2005 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 31-40
The purpose of this study is to investigate methods of communication used by English teachers in their English classes by surveying questionnaires given both to teachers who teach English in classes for the hearing- impaired (HI) and to HI people who were taught English in their junior high school days. From the questionnaires three items are extracted for this study: (1) teachers' perceptions of HI students; (2) methods they use in communicating with HI students; (3) methods used when the HI people were taught English. The results of the survey indicate that most of the English teachers who teach English have more or less their own methods of communicating, but they did not master their methods in English classes at university, but from teacher training programs after they came to schools for the deaf or to HI classes in junior high schools. Considering this fact, students who will become English teachers should be required to learn not only methods of communicating with HI students, but should also gain from the university curriculum an understanding of hearing impairment as well as other impediments. This would enable them to teach English - which is a subject in which listening and speaking skills are particularly important - to HI students in a more effective and enjoyable manner.
