ADHD= attention deficit hyperactive disorder

Today we have talked about ADHD. All of us have agreed that it is a modern concept. And the  crucial issue to debate is to  know for certain how many children  who are diagnosed with  this  syndrom have really this disease or it is only a bad learned behaviour.
It is difficult to decide to what extent a restless child is the result of  a categorized disease or the result of a lack  of discipline.

Nevertheless, the problem exists: more and more students get distracted in class, they get bored, they can't pay attention to the teacher, they can't be quiet....

How to cope with this problem in class? Here are somme tips. you can try some of them and then to assess the usefulness of it for you or for your students...

MENTAL HEALTH: HOW STRESS AFFECTS TEENAGERS

     I recommend you to watch the video, but if you don't have the time, at least watch the last part in which a teen explains her mental health issues and  the  hoping  message  that  "she is coping now".

Some  ideas

     Students get stressed because they suffer pressions from school, parents, friends. And these pressures  increase in the last years of secondary school, in our case, "bachillerato", where marks are crucial to the future  of  the student since they allow to choose which  university studies one can do or not.

     Other causes of stress are parents pressure and social media and bulling.

    Some of the starting symptoms are not sleeping well, being more isolated from friends and  it can  end in some cases with suicide.

    And since I found the music of the video delicious, here you have the lyrics: to learn English, to feel emotions and to be more sympathetic with people with health disorders

BLIND STUDENTS IN OUR SCHOOLS

     In this video we can see some advice to treat blind students in a proper way.

    The first thing is to say one's name while talking in class so that the blind student can easily identify who is speaking.

   

    We have to take into account that it's hard for a person with vision impairment to make friends and therefore we must take this issue seriously and put into place a lot of activities which facilitate the contact with  the other students.

     Then, they talk about braille and the devices used to write braille: there are  laptops  without screen but with a braille keyboard; and  it's also  important to put labels all around the class for the blind student in the same way as there is braille in a lift for instance, to know the floor where you want to  go.  and  moreover, we don't have to forget people who can see but need to enlarge the images and  letters because they have low vision.

     Finally, they talk about the importance of moving around the class and to locate all things in  order to become more and more  independent.

BLIND STUDENTS AND BRAILLE

   

      Do you imagine yourself a blind person?

      Some will say that is horrible, others will say that it is unthinkable to live without seeing; the truth is that you can live without the use of your eyes but your life will be a bit more complicated.

      First of all I would like to distiguish between people who can see forms, shadows and light and  people who can't see a thing at all  and that makes adifference while walking in the street or trying to make your way home. However, at school  these differences are not significant since these formas  and shadows can't allow them to read and write in a proper way.

       As you all know, blind people can read braille. The problem is that reading in this way is slower and since it is a sequential way of  decoding the signs, you can't take advantage of visual strategies as  the sighted people do.

       While reading, a word is often recognised before decoding all the letters because we are seeing it, its form, its length, its endings...

      

       We could say that you "guess" what word is being read and what's more, the longer is the word, the more we guess, and the probability to get it right increases. By contrast, a  person  reading in  braille needs more time to decode all the signs. 

       But the worst of all is mathematics. Do you imagine a complicated formula which needs to be simplified? 

       If you can see it, you will take an eye at it and easily discover where a bracket starts and ends. If you can't see, you must decode all the formula and "to rememeber it" in order to  take a decision  of where to start the simplification.

Warning: this does not correspond to the formula above.

        Conclusion. 

        We need to be tolerant with our blind students, and  give them more time to do an exercice or a reading, since  their reading method is slower and can't allow the extra aid of visual "guessing".

Comparison between hearing impairment and learning a foreign language

        As a French teacher and a forever learner or English, I have always wondered if the difficulties to understand other people speaking in a foreign language could be compared to a person with  hearing impairment.

      While learning a foreign language you need to be spoken slowly; the message is better understood if repeated twice; you understand more information if you already know something about the topic; you get easily confused if the speaker uses some kind of slang or dialect; the comprehesion lessens dramatically if there are noises all around you,...

        Here are a few examples from my own life experience to illustrate it.

1. While I am listening to an English song, I usually don't understand anything: the music interferes with the lyrics and I get completely lost. 
• However if I have read the lyrics before, I discover words I wouldn't been able to imagine by myself without this clue. 
• And, it becomes as clear as day if you listen to the song while reading the lyrics at the same time.
2. Watching a tv series in its original version is more difficult than watching a translated one into another language. 
• Do you know the crime series "Castle"? Well, I used to watch it in French and it was easier than watching any other crime French series. Then I realised that when a film is translated to another language, it loses all the dialect nuances and consequently it will be easier understood by a foreigner listener.
3. The topic is important too.
•  A love film is better understood than a complicated plot of a spy film. 
• In my case, if I'm listening to a show on the radio about medicine and health, I feel at ease with it; and otherwise, if it is related to sports I don't understand a thing (you don't need to be a magician to imagine which one is my favorite topic). 
• Another example. Sometimes I listen to an English radio station but located in Spain. When the news are broadcasted, the first part is about English news and the second one about Spanish news. While listening the first part, I usually feel as I am still in a level A2 and then, magically, when Spanish news start, my English level increases dramatically and what's more, I reach the maximum level if I have already learnt about these elsewhere before.
• To put it in a nutshell: if you are already informed about the topic you are listening to in English, all is well that ends well, but, - and there is always a but- what is the use of making this effort if you had already learnt this information before?
4. Repetition is useful
• It's important to listen to an audio several times, because with each audition, you discover something new, a new detail.
• I am fan of "Startrek" and every chapter starts in the same way "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the startship Enterprise with its continous missions, seeking new civilisations that boldly go where no one has gone before" It is great, isn't it?
• You get used to the voices of every actor, and in the end your understanding improves a great deal, because of this effect of repetition.

      I think that we can use the same strategies with a deaf person. 

      I encourage you to imagine all the difficulties you have to understand someone speaking English while your are speaking to a person with a  hearing impairment; it is agood  way to put uourself in  this person's shoes. Your reaction will be completely different and more adjusted to reality.

sorry, can you repeat it, please?

Deaf teens and Problems of adaptation

      In this link https://www.hearinglikeme.com/what-no-one-tells-you-about-being-a-deaf-teen/ you can find some of the problems that a deaf student can suffer while in school.

     The most important issue to take into account is ISOLATION

We must avoid isolation

       Deaf people can't follow as well a conversation as most of us. They need to watch your face to realize who is talking; if there is a lot of noise, they will be confused; if  you speak too fast they won't have the time to process the message in a suitable way.        

       Therefore I advise you, as a teachers:

• Speak slowly
• Place yourself in front of the student and, better than that, put all the students in a circle so that the deaf student can see everyone in the class.
• Try to avoid external noises. Students should be silent while somebody else is talking in the class.
• Don't shout; the deaf student usually has a radio aid which amplifies the sound.
• Repeat the message and better than that, repeat it in a different way.
• Don't speak too much time, deaf people get tired sonner than the others because they have to make great effort and to focus on what is being said.
• Support your explanations and reading materials with lots of images, diagrams and videos.
• Give them more time while reading and be more tolerate with spelling mistakes.
• Teach the other students about deafness to prevent possible misunderstandings.

Overcoming obstacles because of deafness

       Click here and you will watch a sutitled video about three deaf girls who receive support at school because of their deafness.

       Two of the girls have a coclear implant because they have profound deafness. Another has only moderate deafness and therefore she wears two hearing aids and at chool she also has a kind of microphone so as to hear the teacher louder.

       There are hearing support teachers to help these girls in their lessons but also to improve their hearing and speech skills.

a coclear implant

a hearing aid