This article, drawing on a set of studies conducted in the framework of the Language of Instruction in Tanzania and South Africa (LOITASA) research project, shows how well African students express themselves if they are allowed to use a familiar African language, and conversely the difficulties they have when forced to use a foreign language, a…

This article explores the characteristics, goals, modes of transmission, teaching and learning strategies of indigenous African education, in which the pursuit of excellence and quality has always been an important aim. Informal and vocational training constitute the core of indigenous education in Africa. Under this traditional system, each…

Focus on textbooks, not class size, poor countries are regularly told as they seek to improve education quality. Yet, at the same time, with strong support from professional educators, the voters of the U.S. state of California approved massive expenditures to reduce the size of classes that in global terms were already quite small. These…

This article shows how interventions to provide Universal Primary Education (UPE) from the 1970s into the twenty-first century affected efforts to improve the quality of primary education in Kenya and Tanzania. While the interventions have made significant differences in the lives of many communities by increasing access to education of children…

Congenitally, profoundly deaf children whose first language is British Sign Language (BSL) and whose speech is largely unintelligible need to be literate to communicate effectively in a hearing society. Both spelling and writing skills of such children can be limited, to the extent that no currently available assessment method offers an adequate…

This action research study investigated the impacts of teaching strategies based on the balanced literacy approach on story grammar acquisition of three Turkish students with hearing loss. Data were collected from students' work, archival information, interviews and observations during lessons which were audio- and video-recorded. The pre- and…

This paper considers ethical issues surrounding the education of students with significant hearing losses. Rather than focusing on history or current challenges, it looks ahead to the not-too-distant future to examine the likely collision of ethics, pedagogy and politics. To a large extent, ethical issues looming on the horizon can be tied back to…

This study examined the relationships between identity orientations and attitudes toward cochlear implant (CI). A total of 115 deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) adolescents completed a demographic questionnaire, the Deaf Identity Developmental Scale (DIDS) and an attitudes toward CI questionnaire. The DIDS results showed that participants'…

This paper provides an overview of the challenges in learning a signed language as a second language, in particular for hearing parents with deaf children, and details an action research process that led to the design of a new curriculum for teaching Australian Sign Language (Auslan) to the families of deaf children. The curriculum was developed…

The present study investigated the conversational skills of a group of 18 children (aged 6 to 16 years) with severe and profound hearing loss. Participants included both hearing aid users and cochlear implant users. All the children relied upon spoken English and were included in regular classroom settings for at least part of each school day.…

A large study in the United Kingdom of support options for deaf and hearing-impaired children was conducted between 1998 and 2001. Findings have been reported on prevalence, demography, auditory performance, communication skills, educational achievements, and quality of life, costs including costs of compulsory education and costs incurred by…

The aim of the present study is to examine the impact of an INSET programme on regular classroom teachers' attitudes towards deaf students educated in regular primary schools. In this research project, a quantitative research approach is used involving randomised allocation of subjects to groups, and a pre-test--post-test design. The sample for…

For several decades the intellectual abilities of deaf children and adolescents, as measured by performance IQ, have been reported as comparable with those of hearing children and adolescents. Differences have been reported, however, on measures of verbal IQ, with deaf children and adolescents typically obtaining verbal IQ scores within the low…

The issue of the education of deaf children is addressed in relation to citizenship and sign bilingualism. Citizenship is a contested concept and those who advocate a sign bilingual approach use the discourse of citizenship when arguing for the value of their method, but so too do other approaches. The sign bilingual approach may benefit from a…

Researchers, the Deaf community, teachers of deaf children and speech and language therapists all share a concern about how to improve deaf children's written language skills. One part of literacy is story writing or narrative. A finding from a small number of studies is that children exposed to sign language from early childhood onwards achieve…