ON THE TEACHING OF SYNTAX IN JAPANESE FOR DEAF CHILDREN (2) : A CASE OF NEGATION

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to program the teaching of negation in Japanese for the deaf and to apply the program to them. Prior to the programing, comprehension of negation was investigated in deaf children 10-11 years old and in hearing children 4-5 years old. The results showed that the deaf was lower performance than the normal aged 5, and as much as the normal aged 4. Therefore they needed the teaching of negation. The teaching program was designed on the basis of the frame of propositional logic. Sentence materials were pairs of positive and negative sentences. Relation between the positive and the negative was instructed; a negative sentence mentions all events except for one that the positive does. The teaching was carried through selecting pictures fit to a sentence meaning or sentences fit to a picture meaning. Subjects were six hearing impaired pupils. It took two hours to finish the teaching. A battery of evaluation tests was administered at three time intervals, before the teaching (Pre-Test), at the end of teaching (Post-Test), and three months after the teaching was completed (Follow-up-Test). The test was picture-multiple choice. Results; there was a significant difference in the performance between Pre-Test and Post-Test (t-test, p<0.05). And the difference was retained over a three-month interval. Thus it seemed that the teaching was effective for the deaf to be able to comprehend negation.