Professionalizing Skills in Teaching and Learning Career Choice in Sign Language
Keywords:
Assistive Technology skills, Empathy skills, Communication skill, Hearing Impaired, Sign LanguageAbstract
Professionalizing skills in teaching and learning sign language as an option is crucial for inclusive education and communication accessibility. The study was carried out to examine Professionalizing skills in teaching and learning career choice in sign language. Three objectives, research questions and hypotheses were formulated. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised 48 teachers and hearing impairment and non-hearing impair from all-inclusive schools in Rivers State. This was broken down as 15 teachers 19 learners with hearing impairment and Fourteen (14) non-hearing-impaired learners. Simple random sampling technique was used to select all the entire population as the sample size. Data for the study were collected by means of questionnaire titled Influence on Professionalizing Skills in Teaching and Learning Career Choice in Sign Language Questionnaire. The questionnaire adopted a four point rating scale of Very High Extent to Very Low Extent. Test-re-test method was used for the reliability test which yielded reliability co-efficient of 0.79. Forty Eight (48) Copies of questionnaire were administered, and 40 were retrieved for analysis. The finding shows that teachers lacked knowledge of sign language. ‹It was concluded that children with hearing and non-hearing impairment not poses the sense of hearing to help them manipulate sounds. Teachers also experienced difficulties in teaching fluency, where learners with hearing impairment and non-hearing impaired labored to process reading tasks. The study recommended that Ministry of Education should ensure that teachers of learners with hearing impairment and non-hearing impaired undergo intensive sign language training in order to be proficient in sign language skills. Teachers should ensure that all learners develop strong pre-reading skills such as alphabetical knowledge and print awareness, as these are foundational skills of reading development.
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