Lip Reading & Managing Hearing Loss

Background & Experience: 

I qualified as a lipreading teacher in 1996, but used this knowledge to manage 2 charities that supported Deaf and hard of hearing people to be independent. In 2020 I took the Award in Education and training level 3 and began teaching lipreading again. I have taught for Northants Adult learning since January 2022. 

Key Expertise: 

Lipreading and Managing Hearing loss

(Deaf Awareness Training) 

Teaching Philosophy:

I aim to make my classes relaxed and fun. No one is left out.

Each class has a short break or an opportunity to allow you to get to know one another.

To cover all the theory of lipreading, the full course takes an academic year, but is a rolling programme covering the theory in the 30 weeks. Some people get enough benefit in a term, others feel they need longer than a year, and so the course is never the same from year to year. The theory obviously remains the same, but the topics used to teach, will differ each time it's taught. Copies of the theory are sent out after its taught.

What to expect in the Lessons - The way I teach is to explain the theory of the group or letter we are looking at. Then we do exercises to imbed and fully understand what you are looking at. Either you lipread me, with me using NO voice, or you do pair exercises where you lipread one another (without voice)

The pair exercises are usually sentences that you read, without voice, to one another either linked by topic or random. The exercises I present can be random sentences, sentences on a topic or a piece of prose explaining about something. Topics in the past have included how igloos keep warm, my trip to Holy Island Lindisfarne, facts about chinchillas, vegetable colours - whatever gets my interest that week and fits the topic. I have even written a Christmas poem.

All the way through the term we discuss coping tactics, information about hearing loss, support to individuals and the group, as the subject arises, as it usually does. I allow group discussions on related topics if they start, as they are usually very supportive, informative and open. If it becomes difficult for anyone I intervene. These discussions allow everyone to realise that they are not alone in being deaf or hard of hearing, help us face our own problems and I have never had an unsupportive cohort. Usually everyone is very kind to one another and look after each other from the very beginning. 

Additional information:

I have British Sign Language level 3