City Lit English, Maths and Digital Skills for Deaf People

Fantastic new teaching opportunity at City Lit! Are you interested joining London’s largest provider of adult education and inspiring the minds of our deaf students? Come and join our talented team of teachers in central London, teaching English, Maths and/or Digital Skills. We look forward to seeing your application!

English, Maths or Digital Skills Tutors for Deaf Adults Keeley Street, Covent Garden, London £35.78 p/hr, including pro-rata holiday entitlement and preparation time Are you an experienced and creative English, Maths or Digital Skills tutor with experience teaching deaf adults? Then why not join us to develop and teach our deaf provision courses, helpin...

We are very proud to announce that one of our tutors, Pam, has won Inspiring Tutor City Lit Award 2022. The award recognises tutors who have provided a high quality learning experience, demonstrated exceptional knowledge of their subject matter, provided a memorable classroom experience, and helped students to realise their full potential during 2020/2021. Please see the video at 0:33 -

City Lit Awards 2022 - Tutors & Staff The City Lit Awards took place on Wednesday 30 March, celebrating the outstanding work and achievements of students, tutors and staff from across the college...

We are very proud to announce that one of our students, Fatima, has won Outstanding Learner City Lit Award 2022. The award is for students who have an outstanding commitment to their learning at City Lit during 2020/2021. Please see the video at 1:15 -

City Lit Awards 2022 - Outstanding Learners The City Lit Awards took place on Wednesday 30 March, celebrating the outstanding work and achievements of students, tutors and staff from across the college...

Visitor 1 (Fatima): the aim of the session was to explain the symbolism behind the design and colours of the flags of various countries. Fatima's passion is art, she is currently studying on an art course at City Lit, this session enabled her to incorporate her love for art in her teaching.
Once the students worked out that the colours and shapes of each flag had a meaning, they drew pictures of the flags that represented the countries where they were born or their family come from.
The tutor who supervised the overall activity commented on Fatima’s performance: 'Fatima's class today went really well. She was warm, differentiated beautifully, and engaged effortlessly with the whole class. Her teaching materials were well prepared and visual. The content was aimed correctly at the students' level. The pace of her teaching was spot on. Her communication and questioning skills were fantastic. She spotted that many of the students were struggling to correctly sign vowels so she took care to help them all understand and improve this. Her strategies when explaining this were brilliant. She timed the beginning, break, and end perfectly'.
Each class member presented their flag to the class and pinned their work to the wall. They all learned something about their own flag and the flags of their fellow students.
Well done, Fatima!

Visitor 2 (Fereshteh): our second session with a guest student teacher has recently taken place – here is what happened:
Fereshteh taught our learners about a range of different fruits. She taught the signs for the fruits – using visual aids, as well as how to fingerspell the names. The range of vocabulary was reinforced with a game that she had created. The game consisted of a board, individual playing pieces / counters and dice. Moving the pieces around the board they were able to collect the various pieces of fruit!
The class teacher said that Fereshteh’s teaching materials were visual, and the students were encouraged that their knowledge and experience of seeing, buying and eating fruit was both valid and relevant.
Fereshteh was warm, smiley and encouraging. The class were delighted to have a Deaf teacher and role model and they were all keen to learn more about different fruits, foodstuffs, and colours.
Fereshteh's communication skills were outstanding. She was expressive, patient and took care to include everyone and feel that they were each successful and praiseworthy.
Her questioning was positive and encouraging. She divided her attention fairly among the students and differentiated between their different levels naturally.
The game was a lovely idea. There was a nice frisson of competition, without the game feeling as though there were losers as well as winners.

We have deaf students who are setting off on their learning journeys by studying English with us at beginners level – some of these learners are new to education and/or missed out when they were at school due to communication barriers.
At the other end of the learning journey, we have deaf students who have been studying and progressing at City Lit for a number of years. Some of these students have been inspired to become teachers, teaching assistants, office administrators and other various roles.
We have been inviting these experienced students to visit our beginners classes and share their learning experiences – allowing them to become role models. Some of them have been using the opportunity to pass on the skills they have learnt from their previous courses.
For example, some of the those who aspire to become teachers have been given the opportunity to deliver a session, by teaching something that they are passionate about. As well as sharing their knowledge with our newer learners, they themselves experience what it is like to be a teacher – giving them an opportunity to see if it is something they would like to pursue.

Who are we? Here is the introduction of one of our team members: Russell Aldersson is a qualified teacher and has a dual professional role as a sign language interpreter. He has been teaching deaf learners at the City Lit for a number of years now. He has a Doctorate in Education degree from the Institute of Education and holds masters degrees in Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching. He has taught English in Taiwan and also at the International School of Iceland. His research interests give focus to exploring the role of British Sign Language in teaching adult sign language users. He is particularly interested in how English grammar can be taught to sign language users.

As part of task-based learning project, deaf students on our English Level 2 course were given the task of creating a fund-raising activity/challenge for Children in Need.
The aim of task-based learning is to enable the task and learning to go beyond the classroom, having an impact on the students’ everyday life.
While the tutor was teaching them formal and informal group discussion skills, persuasive and informative writing, how to write articles and reports, this group of students worked together as a team demonstrating their collaborative, influencing and negotiating, problem-solving and decision-making skills.
They have launched their fundraising challenge as part of the ‘Fundraising for BBC Children in Need’ task.

If you are interested in their story, you can follow them here:
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/pudseyears2eyes?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=20211117_
The video of the challenge can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/3SW7unC3P38

Pudsey ears to eyes Help Májuš Franková raise money to support BBC Children in Need

Congratulations to Tamer Degirmenci who has completed our online City Lit Tutor toolkit.
We first met Tamer whilst our interpreting team supported him during his university studies. He completed his degree in 2020, has volunteered at our annual Deaf Day and is now a full member of our team.
Tamer is teaching Digital Skills to deaf students who are new to education or haven’t been able to previously access it. He is also the Digital Skills Leader for English, Maths and DS for the deaf provision. This role includes supporting deaf students to access online learning.