Louis Braille Learn English through story level 3

louis braille the man

who created an alphabet for the blind

i became blind when i was a child

there were very few books for people who

couldn’t see it was very difficult for

us to learn how to read and write

we needed an easy system could i

invent one

[Music]

when i was a child i was curious like

most boys

my father had a workshop and made

harnesses for horses

he had a lot of tools that i was

interested in

one day i picked up an awl a very

sharp tool from my father’s table and i

started playing with it

suddenly i tripped and fell they all

hurt my eye badly the doctor tried to

help me

but my eye became infected soon my other

eye became infected too

i was five years old when i couldn’t see

the sun

the fields or the blue sky anymore

we lived in cuprey the small town east

of paris

at school i couldn’t run or play with

the other boys

it was difficult to learn because i

couldn’t read or write

my teacher and the local priest tried

hard to teach me

but i didn’t make much progress i was

slower than the other children in the

class

my parents were very worried about my

future

they didn’t want me to become a beggar

they wanted me to study

one day my father heard of kansva

a school for blind people in paris and

decided to take me there

i was 10 years old and full of hope when

i arrived

to school do you have books for a blind

person

was my first question to dr gil the

doctor in charge of the school

i was pleased to hear that they had this

is the right place for me i thought but

soon i found out

that life with kansva was very hard

the school wasn’t a pleasant place the

building was 500 years old and the rooms

were cold and damp

and dr giel wasn’t a pleasant man

he was a cruel man who hit his students

and used very unkind words to describe

blind people

i was very upset at cancer

students weren’t taught how to read or

write

dr gil wasn’t interested in that

we were taught how to make baskets

chairs

and slippers for dr geal we weren’t

students

we were workers

he sold the beautiful things that we

made

i was sad lonely and a long way from

home

my parents didn’t know that my life was

so hard

although the school was bad it was the

only place that had

books for blind people the books were

large

heavy and expensive the letters were

raised from the page

and i felt them with my fingers the

problem was that i took a very long time

to read

each word when i got to the end of the

sentence

i couldn’t remember the beginning but i

wanted to read

there were 14 books in the school and i

decided

to read them all

[Applause]

things got better when in 1821

dr pinier became the director of the

school

we started to have music lessons i loved

to play music

and it became my favorite hobby it was

much easier than

reading because i didn’t need to read

music

i could play by ear i was asked to play

at many

churches in paris it was good to be

outside the school

people said nice things to me i was paid

for my work

and i had my own money for the first

time in my life

this meant a lot to me

when i was 12 years old charles barbier

who worked for the army

visited our school he told us about the

system that his army used to read in the

dark

they couldn’t use light because the

enemy might see them

so they used a system with 12 dots and

dashes

the system was difficult but it gave me

an idea when i returned home

for a holiday i started working on my

idea

i went to my father’s workshop and

picked up an awl

the tool that hurt my eye to invent a

new system for reading and writing

i used the all to raise dots on a page

barbie’s system had 12 symbols

my system was easier it had only six

in 1824 i was 15 years old and i had a

basic

system five years later the first book

was published

it was called method of writing words

and

music and plain songs by means of dots

for use by the blind and arranged for

them

the system was called the braille system

i was very happy with my system

but most teachers didn’t want to use it

they weren’t blind

and they didn’t need it they preferred

the old system

with raised letters because they didn’t

want to learn

something new but i continued to use it

and started to teach people to use it in

1834

it was shown at an exhibition in paris

i became a teacher at my old school

my students made progress quickly and

this made me very happy

but i was ill and i began to feel

very weak the damp conditions in the

school weren’t good for my health

but the doctor said that i had

tuberculosis

and in 1844 i had to stop

teaching but my students continued to

use

my system and then little by little

the system spread to other schools and

other parts of the world

it became the reading and writing system

for the blind

my students kept the braille system

alive