2학기 개강하는 온라인 수업.. 청각 장애인들 "1학기 악몽 되풀이되나"<br /><br /> Fall classes for college students begin tomorrow in South Korea... but online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.<br />Although many students have taken to online lectures as an alternative, for some, they aren't a viable option.<br />Our Kim Yeon-seung tells us how learning is especially difficult for those with hearing impairments in times of a pandemic.<br />When school starts, graduate school student Ho Ye-won will sit in front of the screen for online courses.<br />She has a hearing impediment, but her condition doesn't dampen her enthusiasm to learn. <br />What does stand in her way is the lack of service offered to hearing-impaired students. <br />"Many schools don't have services like sign language or text translation so students just sit in front of the screen wasting time and money."<br /> During the first semester, many students with hearing difficulties struggled to follow online lectures.<br />The students couldn't read the lips of the professors and they could barely hear anything over the machine sound of the computer. <br />Schools did little to help. <br /> So, in March and April, Ho Ye-won raised this issue in front of the Blue House. <br />"It has become much harder for hearing-impaired students to learn and access information due to COVID-19."<br /> Schools still do not have many professionals to translate, so translations often lack expertise and accuracy.<br />"During the first semester, a student worker had to translate for me, so it wasn't very accurate and difficult to understand."<br /> We talked to Sungkyunkwan University's Center for the Disabled to ask them how they were helping the six hearing-impaired students on campus.<br />"We try to hire a text-translator that knows the student's major well. This semester, we are trying to provide transparent masks for professors so the students can read lips."<br /> While some universities do have high-quality welfare services for the hearing impaired, most need to do more to hear the desperate calls for help. <br />Kim Yeon-seung, Arirang News <br />
