[Athen] Advice on German foreign language learning for blind student

[Russell Solowoniuk]

Hi Deborah,

Wow, what a great resource. I’m filing this away for future use.

Thanks for sharing,

Russell

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Deborah Armstrong
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2023 10:19 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Advice on German foreign language learning for blind student

EXTERNAL:  Use caution.<https://myportal.macewan.ca/help.html#external-email>

I’m attaching a document I wrote on learing foreign languages with a screen reader.


From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of PATRICK BURKE
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 9:56 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Advice on German foreign language learning for blind student

Hello Adina!,

I'm blind and was a German major (up to Masters level), altho in the late 80s/early 90s, so I have some knowledge (perhaps not the correct knowledge?!) for you. I switched to a university adaptive tech job after that, so I was on the provider side for Russian, Latin, & a few other language courses. If you or the student want to follow up with me further, please do.

Overall, my experience matches Deborah Armstrong's (except that I didn't do extensive testing of Kurzweil etc. Not recently, anyway...). The main problem of language switching in learning materials is THE WORST! Marking an intro textbook to speak correctly at the phrase or word level (in HTML or Word) is incredibly time consuming. And, for German it can be important for learning pronunciation, since English screenreading software usually reads umlaut characters the same as unmarked letters, which can be *bad* for learning singular/plurals, verb forms, etc.

As Deborah says, dealing with multilingual material in Braille is much easier. At least that's also what I found. I had a small (4 volume) braille dictionary, and I started early with learning the German contractions, which was a timesaver when I took notes (with Perkins brailler). I.e., lots of early practice. Then I was (more) ready to deal with published German Braille materials, when I could get them.

So, yes, the unknowns you mention are important to find out quickly.: Which screenreader does the student use? Do they read Braille? etc. That will shape the type of service you need to provide.

Good luck, and plese get in touch if I can help more,

Patrick



On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 2:56 PM Adina Mulliken <am2621 at hunter.cuny.edu<mailto:am2621 at hunter.cuny.edu>> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I’m interested in finding out about materials and strategies for a blind student who may want to learn German.   My understanding is the student uses a screen reader but we don’t know which one yet.  We don’t know if they read Braille.  We don’t know what course materials the professor uses yet, but we’re trying to begin learning about what might be involved with obtaining and converting appropriate materials.

I understand that popular screen readers can read German.   I’ve looked through athen listserv’s archives and found a few relevant posts, although I probably could have searched further.  I looked on Bookshare and found 74 results came up under foreign language learning materials in German and available in the United States.

Does anyone have additional advice?

Here are the links I found on this listserv in case anyone wants to know

  *   http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-July/015345.html<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-July/015345.html__;!!A-B3JKCz!AMDJYpmtkSrtrdbhQrkeogIrv3S1cr1YL1Fr8mJVTJ50YLJXX35IKkVhl_U91_sdbYbBcGCVMo6q6XiY1-xIhA$>
  *   http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-July/015325.html<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-July/015325.html__;!!A-B3JKCz!AMDJYpmtkSrtrdbhQrkeogIrv3S1cr1YL1Fr8mJVTJ50YLJXX35IKkVhl_U91_sdbYbBcGCVMo6q6XhpUugeTw$>
“German contracted Braille for example is just as complex as our grade 2, and though I speak German I read the contractions with great difficulty. This is because I only learned it for a year when I was nineteen so I’m terrible at it.
But reading German by setting my display to use the computer Braille table is easy for me because it is just the alphabet and the special accented letters.”

  *    http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-November/015820.html<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-November/015820.html__;!!A-B3JKCz!AMDJYpmtkSrtrdbhQrkeogIrv3S1cr1YL1Fr8mJVTJ50YLJXX35IKkVhl_U91_sdbYbBcGCVMo6q6XjtVmGZoQ$>


Thank you!
Adina

Adina Mulliken
Associate Professor, Librarian Silberman Social Work and Urban Public Health Library
Hunter College, City University of New York
2180 3rd Ave. New York, NY
Phone 212-396-7665
Pronouns she/her
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