As Patron for our CAP THAT! campaign, proudly sponsored by Australian Communication Exchange, Senator Stephens today launched the national awareness campaign promoting captions as a literacy tool for all students at St Clare of Assisi Primary School in Conder, ACT.
The Senator said, “As a former teacher I understand that every single class is made up of a diverse learning group, whether those needs are obvious or not. One way to ensure the needs of all your students are met is to switch on captions when audiovisual resources are part of the lesson.”
While captions are primarily used for students with hearing impairment, they have been shown to benefit all students, in particular those with a language background other than English, with learning disabilities, struggling readers and visual learners.
They’re also available on many DVDs, online resources and TV programs used in the classroom – they just need to be turned on.
Captions Champions receive a free pack with tools to help them use captions in class and champion them in their schools. Over 350 Captions Champions have already been recruited from primary and secondary schools nationwide and thousands of teachers have downloaded the free resources available on the CAP THAT! website that include captions.
“It has been inspiring to see educators from all over Australia committing to using captions and the impact in schools as a result. The powerful difference that every teacher can make with such a simple tool is extraordinary,” said Senator Stephens.
As captions link text to spoken words, they boost literacy and general comprehension skills, reading speed and vocabulary. For diverse learners they provide an alternative way of understanding and reinforce the information presented verbally. Captions also aid language uptake, including word recognition and vocabulary acquisition for the 17% of Australian students with a language background other than English.
Captions Champion at St Clare of Assisi, Tiffany Reedy said, “As the literacy coordinator at my school, captions provide me with another teaching method I can use to improve learning outcomes around literacy. It’s something I hadn’t thought much about previously but since being a Captions Champion I’ve started to seek out educational videos with captions, and in doing so I’ve seen benefits for every student in the class.”
Additionally, students who are Deaf or hearing impaired, 83% of which attend mainstream schools, will most often not ask for captions to be turned on to avoid embarrassment. However, even with hearing devices such as hearing aids or cochlear implants, listening can be difficult and affected by background noise and distance from the source of sound.
The solution? To turn on captions by default to boost learning, literacy and inclusion for all students.
Stay up-to-date with the campaign by following CAP THAT!on Twitter(@cap_that) or signing up to the newsletter on the CAP THAT! homepage.
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