Guidelines for teachers on How to Use Free EFL Graded Reading Texts Raising Awareness about Mobility Disability
Katie Quartano, Greece
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Guidelines for using Disabled Access Friendly’s graded reading text
Examples of the campaign’s graded reading texts
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Disabled Access Friendly is a website providing ELT teachers with free, easy- to-browse material that raises awareness about mobility disability. With over 100 worksheets (with teacher’s notes), reading texts and video clips this unique and innovative resource bank enables teachers at all levels to be true educators, who promote social improvement in their classrooms. Saving on preparation time, the material provides insight and information about life as a person with a mobility disability, thus building pathways for caring and action. Whilst teaching English, teachers can develop students’ critical thinking and explore their own and other’s attitudes to disability.
When you became a teacher did you have a vision that you would be able to do something more than just teach the English language? The best teachers know that education is not just about acquiring knowledge and skills, but also embraces:
- social improvement
- respect for others
- the promotion of well-being
- truth, fairness and equality
They want to:
- encourage students to bridge the gaps between ideals and reality
- equip children to become adults who will take responsibility for the world they inhabit
- stimulate children to think and question what they see and hear
However within the confines of the syllabus, the course book and the exams it can sometimes be difficult to find appropriate material that allows you to do this? This is where the Disabled Access Friendly campaign’s free online EFL teaching resources can help.
The material is all completely free for download and is divided into two broad categories:
- Lesson plans
- Reading texts
The material helps teachers to:
- Develop students' social conscience
- Make lessons meaningful
- Encourage critical thinking through a curriculum of social empathy
The material helps students to:
- Understand more about mobility disability
- Put themselves in someone else's shoes
- Become more sensitive and caring
The resources are graded according to level and can be used for:
- Supplementary material
- Project work
- Examination practice
The following guidelines explain in more detail how you can use the Disabled Access Friendly’s reading text to combine teaching EFL with raising social awareness. Similar guidelines are available online for Disabled Access Friendly’s lesson plans. .
The graded reading texts all have:
(a) A clear summary for teachers
A dog on wheels
Text and questions by Katie Quartano
|
| Level |
Age |
Topic |
Grammar |
Vocabulary |
Skill |
| A1 |
Young learners |
A dog which has a disability |
Simple present |
General |
Reading |
(b) A glossary.
The glossary is in pictorial form at lower levels, and provides dictionary definitions relevant to the text at higher levels.
(c) Follow up questions
There are follow up questions testing or practicing the grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension, but also encouraging critical thinking about some issue of mobility disability raised in the text.
(d) A key
A1 level “A dog on wheels”
This short text is about a dog whose back legs are injured and it is therefore harnessed to wheels so it can move. The topic of “pets” appeals to young learners and the text practises the present simple tense, and uses very simple vocabulary. Here is an excerpt from the text, showing how we both practice the present simple and stimulate children to think about what are appropriate and inappropriate things to say to someone with a disability.
I have four legs but my two back legs don’t work! So I use wheels.
My dog friends in the park say “Max, why do you have wheels?”
This makes me feel bad. I don’t want to tell my story every day. I want to play with my friends.
In the follow up exercise encouraging critical thinking students are asked to decide whether it was appropriate for Max’s dog friends to ask him various questions such as “Max, why do you have wheels”. The ideas are consolidated by then prompting the students to decide whether it would be appropriate to ask a wheelchair user “Why do you use a wheelchair?”
A2 level “Video games”
This text talks about the different video games that a group of children enjoy playing and practises adverbs of frequency.
Steve always plays Fighting Heroes with his friend Owen. Steve usually wins and Owen doesn’t like this.
One of the children has a mobility disability and the text both talks about a video game whose hero is a wheelchair user, and also introduces readers to the concept of adaptive technology, which makes it easier for people with disabilities to use a computer.
Some children can’t play video games because their hands don’t work and they can’t hold the mouse. Some children can’t hear well. Some children can’t see well. All these children want to play video games too. Can we do something to help them?
Good news! New technology can help these children. For example they can use a different mouse. They can have subtitles on the screen, or a screen that is very bright. Now there are video games for these children too.
The follow up questions include making a list of what the different children can and can’t do, and writing a list of some new technology that can help children with disabilties use a computer.
B1 level “Facebook asks what you dislike most about being a wheelchair user”
Teenagers will enjoy the colloquial language, which is punchy and thought provoking.
I’m in a wheelchair but I sit on my ass not my brain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Often people talk to whoever I'm with and ignore me completely. They treat me like I'm an idiot.
As well as practising the modal verb can and the modifier too, the text makes students to see life from someone else’s perspective.
The follow up questions raise issues referring to both infrastructure and other people’s attitudes and behaviour. For example:
In the text, one wheelchair user says: “I can’t reach lots of things.” Look at the picture of the kitchen below and complete the sentences below, saying what a wheelchair user can or can’t do in that kitchen.
What do you think could be done to change the way that people see wheelchair users and behave towards them?
B2 level “Basketball”
Basketball is a subject that appeals to many teenagers. This text is based on an account written by a member of Great Britain’s wheelchair basketball team, who became disabled after a motorbike accident. The text practices a variety of past tenses.
As I was driving the motorbike, the wind got under my helmet because it wasn’t done up tight enough.
I decided to go back to basketball, which I had always loved, but this time in a wheelchair.
The wheelchair basketball team had been getting stale and the players were not motivated.
C1 level “30 days”
A month is about the shortest length of time in which you can get a true understanding of a lifestyle or existence very different from your own. So what would you discover if you used a wheelchair for a month? How would your life change? The text offers practice of the passive voice and asks readers to add to a list of observations such as:
Your floor gets dirty really easily as dirt is brought in on your wheels.
You are frequently asked personal questions about why you are a wheelchair user by
complete strangers.
C2 level “Wheelchairs and the workplace”
This text is written by a wheelchair user, who has recently graduated from university and is entering the job market. She says:
We all have an internal check list when considering employment opportunities, such as training, career development, location and salary, but my check list also has to include the equally important subjects of lifts, ramps, and accessible toilets.
This text can be used to stimulate a lively class discussion.
- Use our material
- Contribute material of your own
- Spread the word through networking
- Become an ambassador for the campaign at EFL events you attend
- Volunteer your expertise and experience
Website: www.disabled-accessfriendly.com
E-mail : disabledaccessfriendlycampaign@gmail.com
Facebook: Disabled Access Friendly
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DAFCampaign
For a more detailed understanding of our work and our approach to issues of mobility disability we suggest you watch one of the following presentations:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqTqmOndYv8 or
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/sessions/2013-04-09/lessons-life-matter
The best teachers have always done more than just prepare students for tests.
They raise awareness of the world in which we live and try to make it a better place.
Please check the Special Needs and Inclusive Learning course at Pilgrims website.
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