A national deaf teacher training workshop began on Monday at
Beijing Normal University, the first ever professional teacher
training to target deaf teachers in China.
The workshop, jointly sponsored by Save the Children (UK) and
China Disabled Persons' Federation, is designed for deaf teachers
in schools, who teach mainly through sign language.
Five weeks' training will be provided annually for five years,
offering professional teacher training to the majority of deaf
teachers in China, said Zhao Zhonghua, Deputy Director of Save the
Children (UK) China Program.
The first workshop covers the development of special needs
education in China and difficulties in implementing the new
curriculum as well as classroom techniques, teaching observations
and sign language study.
It is estimated that in 2004 about 80,000 people with impaired
hearing attended special education schools or special education
classes in China and they were taught by around 200 deaf
teachers.
The deaf teachers mostly graduated from one of three special
education universities such as Changchun University, Technical
School for the Deaf of Tianjin University of Technology and the
Special Education College of Beijing Union University.
Many of them serve as teachers of fine arts at schools for the
deaf. Due to the language barriers and other difficulties, teacher
training for deaf teachers has been scarce in recent years,
preventing deaf teachers from playing a greater role at schools for
the deaf.
"We expect to develop this training workshop into a barrier-free
one," said Xiao Yu, research and education project officer of Save
the Children.
(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2006)