You're listening to ESL Podcast, English Cafe, episode 189.

I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful

Los Angeles, California.

On this cafe, we're going to continue our series on famous Americans, focusing on Helen Keller,

who was a very well-known deaf and blind person, or a person who couldn't see or hear. We're also going to talk about horse racing and something called the

Triple Crown, a famous group of three horse races in the United

States. These races are very popular and are shown on television every year. We'll talk a little bit

about them. And as always, we'll answer a few of your questions. Let's get started.

We begin this cafe with a continuation of our series on famous Americans.

Today we are going to talk about Helen Keller.

Keller was born in the state of Alabama in 1880.

When she was just 19 months old, not yet two years old, she got very sick. She survived, she continued to live, but the illness left her deaf, D-E-A-F, or unable to hear anything, and blind, or unable to hear anything and blind or unable to see anything.

Naturally it was very difficult or almost impossible for Helen to communicate with other people.

When she was seven years old, her parents arranged for a special teacher,

by the name of Anne Sullivan, to come help her learn to communicate with the rest of the world,

with the outside world, with other people.

When Anne Sullivan came into the Keller's home,

she immediately began using sign language with Helen.

Sign language is the language that deaf people use often to communicate with each other.

They move their hands and fingers in the air instead of speaking, and each movement of the hand or arms

represents a word or an idea.

Obviously, Helen couldn't see other people's sign language,

...