“I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him”.
W. Somerset Maugham’s opening sentence of the story “Mr. Know All’ is clear.
However, in the early years, when I still didn’t have a good pre-reading slideshow, my students would run into trouble understanding the story by the second sentence:
“The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean-going liners was heavy”.
The war in question is World War 1.
You may think that it doesn’t really matter that my Deaf and hard-of-hearing high school students haven’t a clue as to when that war ended (some are a bit surprised that there was a WW1 even though the numbering should have been a clue…) but it actually matters a great deal.
For starters, if I don’t emphasize the time frame my students cannot fathom why the characters are spending two weeks on a ship instead of hopping on a plane, spending their time ignoring the other passengers.
There would be no drama without the journey on the ship.
From the new video lessonNot a ship. Let’s imagine a slow horse and buggy, ok? Naomi’s Photos
Then my students get confused by the whole issue of nationalities.
“… I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown.”
Those surnames do not indicate any nationality at all to my students…
There is so much background knowledge that comes up in the first paragraph of the story!
The narrator was traveling from San Francisco to Yokohama
My students assume the narrator was American (once we ensure everyone knows where these cities are located…) because who else travels from San Francisco?
After my students have already jumped to conclusions it’s much harder for them to internalize the information about the British Empire and who is or isn’t a real “British Gentleman”.
At least someone is sure of himself! Naomi’s Photos
In short, a pre-reading task to set the stage was crucial. The old slideshow was helpful, but the new video version is much more attractive to teenagers.
In this Visual Lesson (Visual Lesson = See, Read & Listen), the students get to “chat” with the narrator of the story “Mr. Know All”. As in every Visual Lesson, you will find the use of visuals, alongside texts to read and listen to.
I’m so grateful to the amazing Dorit Renov, who brought the video to life by narrating the dialogue while using different voices for the various characters that appear in the video.
3 distractors on a multiple choice question Naomi’s Photos
Remember that story about the hare and the tortoise?
I usually dislike that story in the context of an EFL classroom, since it often doesn’t reflect reality.
However, when it comes to taking reading comprehension exams, particularly those including multiple-choice type questions, the students who behave like tortoises (“slow and steady) generally avoid the “Look-Alike” traps, even if they are weaker students than some of the “hares”.
Who are the “hares” that so blithely choose an answer to a multiple-choice question just because it includes words that appear in the relevant part of the text?
smart, over-confident students who are fooled by how easily they understand the text and barely read the questions
students whose top priority is their social status – leaving the exam room as quickly as possible, perhaps coughing loudly as they exit so that everyone will see…
students who think they have mastered all the tricks to taking reading comprehension exams without actually reading the text
I’m sure you know students who behave in this manner!
Who, me? Naomi’s Photos
On my journey to review decades’ worth of materials that have served me well, and then renew them by turning them into Visual Lessons ( = See/ Listen / Read) on my YouTube channel, I found that I could not link my beloved worksheet to the latest video lesson: The “Look-Alike” Trap
The worksheet is simply not designed for self-study, and cannot be self-checked. That format worked well for the Visual Lesson on “Where will the Answer Be”
In short – while the students will find the video lesson designed for clarity and self-study, they need a teacher to benefit from the worksheet. Which is why I am offering it to the readers of this blog.
On the worksheet, the teacher and the students examine eight sentences, which I have modified from actual national exams (I had to modify the sentences to make them clear when being read out of context) and corresponding incorrect answers chosen by unknown students who had forgotten about the “look-alike traps”. The teacher supplies any glosses for vocabulary items, as needed. The students lead the activity.
I have found that almost all of my students were able to explain why the distractor chosen was incorrect, as they were focused on the challenge of outsmarting whoever set the traps. They felt empowered!
**** That’s why I used the image of a trap – the students respond to that!
Naturally, many of my students claim, while doing the worksheet they would never fall into such a trap….
Eh… Hmm…
Here is the Visual Lesson:
Here is the worksheet I used. The downloadable document contains two versions – one with the “critical” words underlined, and the other with no hints whatsoever. I used the version without any words underlined.
***Remember – this is not a worksheet for self-study. It is the discussion that matters!
A lesson that includes words to read, an audio narration of the written words appearing in the video, and LOTS of visuals that help clarify what is being explained.
See/ Listen / Read
Designed for clarity!
Note: Some lessons include a link to a practice worksheet after the student watches the lesson.
Hmmm, I wrote “lessons” in the plural form.
I have several lessons in preparation, and decades (quite literally!) of materials waiting their turn to be upgraded, but currently there is one Visual Lesson online:
There are days when I think I should begin awarding certificates for “long jumps” – some of my students excel at jumping!
Jumping to conclusions, that is.
This ability of theirs manifests itself in many varieties, but I’ve chosen to focus on one particular issue and create a new “Visual Lesson” with a companion worksheet.
“Line numbers” in reading comprehension questions are “eye catchers” for students. They can help the students find the correct answer or lead them astray if they don’t read the entire question carefully.
Quite a few of my Deaf and hard of hearing high school students would rather practice “long jumps” than read entire questions carefully…
Some questions are easy, such as these two:
According to lines 11-12, why was David surprised?
What do we learn from paragraph 1?
The answers can be found exactly where the line numbers indicate they will be.
Students are happy.
The teacher is happy.
All tied up… Naomi’s Photos
That is, until the students encounter a question such as this one:
“According to lines 11-12, Tammy chose to work in a profession that was different from the one she studied at the university. Why did she do that? Base your answer on paragraph II.”
Where will the answer be?
Students don’t let the fact that the answer cannot be found in lines 11-12 stop them from trying to contort the words in those lines into an answer…
The same goes for “refer to” questions, as in:
What does the word “This” (line 6) refer to?
Do you also have students blithely extracting irrelevant chunks appearing in line 6 to answer the question?
Drilling the message in… Naomi’s Photos
So…
Time to whip out a new VISUAL LESSON!
Why do I call it a visual lesson?
The students see the explanations, read and HEARS them.
Yes, you read that correctly, “hears”.
Many of my hard of hearing students like having what is written narrated. I believe that students without hearing problems will aprreciate this as well.
Simply hone in on the problematic zones without starting at the top every single time.
When it comes to essay writing, most of my advanced students are great at writing opening paragraphs of opinion essays. Their concluding paragraphs are coming along nicely as well, they’ve clearly grasped the principles.
However, crafting the two “body paragraphs” in between is more problematic. The students are required to present their arguments clearly and support their claims with additional information and relevant examples. They need to be aware of such minefields as not writing two paragraphs about the same argument (just using some different words) or contradicting themselves with their examples.
Before doing all of that, the students actually have to come up with ideas to present…
Students complaining that the school system is unfairly asking them to write about things they aren’t interested in, so how could they possibly be expected to have anything to say about the topic won’t get them very far…
As a teacher of Deaf and hard-of-hearing students, I felt I needed a guided writing sample essay based on visual explanations along with a task using visual cues for my students. Since I didn’t have a visual study guide, I created one…
Perhaps your students will find this helpful as well!
Note – it’s designed to be viewed on a cell phone, which is what my students do. If you tap on the screen, the “Canva” watermarks disappear.
It can be viewed on a computer as well.
With a very heavy heart, we teachers must now prepare for distance learning, amid the tragic events. Supporting each other and sharing materials is crucial, as none of us are at best (to put it mildly).
Yet we have a deadline – school must resume, online.
Here is a set of links to collections organized by level. In each collection, I am uploading material of mine relevant to that level. This is a space to follow, as I will continue uploading materials next week.
There are guided reading tasks, vocabulary exercises, and some lighter activities. There are no grammar activities.
Some of my strongest Deaf and hard-of-hearing high school students perk up and invest in a writing task if there is some snarky element involved.
Many years ago The Washington Post had some sort of competition where they asked readers (in honor of Valentine’s Day) to submit rhyming pairs of sentences, the first very romantic and the other emphatically unromantic. For example: “I see your face when I am dreaming. // That’s why I wake up screaming.
I made a note of the idea.
Over the years, whenever I challenged such very bright students to come up with such sentences, I watched in awe as these students became animated, discussed synonyms for the rhyming (they even used a dictionary!), and only turned to me for help when they were truly stuck.
Rose-colored? Scarlet, to be exact. Naomi’s Photos
As a veteran teacher, I can truly understand why some of my Deaf and hard-of-hearing teenage students dislike all things “rose-colored” and what they perceive as “goody goody”. This is particularly true for those very smart students with a hearing loss who “ping pong” between two worlds, that of their classmates with “normal hearing” and the one where you don’t have to use your voice to speak…
As much as I want to give the students space to express themselves, I also want to stress the need to “sheath their claws”, use their wit wisely, and avoid insulting other students, directly or indirectly.
That’s where “backhanded compliments” come in. Insults thinly disguised as compliments, such as: “That’s a beautiful photo of you. I didn’t recognize you at first”.
I heard that! Naomi’s Photos
I created the activity in this downloadable worksheet hoping to make the students more aware of the barbs that can hide in supposedly innocent compliments, and how to respond when such “compliments” are directed at them.
In addition, naturally, the students are reading, writing, and using vocabulary in context.
I hope you find this activity useful for your students as well! Let me know in the comments.
It turns out, that sometimes a veteran teacher, a “puffin”, needs some support from a lion.
Who knew.
Just to be clear, I’ll always remain ” a puffin”. As a veteran teacher of English as a foreign language to Deaf and hard-of-hearing high school students, knowing how to fly and swim has been a big advantage. Those qualities along with loving bright colors (my students are certainly “colorful”, in the metaphorical sense!) have enabled me to stay in the profession for so long.
Did you know that I’m beginning my 37th official year as a teacher? Everyone who corresponds with me or follows me online knows me by this picture, taken in Ireland.
Puffin profile pic, Naomi’s Photos
However, this “puffin-teacher” lost some of her plumage last year. It was a difficult school year.
(Ok ok, puffins actually lose their colorful beaks in winter, but plumage sounds better..)
I really need that plumage to grow back before the new school year begins. I’ll settle for at least some of it to grow back.
I need the energy to deal with the limited issues I CAN control at school.
Take the issue of attendance. I doubt a lion’s roar will convince students to revert back to their pre-pandemic mindset which didn’t include the assumption that going to school EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL DAY is pointless.
In fact, my supportive lion can’t even growl at the school that is trying to give the students everything that they missed during the pandemic – excursions, trips, lectures, sports days, etc. Those things are important.
Nope, not roaring for that. Naomi’s Photos
He won’t help me figure out (this “miracle” was never included in my training days) how to teach everything required to students without actually meeting them for their theoretically alloted weekly hours…
BUT…
A big roar here! R-O-A-R!
Since I teach in the format of a learning center, grades 10-12 jumbled together, teaching every level from A-B-C to gifted students at the highest levels, a digital learning management system has always been crucial for me to keep track of who had done what and when. Even if the students hadn’t done the work on the computer itself (some preferred their notebooks) they would mark it in the system.
I had such a system for more than 10 years until it suddenly closed, just before the previous school year began.
It seemed so unfair that the year in which I was turning 60 would be the one in which I had to rely heavily on my memory…
60 may be the new 50 but not when it comes to memory. At least that’s how I feel about it.
Then I met the lions. Up close. Two males and several females. On a safari “big birthday trip”.
Obviously, they brought me luck!
NOW you are talking! Naomi’s Photos These are all pics of the same male lion.
When I returned home, my amazing colleague Riki Klein found the answer to the problem I had been unable to solve – how can a teacher from our school use Google Classroom?
R-O-A-R of joy!
I’ll have a learning management system again!
And since I already know how to use one, I’ve been playing around with programs that integrate with Google Classroom that appear to be included in our deal – it seems we have KAMI!
Kami is a SUPER easy annotating tool, which seems particularly useful for children and struggling students. Not only does it have a clear control panel using symbols, but you can also add voice notes or have it read out text to you!
Those are just the features I’ve learned about so far!
In addition, it has a large amount of fun templates.
Look what I quickly prepared instead of my decades-old “About Me” worksheet! Each student can see what I created and then has a blank copy to make his/her own.
* See the complete picture by clicking below the picture.
This blog isn’t a tech advice blog, explaining how to use a tool after I’ve become an expert at using it. I am also not affiliated with any company nor are there ads on this blog.
I write about being a full-time teacher. This post is about sharing the excitement of having new things to bring into the classroom, that I didn’t have to work for hours to create. Perhaps these are “fireworks” – I can’t yet gauge how often I’ll be using Kami and for which purposes.
But I’m eager to find out.
And that’s the point.
After the last school year, it feels so good to be going back to school with cool tools to be excited about.
This Puffin is quite happy to share space with such a friendly lion!
Excitement is infectious you know.
Have you used Kami? Let me know what you do with it!
I have been using this video every single school year since I was first introduced to it (in 2014!) by Kieran Donaghy, of Film English, whose presentation I had the pleasure of attending at a conference.
Not only is the topic an important one, but the video is also completely accessible for my advanced Deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Everything in the film is written – my students don’t need to rely on automatic captions which are often riddled with errors.
I don’t use a specific worksheet for it. Sometimes we read it together and talk about it. Other times I have the students choose 10 sentences with advanced vocabulary to explain and then they are asked to describe the problem presented in this video and what is being done to help.
The Power of Words
An oldie but a double GOODIE.
The language part in this video comes from the worksheets, not really from the video itself.
But the students’ reaction to it is priceless.
They always say, IMMEDIATELY, that the purpose of the video is to remind you to help people who are blind.
That’s a good message to have come up in class.
But that is NOT the purpose of the video.
That’s a great lesson in careful “reading” – we “read” videos too!
I believe that a discussion about how the words you choose to use affect the people you interact with certainly relates to good citizenship!
The main focus of this super short exercise is identifying the main idea but isn’t bringing up the topic of recycling something we are delighted to do in class?
I learned about this video (and the additional one in the worksheet) from Jamie Keddie ( LessonStream ). I had the great pleasure of attending his talk at a conference and have been following his work ever since.
Teaching English as a FOREIGN language to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students
