Software or DVDs to learn English?

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Patrick

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Hello,

I am curious about software or other products that would be appropriate to help a deaf person (my Thai stepdaughter) to learn English.

I live in the USA, while my stepdaughter is in Thailand, awaiting her visa approval to come live with us. Her mother is going to visit her soon and be with her until the visa is approved. (She is living with her other Thai relatives right now.)

She currently reads lips, but she only knows the Thai language well. She is 14 years old. She can read and write fairly well in Thai and can also read and write some basic English words (probably only a few hundred though.) As far as I know she doesn't sign much with the Thai sign language, as her schooling has been centered around lip reading. (She had some Thai sign language instruction when younger though.)

Both her mother and I are hearing people. I don't know any sign language and her mother, I believe, only knows a bit of Thai sign language. Her mother and she can communicate well in spoken Thai. Her mother knows English well now, but I do not know much Thai. So if she were to arrive tomorrow, we wouldn't have a language in common between her and me. Even so, when I was visiting Thailand with her mom we got along well.

So I am thinking that it will be a difficult transition for her to come to the United States with this language barrier on top of her being deaf, and I am trying to think what can be done now while she is still waiting for her visa to arrive to try to help prepare and make it easier if possible.

If I could send computer software and/or DVDs that could help her learn English I would want to. Can you help me with recommendations?

I guess there might be books appropriate also, but I was hoping for things that wouldn't require hyper-motivation on her part to get through by herself. It is true that her mom can help her some when she gets there, but she is also going to be pretty busy taking care of many other things that need to be done.

One product I have come across is not specifically for deaf people, but I think it might work (not sure). It is called Rosetta Stone

Thanks for your thoughts,
Patrick
 
Start learning Thai now.


If your stepdaughter is going to live in the US, she will need to learn English to be successful. However, it's far more important that you are able to communicate with her. She can read and write Thai, why can't you learn to read and write Thai? (and learn to speak Thai while you're at it, but your thick American accent will probably difficult to lipread)

The best thing you can do at this point is learn Thai.
 
Rosetta Stone won't be useful if she can't hear it - they don't show videos that would be useful for a lip reader.
 
farmerjoe said:
Start learning Thai now.


If your stepdaughter is going to live in the US, she will need to learn English to be successful. However, it's far more important that you are able to communicate with her. She can read and write Thai, why can't you learn to read and write Thai? (and learn to speak Thai while you're at it, but your thick American accent will probably difficult to lipread)

The best thing you can do at this point is learn Thai.
Click to expand...

Yes this is good advice. I can learn to read and write Thai, but since I'm not a kid and I don't have a natural talent for foreign languages, my rate of learning is slower than hers. And she has a head start on me as far as the alphabet goes. Actually after looking over the Rosetta Stone software I think that can help me improve my Thai the fastest. I do know a little spoken Thai, but just a few hundred words so far. I think that that, in combination with help from my wife, will get me going. (I've tried to learn from my wife before, but her patience is limited for teaching to me, as I often don't remember new words without many repetitions.)

So yes, that's good advice, but my original query regarding English learning software or DVDs is still important to me, if anyone can help. By the way, I have observed that she likes using the computer. Thanks.
 
ismi said:
Rosetta Stone won't be useful if she can't hear it - they don't show videos that would be useful for a lip reader.
Click to expand...

Yes it is lacking in this regard. So if anyone knows something better, please tell me.

I have been thinking though, the Rosetta Stone software does show the written words along with the pictures. And it seems to be able to quiz you by showing the written word or phrase and then having you pick the appropriate picture. Also once you are good at that, it can show you a picture and have you type the word or phrase. So it could help to learn the written form.

If I cannot find anything better, perhaps I can find someone in Thailand to go over the words with her and say them so she can observe the face to begin to learn to lipread them. Or I could send a DVD-ROM with video clips of myself saying them, as recorded by my webcam. I could have a laptop with the appropriate picture from Rosetta Stone next to my face in the webcam recorded scene. Perhaps I could do both of these things.
 
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