Furthermore, an observation was conducted during teaching English language to ensure autistic students ability in acquiring languages as any normal students and behaving appropriately in classrooms. The research findings reveal that the majority of teachers who participated in this study show positive attitudes towards the importance of teaching autistic students foreign languages, but just half of the representative population accept and encourage engaging them in general schools ,and the other half percentage of teachers reject totally the idea .In addition to that ,it is observed that autistic learners react properly in English sessions ,but do face difficulties in interacting in general classrooms effectively .