I sit in class but I am neither a student nor a teacher. I am listening and watching carefully. I am assigned to a student who is profoundly deaf. He has a cochlear implant which serves as a bionic ear turning sounds, or more precisely sound waves, into electrical pulses that directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Think of it as a less refined version of natural hearing - it works on the same principle, but can only handle a fraction of the data an ear can, so the output is spectrally degraded.
From the back of the class, where I sit taking notes, I see him look up to check whether the teacher is now talking or if some other environmental sound is causing the new buzzing he can ‘hear’. Without access to pitch or intonation, the teacher’s audio is difficult to distinguish from other background noise. He is forever trying to separate out the blended trills, beeps and squawks of his soundscape and identify where they are coming from. Was that the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor or a student laughing?
Some things help. Once he knows someone is talking, he can at least apply linguistic rules and arrange the speech sounds to make communicative sense. And if he knows in advance what this person might be talking about, then context will help him piece together the audio clues and get the right message. If both the above apply and the person faces him so he can speech read, then the odds are he will understand, no problem. In these moments I see him relax and respond spontaneously, able to offer his thoughts without fear of having misunderstood the discussion.
It costs him a lot to get to this point. Physically, mentally and socially. The constant puzzling things out and the strain on his eyes leave him exhausted by the end of the day, but he recovers from these. Harder to forget are the confused and awkward social exchanges, the lost conversations and missed friendship opportunities. Over the years, he has collected too many negative social experiences with his peers and prefers now to go it alone. I watch anxiously as he attempts to join in group work exercises, but they mostly prove his point: his peers chatter enthusiastically, all at once. He tries to engage, but his timing is off or he talks too quietly and is ignored or he talks over someone and is judged. Like any teenager, he prefers not to draw attention to himself so he resists asking his peers to take turns to speak and face him, and just smiles amiably and waits for it to be over.
So how can our teaching practice promote a more sympathetic learning environment for a deaf student? The answer is quite easily - any well managed, happy and attentive class will provide positive opportunities for all students, so that’s a good start, but there are other ways we can boost engagement. I have observed some excellent inclusive practice at my school so I am listing examples of this below. Plus I’m adding further steps we can consider at little cost to our preparation, but which greatly benefit our deaf students.
No 1. Try to minimise background noise Often out of our control, but something to be aware of because of the distraction it causes. Cochlear implants will process everything from the whoosh of a gust of wind outside to the click-clack of a pen dropped on a desk, but the user will be unlikely to identify what the sound is or where it came from. Since we all reflexively attend to sounds that are unexpected or unknown, it is easy to see how distracting ambient noise is for the deaf student with implants. It’s equally difficult for students who wear hearing aids - they amplify all sounds, so background noises can become very intrusive.
No 2. Where possible, give your deaf student a précis of the lesson for context. This could be your lesson plan or just the learning objectives. In fact, any scene-setting you can do will really help to orientate them and reduce their cognitive processing load.
No 3. Give them time to write notes. Or appoint a peer note taker, or provide a scaffold/worksheet for them to annotate.
No 4. Ensure you are well lit, with the light source in front of you . Basically, don’t stand in front of a window.
No 5. Talk naturally, at your normal pace . There will be variation in the audibility of voices, accents and presentation styles. Can’t help that. But if you are someone who likes to walk while you talk, this will make it harder for the deaf learner who will want to lock onto your face to read your expressions and lip patterns. And if you have wild facial hair (which of course is your prerogative) your lip patterns may be a little obscured!
No 6. Do your best to avoid talking with your back to the class.
No 7. Put subtitles on your video media resources
No 8. In question and answer sessions, repeat or recap contributions from the class . I t is difficult for a deaf person relying on cochlear implants to locate and tune into a new voice which is coming from outside their sightline.
No 9. If you set group work, be aware of your deaf student’s experience
Are they facing their peers so that they can speech read? Can another student take notes for them?
No 10. Ensure whole class attention before you start talking and briefly introduce your topic: ‘Your attention please.… We are now going to look at punctuation.’ Or: ‘3-2-1 Stop, look and listen’ (The English teacher I'm assisting for employs this to brilliant effect. Firstly, everyone is on task together and for our deaf student it means he is ready and looking in the right direction when the content talk begins.)
No 11. Be aware that banter and quick fire exchanges will likely go unheard by your deaf student
No 12. Ask your deaf student what works best for them and review this with them at regular intervals.
Finally, Deaf students whose first language is a language, such as British Sign Language (BSL), will require translation to access lessons. Same considerations apply when working with an interpreter. Allow extra time for your student to absorb information as the translation will be behind the pace. Also remember that their written English will contain features of BSL. Students proficient in Sign Supported English may also make grammatical errors consistent with their interlanguage. This is because SSE is not a fully expressed version of English but a code-blended option.
So there you have it, 12 ways to make your lessons more accessible for the hearing impaired! For more useful ideas, check out our blogs on Teaching and Learning.
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