Lower elementary grades curriculum via "SL as Mother Tongue"

[Mike Morgan]

Dear all SLLINGers,

Namaste from the lower slopes of the Himalayas!

Monsoon here, but sunny at the moment... and a request

Here in Nepal Deaf Education has been moving from so-called "Total
communication" (which has been the working model for almost 20 years,
without ever fully being "understood") to nominally "bilingual"
(although, in fact, there is little understanding of what "Deaf
Bilinugal Education" actually means), but teaching methods and
philosophy remain largely driven by a focus on acquisition of written
Nepali alone.

I have been here, acting as academic advisor to the National
Federation of the Deaf-Nepal (NDFN) for the past year and a half
(almost!), and must say we have very good relations with all organs of
the Ministry of Education (including the Department of Education,
which is responsible for K-12 education, and the Curriculum
Development Center), and must also add (for any with possible
misconceptions of competencies within S Asian government Ministries)
that folks within the ministry (and its organs) are generally highly
professional and competent (undersecretaries often have PhD's in
Education and come from academia itself).

That said, they are ALSO rather naive when it comes to Deaf education
(although one undersecretray in the Curriculum Development Center has
a deaf son who has gone through the Deaf Education system)... BUT
(IMPORTANTLY!) they are very eager to "do what needs to be done".

I.E. we have a situation ripe to be taken advantage of if we are ever
to make real progress in Bilinugal Deaf Education...

Therefore, I have as one of our chief projects this next year to
produce a demonstration curriciulum for grades K-3, taught entirely
via Nepali Sign Language as Mother Tongue (with Nepali introduced as a
subject gradually from grade 2). As a sign language linguist who has
been working in Educational Linguistics for many years (although
primarily at the tertiary level) I have lots of ideas regarding the
NSL-as-a-subject component of the curriculum, but would like help from
any of you with experience and expertise on how to implement the rest
of the curriculum via SL (i.e. "Social Studies" or "Health" via SL).

Although reliance on technology IS a concern (we still have times of
the year where there is 12 hrs without electricty even in the
capital... and maybe more in much of the country), we will go ahead
and produce whatever needs to be produced in digital/video format, or
online content, or whatever... as this is a demonstration curriculum
of what CAN be done... and showing the maximum potential is important
to "impress" the Ministry of what "Deaf Bilingual Education" CAN be in
order to get them to fully commit...

So if any of you have access to curricula being used (or even just
proposed) which might be applicable... any and everythngn will be
appreciated (whether it is just on-paper outline of curriculum, or
syllabi of particular courses, or actual samples of video
"textbooks")..

thanks in advance... and
namaskar!

mwm || *U*C> || mike || माईक || мика || マイク (aka Dr Michael W Morgan)
sign language linguist / linguistic typologist
academic adviser, Nepal Sign Language Training and Research
NDFN, Kathmandu, Nepal