Practices of Special Needs Education Teachers in Teaching Sign Language to Deaf Students in Primary Schools of North Showa Zone

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the practices of teaching Sign Language to primary school deaf students. To conduct the study, descriptive survey method was employed. Among the 66 special needs unit of primary schools found in the Zone, 35 of them were selected through cluster sampling technique. 79 SNE teachers, 3 college SNE instructors and one Zone Education Officer were study participants using questionnaire. FGD and observation guide. The finding of the study revealed that the basic contents of Sign Language were missing from the major linguistic part of the curriculum despite the presence of Ethiopian finger spelling, American finger spelling and number sign and signed vocabulary. Signed Amharic signing system was found to be the dominant instructional strategy. Moreover, absence of Sign Language student text book and teachers‟ guide, SNE teachers‟ inability to teach Sign Language as a subject and medium of instruction, inadequate training support by CTE‟s were investigated as major problems which were also confirmed by the quantitative analysis. Moreover, there was no significant difference between male and female participants in communicative skills (t=1.37, df=78, p>.05). A strict analysis of the result reveals that SNE teachers to improve and strength their knowledge and skills of teaching Sign Language to deaf students. Details of the findings can be seen in the Manuscript.