Practices of Special Needs Education Teachers in Teaching Sign Language to Deaf Students the case of North Showa Zone of Amhara Region
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Date
2016-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess the practi ces of SNE teachers in teaching Sign
Language to deaf st udent s.To conduct the study, descripti ve survey method was
employed. The study was conducted in special needs unit s of primary schools i n North
Shoa Zone of Amhara R egion. Among the 66
special needs unit of pri mary
schoolsf ound in the Zone, 35 of them were sel ected through cluster sampling technique
as sample schools. The main instrument of data collection was quest ionnai re. Four
basic questions f ocusing on the inst ructional contents, the types of inst ructi on al
strategies,the availability of adapt ed educational mat erial sand CTE’s t raining support
in teaching Sign Language were f ormul ated.Frequency, percentage, mean and t -test
were uti lized to analyses quantitati ve data g ained through the questionnai re . The
qualitative data gathered thorough FGD and observation were by narration. The
f inding of the study reveal ed that the basic content s of Sign Language were missing
f rom the major linguisti c part of the (curri culum). Despite t he presence of suchas
Ethiopian f inger spelli ng, American Sign Language f inger spelli ng and number sign
and sign vocabulary. With regard to SNE teachers’ use of the i nst ructional st rategies,
the result of the study indicated that Signed Amharic signing system was f ound t o be
the dominant inst ructi onal st rat egy. Moreover, absence of Sign Language text book
and teachers’ guide, SNE teachers’inabil ity to teach Sign Language as a subject and
as a medium of inst ruction ,inadequate training support by CTE’s were inve st igated as
major problems in teaching Sign Language in the sample school s. A strict anal ysi s of
the result reveal s that SNE teachers to improve and strength thei r knowl edge and skills
of teaching Sign L anguage to deaf students. Finally, recommendation wer e f orwarded
based on the major f inding so as to mini mizing problems encount ered and maxi mi zing
the provision of quality Sign Language education
Key words: Sign Language
Description
Keywords
Sign Language