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“I want to provide them with a pathway to a life with more opportunities,” Pham Dang Mai Linh talked of her goal to work with hearing-impaired students at a school in the Central Highlands. Linh, 34, has taught the deaf students to take pictures, shoot videos, and log on Facebook as a means of taking away the low self-esteem from them.

She has worked at the School for the Deaf in Lam Dong Province for eight years now and what she treasures the most is the lessons learned from her students’ effort to get over their physical disability.

Linh takes on a range of duties there, from teaching to measuring students’ hearing capacity and fixing hearing aids.

She followed a short course in hearing measurement in Ho Chi Minh City so that she can read audiograms so as to supply proper help to her students.

“I know they feel inferior wearing a hearing aid so I always try to enable them to become more confident,” Linh said.

The teacher decided to take advantage of what the digital age offers to earn the students that confidence: teaching them to shoot pictures and make videos with affordable cameras, mobile phones, and simple software.  

She then went on to encourage the students to use Facebook as a means of presenting these pictures and videos to the world, as well as of getting connected to more friends.

As a result, Linh was selected earlier this month by Microsoft as an Expert Educator, an award the American tech giant annually presents to pioneer educators globally who are using technology to transform education.

These may be small tasks to other people but they mean achievements to Linh, as she has made it: helping deaf students get out of their inferiority complex.

An award-winning teacher

Linh is now also a teacher at Le Quy Don Elementary School, located in the provincial capital Da Lat City.

She recently won third prize in a Lam Dong competition for talented teachers, and her electronic lesson plan was chosen as the best in the province.

Last year Linh earned a second prize at a national teacher contest sponsored by Microsoft before that tech firm named her among three most creative Vietnamese teachers.

The teacher came first in a national lesson plan preparation competition this year. She has authored many projects intended to support education at the School for the Deaf.