Chenelle’s Polyglot Story And How I Learn Languages As A Legally Blind Person
Learning languages through my ears and not my eyes is a detailed account of my experience as a visually impaired language learner who learns languages through audio methods in conjunction with very little braille. I discuss my journey of learning languages from My university years up until my early 40s while successfully creating a podcast show that is based around my experience as someone who is visually impaired learning languages with very little audio materials independently using my iPhone in conjunction with voiceover. while interviewing blind and visually impaired language learners, industry experts in polyglots from all over the world.
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11 Comments
You could complain or make excuses why you can’t learn languages as others do. But instead you just go ahead and do the possible. I think this is a great lesson for everyone. And maybe by doing the possible, you reach what seemed impossible before. So thanks a lot for sharing!
Thanks a lot for enriching our polyglot community <3
Hi Chenelle,
I find it particularly interesting to think of language learning purely from an audio sense prospective, it certainly helps to pick up more nuances. And very interesting life story, thanks for sharing!
To answer your question esther, it wouldn’t of made a difference if I would’ve had more vision at the time of me learning Spanish. I knew from a very young age that I would have to adapt to not having readable vision so listening was a skill that I could do that helped me get through my education years. because I wasn’t born totally blind and I did have a readable vision up till I was 32 years old I have a foot in each door I’m not 100% sided but I’m not totally blind either so sometimes one has to adapt to the different changes in one’s life when not having a particular portion of vision to where I can see small details or small print. However I don’t base my life off of how much I can read it’s just a tool to use to gather more information that’s all
Thank you Chenelle. With your inspiring video you certainly taught us a life lesson. If there is a will, there is a way. You showed us that there are many ways to language learning success if one perseveres and has supporting people around him or her. Unfortunately, in school contexts people with special needs are often confronted with many obstacles even in an inclusive school like we have in Italy. In my short experience as a support teacher, one of the major difficulties was not so much to raise awareness for the problems of the students but to provide the necessary technology. Your example is a great source of inspiration.
Do you think you would have been less passionate about languages if you’d had average eyesight and taken notes in the first Spanish class like the other students? You might have listened less, and not gotten that interested. Or maybe you would have learned even better.
Which do you think?
Thank you for sharing your story! It was very interesting and inspiring.
Congratulations on your talk. You deserve everything you have. All the best to you. You did a good job.
Chenelle thank you, you are so inspiring, and you give such powerful encouragement to others. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing Chenelle. I loved hearing your story and details about your significant experience and success with language.
Sounds like Chenelle’s dabbled in everything!