Hi everyone. I have Elnette Kotze here with me again today. Today we're going to be talking about modifications that you can make in your classrooms. So welcome back home Elnette Kotze. Thank you. Firstly can you tell me who a teacher can connect with so that both they and the school can understand how better to meet a deaf learners needs. The in on data Schools audiologist, ordered a class visit in the beginning of the school year to do a basic introduction on hearing loss and hearing aid to the other normal hearing learners in the classroom. This way, these learners have been informed and they have the opportunity to ask questions. Both you and the learners have then been informed on the specific needs of the learner, who presents with hearing loss in your classroom. Your focus can now be on teaching and finding the appropriate teaching strategies and classroom adaptations, the base support data in a specific individual needs. Thank you so much. After a teacher has learned more about the deaf learners needs, what are some of the ways that a teacher can modify the classroom so that the death learner has the most access to information. When you work with a deaf learner in the classroom, there are a few things that you need to consider as an educator. Firstly, I want to encourage you to try and put yourself in that learners shoes. Imagine that you are now a deaf learner. You have been placed in a classroom with 35 other learners. You can hear little or no sounds, and you have to rely on people's mouths to understand. The classroom that you are in is dark, and you start with the see the board in front of the classroom because you are seated way in the back. You see the teacher standing in front of the board, facing away from you. The teacher talks mostly while she is facing the board. When the teacher is not facing the board, the teacher moves around the class most of the time during the teaching period. She makes frequent gestures with her hands in front of her face. You look around and everybody else seems to understand exactly what is going on. Except for you. At the end of 60 minutes you are now expected to router taste. Amy, you have no idea what you were supposed to have heard. Now you're only filling in any answer that you can think of. This might be the situation that your deaf learner finds himself in within the mentoring class room on a daily basis. I know, because I have been there. By placing ourselves in our learners shoes and trying and to experience the world as they experience it. We gain a better understanding of our learners and the challenges that they face on a daily basis. Whether in our classrooms, or in earth. There are a few adjustments that you as an educator can make to your own classroom. Positioning, use of hand and gestures, lighting, noise levels, processing time, teaching speed, lesson structure and timetable, taking notes in the classroom, and the number of learners that you may have in your classroom. In terms of positioning, the position of the learner as well as the educator in the classroom is vital to their learning success. It's preferable that you place the deaf learner closer to the front of the classroom, with an unobstructed view of the board, and of you as the educator. You would ideally love to stand stall in front of the classroom and limit your own movement during the teaching period. I've personally been in lectures, where lecturers would move around the whole lecture venue making it quite difficult to follow them. I ended up with neck strain from trying to see where they are. While you are fetching the bottle or they're refrain from speaking, until you have finished writing and faster learners again. Make use of appointing stick to point at words or pictures on the board. While you still mostly face your learners. Do ask the learners whether the classroom positioning is sufficient for them and for their access to you. Onto my second point, use of hands and gestures. Our hands are the one body part that is probably most often used in communication together with our mouths. Within the context of the deaf learner, it is important to realize that the normal use of gestures could in fact be barrier in these learners understanding of you. The educator in the classroom. When you're teaching, try to limit your hand movements while you're speaking. So the focus is more on your face instead of both your face and your hands. If you aren't using sign language, try not to make sounds with spontaneous normal emphasizing gestures. From male teachers, it is also a good idea to keep in mind that facial hair such as beard, and mustaches can impact a deaf person's ability to lipread efficiently. About my third point, lighting. The lighting in the classroom can play a big role in accessibility of information. When you enter your classroom, ensure that you switch on the main light and that the light provided is satisfactory. You should immediately replace any flickering light bulb, as a flickering light can be a distraction in the learning environment. Consider the windows in the classroom and the natural light coming in through that window. Make sure that when you're facing the learner in your classroom, that you're not standing directly in front of the window, or to your face and your body to be in shadow, therefore making your face and lips inaccessible to learners who need to lip read you. I often find myself parting the curtains into my own therapy room, and relying only on overhead lighting to make it easier for both me and the learners to see each other clearly. I always ask the learners I worked with whether they can see my face well. When you're showing a video in the classroom, or using a PowerPoint presentation, ensure that there still is sufficient lighting on your face for the learner to see your face. Ask the learners whether they can see sufficiently and regularly tick on the lighting during the school day. On to my fourth point, noise levels. Classrooms can be really very noisy spaces. Lots of noise can be very distracting to the learner that makes use of hearing aids. Try to limit unnecessary background noise in the classroom, to optimize access to listening for these learner. By adding operators into your classroom rules such as; only one person speaks at a time. Raise your hand when you would like to speak. You can also add output to your classroom. That is a more cost-effective method to absorb some background noise. My fifth point is about processing time. A very important aspect to remember within the classroom, and that deaf learners may present with processing difficulties. You will find that deaf learners are at time slow to respond to a direct question that you may have asked them. When you asked a question to a deaf learner, do allow them to gather their thoughts and to come up with the word or the answer. This may result in the need for a longer response time. Don't assume that the learner's unwilling to participate in your classroom. They might struggle with slow processing or they might have low self-esteem. You can also give the learner a word to prompt them if you've seen that they find it difficult to start the answer, or if they have lost the train of thought. You might have to help them find the words. It is important if you're learners context. It is also a good idea to give your deaf learners an example first, and then ask them to provide their own example. So you follow that up with another question where you did not provide an example. When you ask questions, you could start with questions that requires closed answers, and then eventually ask open ended questions. As they gain more confidence within the classroom discussion. Another way to engage the learners, is by possibly writing some keywords on the board in your classroom as a way to start a class discussion. Alternatively, you can put pictures up on the board or via projector. When deaf learners are busy with reading and written their assignments, their slow processing may have a negative impact on their task execution as well. Next, I would like to talk about, teaching speed. Often, the speed at which teaching occurs in the classroom is a big barrier to deaf learners learning. As an educator, you need to be aware of the pace at which you're teaching. If you're speaking at a very fast speed at all times during your lesson, chances are fairly big that you have lost your deaf learner along the way. Rather speak at the slower constant pace. With a normal voice, without raising your voice excessively, do you try to pronounce your words clearly while you are speaking? Do not over exaggerate the way in which you're speaking. Just speak normally at a reasonable pace, that is comfortable for you and your student. It may take a while for you and your student to find a pace that you are both comfortable with. I would like an attitude to check in with the deaf learner frequently during your lesson, to ensure that you have not lost him along the way. By checking in with that learner, you can then identify where your learners started missing out on the lesson and you can start recapping the parts that they might have missed in your lesson. It is a good idea to make yourself available to your learners of the school or during a free period. See if they would like to clarify unsaved or may have questions for you. You may realize that you will need to have some one-on-one additional lessons with your deaf students off the school. My second point is about the lesson structure and the timetable. Even that deaf learners relies so much more than their usual system during the school day, they may present with listening fatigue and associated low energy levels especially during a long day at school. This is something that you need to be aware of as an educator. When you know that you have a learner in your classroom with hearing loss, it is advisable that you take a second look at your lost timetable. Think about how you're structuring your lessons. What type of lessons do you have after each other? Do you maybe have two subjects that are new to the learners and each have new subject-specific vocabulary that you're introducing? Consider the pace at which you are teaching your lessons. Know that as you are scheduling your lessons, that they require the highest attention and focus in the beginning of the school day. Practical sessions such as practical art can take place later in in the school day. Consider the length of your sessions and the concentration span of your learners. If your timetable and your learning material last floret, you inboard in short frequent rest breaks during your school day. This allows for a mental break both for you and for the learner. The learner needs a chance to find him or herself within the class environment and the lesson. It also gives you a chance to collect your thoughts and how to redirect your teaching, should you have experience and need to do so. Bring in movements strategies in the break such as standing up for a quick stretch. You as an educator know your learners best, and you will know which activities would be beneficial to use with your learners. Next, I would like to talk about taking notes in the classroom. During lessons, it is part of our teaching expectations to expect our learners to copy written work off the board and to make notes while teaching is taking place. However, in the case of deaf learners that do not have the ability to do both listening in the form of watching a face, reading lips, or watch sign instructions, and writing at the same time. The moment your deaf learners looks down onto his or her workbook and starts writing the information that they have just to seen, you as an educator, converted him in the class. They are actually losing crucial information from you if you are going to continue to speak to the class. As such, it is best to refrain from speaking when your deaf learner is looking down onto their workbooks, or when they are not facing you. I know from personal experience how it feels to not know where your teacher is in the lesson, and being too afraid to ask them to stop. I've had experiences where teachers and classmates have not been willing to share notes. It is really isolating feeling. I would much prefer to have had the opportunity to just fully find some lessons even by my educators and not have felt anxious about having to have notes to my books. The enormous amount of notes that these learners have to take, by providing them with additional time to copy from the board when it's necessary. You can also provide them with a copy of your PowerPoint that you may have used in your lesson. Or alternatively, you can provide a short typed summary of the lesson, with the most crucial information. You can also leave apps in that summary. Will they and then complete the information. The information that the leaner write on and then briefly be checked while the leaner is still in your class to ensure that the learner goes home with correct information. It is also advisable to provide the deaf learner in the classroom with a mentor, or a body, a fellow learner who is willing to be their friend in the classroom, and help out when they need help when you are not immediately available. You may find that some deaf learners are more willing to accept half from a friend than from you as the adult. However, that does the depend on many factors such as the age of the learner, their personality, and your own relationship with the learner. Lastly, I would love to talk about the number of learners in the classroom. The number of learners in the classroom is one of the aspects that have a significant impact on the amount of time that an educator have available to spend with learners. It often directs the amount of additional support that an educator feel that they can provide the learners with additional needs within a classroom. Deaf learners benefit most from inclusion in small classes within a structured routine and clear expectations. They benefit based from one-to-one instruction. If the number of learners in your classroom is high, then possibly leave your learners into smaller groups within the classroom for certain activities. You then read on a smaller group bases with specific tasks and reach all your learners better. This way, you then try to ensure that you are an attempt to address your learner's specific learning needs by focusing on more intuitive strategies in the small group as opposed to the big class group. Having a deaf learner in a classroom and certainly be a big challenge for an educator. However, these strategies that we discussed are some of the various ways in which you can make your classroom a deaf friendly space, that will encourage active learning for these learners and their specific educational needs. These strategies can also hopefully empower you as an educator to reach these learners to the best of your ability, and on an educational level, and open the world of learning to them. So thank you for that Elnelle. Thank you for sharing your perspectives and insights. For that comprehensive list of modifications. So I trust that you have some new ideas on how you can make modifications in your classroom and to your teaching practice, that will truly help your deaf learners to thrive.
