Symposium
Presentation
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ABSTRACT

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VIDEOS

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PAPERS

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AUTHORS

SignWriting in Education

“The Importance of
SignWriting in Deaf Education”

by
Mohamed Ali Balti
Fedi Bahri
Wafa Laajili

“The Importance of
SignWriting in Deaf Education”

by
Mohamed Ali Balti
SignWriting Instructor at
Ibn Charaf University in Tunisia
livingtabernacle@yahoo.fr

and
Fedi Bahri
Tunisian Sign Language Instructor at
Ibn Charaf University in Tunisia
& Tunisian Deaf Sportive &
Educative Academy President
behrifedi@yahoo.fr

and
Wafa Laajili
Tunisian Sign Language Instructor
foofa.laajili@yahoo.fr

In Tunisia, and in the world as a whole, born-deaf people, or people who become profoundly-deaf at a pre-lingual age, are some of the least educated persons, since their native languages (sign languages) are not recognized in many countries, and because of oral schools, which have forbidden sign languages for centuries, presuming that spoken languages fit better for deaf education. This is not true, and nowadays we are repairing what they damaged.

Yet, using sign language to help deaf people improve their education level also remained difficult since, until now, sign languages could not be written. This problem has been overcome, starting 40 years ago, when Valerie Sutton first invented an innovative writing system, the SignWriting script, which is now making this dream come true and sign languages are becoming written languages.

In Tunisia, we used SignWriting to teach deaf children who attend the same schools that hearing children attend (a "mainstreamed school"). We translated some modules into Tunisian Sign Language, from different teaching manuals used in primary schools (Mathematics, physics, chemistry, Arabic, French, etc…) and we wrote them in the SignWriting script.

So, our presentation will be as follows: "The Importance of SignWriting in Deaf Education". See the video below. Teacher Wafa Laajili teaches SignWriting in the classroom with deaf children....The Deaf children give their opinions too!

...download PDF...

...download MSWord doc...

Related Links:

SignWriting in Tunisia

Tunisian Sign Language SignPuddle Dictionary

Forum Tunisien de Signwriting on Facebook.

SignWriting In Tunisian Deaf Education, June 2014

This 2014 video shows SignWriting used in a Tunisian classroom with signing deaf students, with teacher Wafa Laajili. The students sign while reading written Tunisian Sign Language. They also write on the board. At the end, they give their opinions about SignWriting. This video is presented as a part of the SignWriting Symposium 2014, by Mohamed Ali Balti, Fedi Bahri and Wafa Laajili.

4 PAPERS