LEARNING TO READ “WITH OTHER EYES”

reports of visual literacy workshops for teachers of deaf people

Abstract

This study investigates the conception and the use of visual literacy strategies on the education of the deaf students. Deafness, if understood as a linguistic difference, presents a series of singular characteristics. Amongst such singularities we find the sign language, which is a visual language. Due to the visual aspect of the signal language, the education must be essentially visual. However Deaf and hearing teachers are not accustomed to develop educative proposal based on the visuality of deafness . Both deaf and hearing teachers simply repeat teaching techniques that resemble to a phonetic-based literacy program, using oral and not visual tools. It is of extreme importance to lead teachers in deaf classes to practices and techniques that respect the visual experience of their students. The present study introduces the experiences of teaching visual practices by deaf teachers.