Inclusion and inclusive teaching are very topical and also very important today. Working with students with special educational needs is interesting in many respects: they demand of us, as teachers and as individuals, a different perspective and attitude toward the subject of study; they demand caution, patience, readiness, and love. In the school educational setting, engaging students on the autism spectrum in the learning process significantly contributes to both their adaptation to the environment and their mastery of material through differentiated instruction. Numerous methods and ways have been found for collaborating with or teaching students with learning disabilities during the lesson process. My practical research this time deals with a method for teaching English through songs to students on the autism spectrum, which I have called ‘Speak-Sing’. This involves a rather extensive and seemingly simple process, but in reality, the teaching process, observation, and results, the created resources and the dynamics of teaching have shown how not only labor-intensive and responsible, but also a highly interesting and, at the same time, complex process it is. As I have already mentioned, the characteristics of this spectrum vary because every student is an individual. Therefore, it was discovered that for one of them, learning English is also possible through singing, because she can only string sentences together when she sings. Since I am still in the process of research, observation, investigation, and the search for new discoveries based on my practice, I will now speak only about the stages that, so far, have led both me and my student to small results. In the process of differentiated instruction, I prepare material for the student that is manageable and acceptable to her, and that does not deviate from the national curriculum. A key part of the teaching process is visually presenting new words with pictures, flashcards and explaining, naming, and writing them; next, make the new words into a song and let her listen to it; check the learnt words through quizzes; then creating a new resource, this time in the form of a simple, short song which uses short sentences and already-repeated words; followed by a further repetition of old and new words through varied quizzes again; and finally creating a new resource, short, a themed video where the learnt vocabulary is shown being used in a different context through a short, easy story to watch. She can listen to these songs and study the words by heart. This is, of course, not the final, fully-formed process, and whilst I am still in the research phase, the results are already so noticeable and tangible that it is very gratifying and encouraging. It is a living process and, as such, each time, at the end of every lesson, a new, different approach or need emerges. In this difficult and complex process, parental support and cooperation are of paramount importance. During the research process, I will return to teaching through songs with students on the autism spectrum and describe each step in detail.
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