Helen Keller Learn English through story level 3

[Music]

helen

keller the deaf and blind woman

who became a famous teacher

i became blind and deaf before i learned

to speak

with the help of several special people

i learned to communicate

i used my communication skills to teach

people about blindness

i also fought for the rights of women

and workers

[Music]

i was born in 1880 in alabama

in the usa when i was 19 months old

i became very sick with meningitis

a disease of the brain i got better

after the illness

but unfortunately i couldn’t see or

hear anymore i found it

very difficult to learn and i became

very angry

i was able to think but i could not

communicate my thoughts

it was a very difficult time for me and

for my parents

my mother and father wanted to help me

but they didn’t know what to do

fortunately i began to communicate

with martha washington who was six years

old

and the daughter of our cook

we created our own sign language when we

played together

i enjoyed learning from martha but my

mother realized

that i needed professional help

in 1886 my mother learned

about the work of alexander graham bell

the inventor of the telephone

he was working on the problems of the

deaf

maybe he could help

bell told my mother about perkins school

for blind people and the school sent a

special teacher to our home her name

was ann sullivan

at first i was a very difficult student

but ann sullivan was very kind to me

one day we were getting water from the

well

when anne drew some signs on my hand

i realized that she was writing the word

water i was so excited

within a few hours i could read

more than 30 different words

at last i could communicate with other

people

and they could communicate with me

and helped me to escape from my lonely

world

when i was eight years old i went with

anne to the perkins school for blind

people

at the school i was excited to discover

that there were other children like me

we all learned from our teachers and

from each other

i learned to read braille in english

and later in several other languages

in 1894 anne took me to new york

and i studied at several different

schools for the blind and deaf

i tried to learn to speak but it was

difficult

my voice worked but i didn’t know how to

use it properly

only ann and a few other people could

understand me when i spoke

i studied hard and in 1900

i started at university

and went with me to every class

she wrote the teacher’s words on my hand

in 1904 i became the first

deaf and blind person to get a degree

i was so happy and proud and i knew

that i wanted to use my communication

skills

to help other people

at first i worked with organizations

that fought for women’s rights

then in 1912 i started to work with

workers

organizations

i discovered that some types of work

made people blind i wanted people to

know about this problem

so i wrote a book in braille about it

in 1915 i started my

own organization helen keller

international

which still teaches people about

blindness

i wanted everyone to know that in many

cases

blindness can be prevented

[Music]

for many years i traveled around the

world

and talked to groups of people about

blindness

i communicated with anne she then spoke

my words for me

our talks became very popular and

sometimes

we earned up to two thousand dollars a

week

we gave the money to organizations that

helped blind people

when anne became ill paulie thompson

became my guide unfortunately in 1936

anne died

she did so much for me and i never

forgot her

with the help of several special people

i wrote 12 books about my beliefs

i became famous because of the talks and

the books

important people wanted to meet me

i even met the king of england and the

president of the usa

polly thompson helped me with my work

until she became very ill

in 1957 after that

winnie corbali became my guide and

traveled with me to teach

people about blindness

our work was helped by a theater play

the miracle worker

about the life of anne sullivan

in 1962 it became a popular film in 1964

i won an important award from the

president

of the usa for my work

[Applause]

the year after that my name was added to

the list of the most

successful women in the usa

the women’s hall of fame

the names of my guides ann

paulie and winnie should be in that list

too in 1968

at the end of my life i remembered ann

paulie and winnie i felt proud of our

work

which helped blind people around the

world