TEACHING STRATEGIES

Working Title of the Proposed Dissertation:

Teaching Strategies in Inclusive Classrooms for Deaf Students of United States: Testing and Recommending Methods That Can Aid, Deaf or Hard of Hearing School Students in Learning

Executive Summary

In this study we try to explore the concept of teaching strategies for in inclusive class room for deaf student in a holistic context. The main focus of the research is on relation between deaf students and teaching strategies in inclusive class rooms. The research also analyzes many aspects of teaching strategies in inclusive class rooms and tries to gauge its effectiveness and applicability on deaf student. The methodology covers the research design and data collection tools regarding the effective teaching strategies in inclusive class room. Results were based on the data being analyzed in methodology. Finally the research describes how teaching strategies can effectively applied in inclusive class rooms to teach and educate deaf students. The paper concludes by mentioning the implications and future aspects regarding teaching strategies in inclusive class rooms for deaf students.

Chapter No 1: Introduction

The inclusion of deaf and hard of hearing students in regular classrooms is a reality that has been observed with increasing frequency in different parts of the Western world. Sixty-two percent of deaf students enrolled in U.S. middle public schools were studying in regular classes in 2008. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 1 year later this segment had grown to 83%. In Germany, where municipal school systems have adopted a differentiated model of instruction, Hamburg schools have faced inclusion and diversity in regular classrooms as an opportunity for reciprocal learning to take place. In addition to differentiated learning, inclusive classrooms function under principles such as co-teaching and individual evaluation. The basic assumption is that children with different needs learn in distinct ways, and at different rates (Bargerhuff & Wheatly 2004, 318-321).

In Brazil's capital, Brasília, the public school system has adopted a model similar to that used by the Hamburg schools. There are inclusive schools where the only students with special needs who are enrolled are children who are deaf; other inclusive schools follow a similar policy—for example, limiting registration of students with special needs to children who are blind. In these schools, deaf and hard of hearing children study in special classrooms through second grade. Starting in third grade, however, they study in regular classes described as “inclusive classes”; more specifically, these are bilingual education classes. In such educational settings there are two teachers working, a regular teacher and a specially trained teacher. They work according to a co teaching schedule, deaf students go to a special educational centre twice a week, where they work with a deaf teacher to learn sign language or improve their signing skills. In grades of middle school, deaf students learn sign language and Portuguese (the national language of Brazil) within the same physical setting that other children do, but their classes follow a different schedule (Moroney, Finson, Beaver & Jensen 2003, 18-25). A hearing teacher who knows sign language is in ...