SW curriculum

[Andrée Gagnon]

Dear SW members,

 

      Because I feel that Val really ought to know who I am, what I do and
why I wish to establish contact with the SW members, please find  below my
message.

    

      Firstly, I will introduce myself.  I am deafblind.  I attended the
Deaf school in Québec city ( Canada) and I grew up in their dormitory.  I
use Quebec Sign Language ( QSL). Since 1998, I am professor in the
Department of Education at the University of Ottawa

 ( Ottawa is the capital of Canada).  I have been teaching six different
courses ( literacy and deafness: development of writing and reading for deaf
students.  The students can obtain a certificate of deaf education in
Ontario, Canada.

 

     At the Deaf school in Ottawa, a project called “ Fais-moi signe” ( in
English, “ Make me a sign”) is being developed to be presented to the
Ontario Ministery of Education for their approval.   I am preparing the QSL
curriculum as the first language from kindergarten to grade 2 ( 2006-2007),
from grade 3 to grade 8 (2007-2008) and from grade 9 to grade 12 (
2008-2009).  Upon approval of the project, the guide of QSL curriculum will
be distributed to teachers of Deaf students in the province of Ontario.

 

    And now I would like to learn more about SW curriculum.  Do you have a
Sign Writing curriculum from kindergarten to grade 12 for deaf children, not
adults?  To my knowledge I believe that only 2 teachers

 ( Cecila Flood in USA, Stefan Worhenman in Germany and one researcher(Kegl
in Nicaragua)   (another may be Brazil) have been teaching sign writing
course to deaf children  since many years.  Also, I know that Juliette (
France), Katheren ( Belgium) and others ( Germany- Swiss, and so on) have
been teaching the Deaf children an introduction to SW  for a few years. What
about the popular hearing trainers ( Val, Ingvil, Stefan)  and deaf trainers
( Therirry, Lucyna, Stuart) who give to hearing and deaf adults an
introduction to SW.

 

   While visiting the Centre of Total Communication in Danemark in 1998, I
asked the hearing and deaf teachers if they were using the SW in the class
in 1998 and the answer was no.

 

   I already checked your SW book for adults and also found you have a few
children books ( literature) for reading.  Do you have a strategic
instrument to teach deaf children how to read and write SW?  As an example,
French hearing children in grade 1 learn to form the regular plural of the
nouns by adding an “ s”: chat-chats ( in English, cat-cats).  But, they
cannot acquire the plural “aux”of nouns ending in “al”  in grade 1:
cheval-chevaux ( in English ox-oxen).  It is only in grade 2  that the
hearing children can acquire appropriately the plural “ aux” of the nouns
ending “al”. 

    As the level of grades seems important for deaf children to acquire the
symbol of rotation, my question is : should it be in grade 2 or in grade 3?
As far as  I am conserned I do not know. 

 

Best regards

 

 

 

André Thibeault

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