Posts
Disabled Access Friendly: a truly exceptional side of ELT |
| Photo by David Lake Photography © |
Recently awarded the ELTON award, Disabled Access Friendly have won the hearts of the ELT world with their initiative. Katie Quartano and Paul Shaw talk about DAF, their vision and how readers can help spread the word.
"That’s what really matters, not winning an award, but having done something positive that just might one day help make life better for people with mobility disability."
What is Disabled Access
Friendly?
Disabled Access Friendly (www.disabled-accessfriendly.com) is a volunteer campaign that provides English language
teachers (ELT) with a large bank of free, downloadable, lessons plans (http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181&Itemid=1680), covering all learner levels and age ranges in a wide
variety of forms. These resources are unique because besides focusing on
linguistic aims, thematically, they focus on raising awareness
about mobility disability.
Teachers, as true educators, can supplement a syllabus by
using these resources to provide insight and information and thus build
pathways for caring and action. This
innovative approach of embracing social improvement through ELT addresses a difficult
reality and leads to the development of critical thinking skills while stimulating learners' exploration
of their own and others’ attitudes towards disability.
When did you first
start?
The idea to create a campaign which would use ELT to raise awareness
about mobility
disability issues began with the article “A day in
the life of a disabled person" (http://www.disabledaccessfriendly.com/pdf_daf/PS%20A%20day%20in%20the%20life%20of%20a%20disabled%20person.pdf) published in December 2009 by an Athens
based English language newspaper. This article, written by Paul Shaw was a very personal account touching on both his
positive and negative experiences of being a wheelchair user living in
Thessaloniki, N. Greece, provoked a tremendous response from ELT colleagues in
Greece.
 |
| Photo by David Lake Photography © |
As a first step Shaw started a Facebook page called "Greek Disabled
Access Friendly" with the idea of raising awareness about mobility
disability. The page very quickly got a
huge following and Shaw began to consider how to take this initiative
further.
At this early stage in 2010 he was joined in his efforts by Katie
Quartano and also for a while by Luke Prodromou.
The Disabled Access Friendly team began to network and promote its aims
very intensively in Greece. The team
also contacted key figures in EFL to ask them if they could promote the
campaign through their own networks and at EFL events worldwide. The campaign
called these people “ambassadors” and Lindsay Clandfield, Jeffrey Doonan, Jamie
Keddie, Aleksandra Strahinic and Julia Tanner were amongst the first to offer
their invaluable support. They have
subsequently been joined by Hassan Ait Mane, Julia Aliverti, Ben Goldstein,
Gerard McLoughlin, Waleed Nureldeen and Sue Lyon-Jones amongst others.
The campaign’s website, which is the outcome of DAF's work, was
launched in December 2011 (www.disabled-accessfriendly.com).
In the first month alone the site had 869 visitors and 4,272 page
hits.
Why was it awarded an
ELTON?
The three main qualities that the judges look for in applications to the
ELTons (http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/eltons) are innovation, effectiveness and
practicality:
 |
| Photo by David Lake Photography © |
Innovation
Practical
All the material is free for download from a
site where no registration process is required.
It is printable and, depending on teachers’ needs, can be used as
supplementary material in the classroom or on a one-to-one basis, for
examination practice and project or group work.
The worksheets come with teacher’s notes and a key. The worksheets and reading texts are easy to
browse. They are categorized by level
and key information on grammar, vocabulary, functions and skills, can all be
seen at a glance. Any video clips used can be played off-line in the classroom. The worksheets are easy to implement and
preparation time and materials needed are kept to a minimum. Teachers will not
have to spend precious time researching mobility disability or finding and preparing
suitable material, as they can find everything ready-made on one site.
 |
| ELTONS acceptance speech (Photo by David Lake Photography © ) |
Effective
When ELT is used for social improvement,
teachers become true educators.
Education is not just about acquiring skills and academic knowledge; it
embraces respect for others, the promotion of well-being, fairness and
equality. When teaching material enables
a teacher to draw attention to something socially meaningful, and deal with
topics more substantial than holidays, pets and sports, the teacher can make
lessons truly worthwhile. The teacher
will be using the ELT classroom to change the world for the better. They will thus be motivated and their
enthusiasm and commitment will lead to better teaching.
When ELT material helps students to gain an
awareness of the world in which they live and encourages them to take
responsibility, think and question what they see and hear, they are
motivated. Motivated students actively
seek the language and vocabulary they need to be able to express
themselves. This makes for an enriching learning experience and students will feel they have
learned something more than just a foreign/second language
Where can teachers find
materials?
All the teaching material can be downloaded
for free from the Disabled Access Friendly site (http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181&Itemid=1680). No registration process is
required. It is printable and, depending
on teachers’ needs, can be used as supplementary material in the classroom or
on a one-to-one basis, for projects, examination practice or group work.
The worksheets are easy to browse and come
with teacher’s notes and a key. They are
categorized by level and key information on grammar, vocabulary, functions and
skills, which can all be seen at a glance.
The worksheets are easy to implement and preparation time and materials
needed are kept to a minimum.
How can YOU contribute with
material?
You could contribute a simple idea,
suggestion, worksheet or a full lesson-plan with activities.
We welcome any kind of contribution from teachers or other interested
persons - you do not have to be a materials writer to contribute. We can all
make use of our teaching or life experience to suggest ideas for a lesson or a
particular text that could be used. You can send in an idea, an outline, or
material which you think would make a good lesson at any level and for any age
group. Every little bit helps. If necessary, we could then develop your idea
into a more fully-fledged lesson or worksheet.
For more details please see Authors’ Guidelines (http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102&Itemid=236).
How can people support the Disabled
Access Friendly camapign?
There are many ways you can support us:
Spread the word
·
Show your colleagues the Disabled Access Friendly website
Share teaching material you use from the site
with your ·
colleagues
- Share our leaflet (http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/pdf_daf/Disabled%20Access%20Friendly%20campaign%20leaflet%20Sep%202012.pdf)
·
Suggest to your colleagues that they join us on Facebook and Twitter
·
Post information about the campaign on your own Facebook wall and Tweet
about us
·
Post information about the campaign on relevant sites and blogs
·
Suggest to your colleagues that they e-mail us so we can add them to our
mailing list
·
Inform us of forthcoming events where we could distribute information
- Download,
print and display our poster (http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/pdf_daf/poster%2070x100.pdf)
- Add our banner to
your blog. We have a square banner (http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/images/banners/Squarebanner.png) and a
rectangular banner (http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/images/banners/Rectbanner.png). You can download these from our site.
Become an ambassador
If you are attending an ELT event, either
as a participant or as a speaker, you could consider helping to spread
the word by:
- Distributing
leaflets or making these available at the event
- Putting up a poster
- Talking to
colleagues about the campaign
- Giving a short presentation
Before doing any of these activities you should contact the event organisers and you should contact us first. We can
provide material, posters and slides for a power point presentation.
Involve student teachers
If you are a teacher trainer you might be able to
get student teachers involved. Student teachers could write a lesson or worksheet that helps raise awareness, with
the incentive that perhaps it will be uploaded to the Disabled Access Friendly
site and used by teachers globally.
Support us in kind
Contribute your expertise (e.g. IT,
design)
Contribute to the running of the campaign
(stationery, printing)
Sponsor our attendance at EFL events
How do you feel now?
Proud that with our team of ambassadors and
volunteers we have reached thousands of teachers and thousands upon thousands
of students in over 100 countries worldwide from China to Venezuela. In 2013 19,000 individual teachers visited
our site, and if you estimate how many students each teacher might have and do
the Maths, you will get lost in the number of noughts.
Proud that along the way we have made a lot of good
friendships.
Proud too that this campaign has brought people
together at a different level, where they just voluntarily given of their
kindness and goodness without receiving anything back for themselves in a
commercial sense.
What is the day after (the
ELTON award) like for DAF?
The day after the ELTons award felt like winning an
Olympic Gold, like winning an Oscar, like nothing we have felt before. However, winning an award was never a goal
for us, it just kind of happened on its own.
Being given this award for innovation
in teacher resources is a great honour.
We certainly had teachers very much in mind when we developed the
Disabled Access Friendly campaign. We wanted to help teachers have easy and
free access to meaningful material that, as well as fulfilling linguistic
needs, would allow them to explore a sensitive social issue in the
classroom.
Also we wanted to help students
develop their emotional intelligence and have them leave the classroom feeling
they had learned something of real value and something more than just English.
But actually the people we were
really interested in helping were not primarily those in the classroom. Our campaign’s main aim was to raise
awareness about issues faced by people with mobility disability, such as
problems with the physical environment, issues of behavior, inclusion,
preconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes.
And that’s what really matters, not winning
an award, but having done something positive that just might one day help make
life better for people with mobility disability.
What are DAF's future plans?
We don’t really have a game plan
other than to reach more teachers and more students, particularly in areas of
the world where we have not been able to make great inroads yet such as the
Middle East. We would like to be able to
take advantage of technology to provide webinars to reach the far corners of the
world, to reach teachers that can’t attend conferences and subscribe to ELT
publications. We would like to welcome
more ambassadors to our team – people who are already active in ELT who would
be willing and able to promote our work through their own networks in parallel
with their own work.
But what would be really nice is to
think that maybe one day, someone else with an interest in raising awareness
about a different social or global issue, might like to develop a similar bank
of teaching resources along the lines of the Disabled Access Friendly campaign.
Would you like to add a final
comment?
Lots of us have made a good living
out of ELT over the years, and this campaign has made it possible not only for
us but for others too to use ELT to put something back into the world. Many colleagues have invested their humanity
in this campaign by supporting us in various ways and always on a completely
voluntary basis. There are so many kind
people we need to thank, and we certainly wouldn’t have had the same success
without them. But the list is too long to even attempt, so this is a thank you
to everyone who has been involved in this campaign.
Paul Shaw has been
involved in the field of ELT for over20 years. Based in Thessaloniki, Greece,
he has
Katie Quartano qualified in Business Studies in
the U.K., and has also lived in Canada, France, the USA and Switzerland. Now permanently based in Thessaloniki,
Greece, she worked for 13 years for Swissair and
Austrian Airlines and is
currently employed by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in an
administrative capacity. She is also on
the university’s Committee for Social Policy and Health. In parallel she is a qualified EFL teacher
and works as an oral examiner. She is a
founding member of the Disabled Access Friendly campaign. In her free time she enjoys ballet, reading
and music.
.JPG)
.PNG)
