Teaching the national written language to deaf students: A new approach

Abstract

Deaf people across Europe struggle to have equal access to written information as the main language of instruction in school is the spoken language. The “Deaf Learning” project (2015-1-PL01-KA204-016) aims at improving the above-mentioned situation by developing a face-to-face course supported by a Moodle course according to the needs of young deaf adults. Within the project, the partners developed a framework for lessons ranging from A1 to B2 (on the basis of the Common European Framework for Languages, CEFR) to improve reading and writing skills in the respective national languages. The teaching materials for level A1 consist of 30 lessons in pdf printable version, and 6 Moodle lessons. To make the course suitable for the very heterogeneous group of deaf learners, the structure of the lessons was designed so that teachers can adapt it to the needs of the deaf students. The Moodle lessons are kept simple and visual; they include sign language videos, images, and H5P interactive contents. The teaching materials have been tested in Italy for the main target group (17 participants aged 16–25 years) and in Austria for all other interested parties (3 participants aged over 30 years) through face-to-face lessons. The participants’ feedback was incorporated into the materials.