Teaching Material Selection And Teaching Strategies Of Language Literacy Teaching In Deaf Schools

In 2007, the Ministry of Education issued Experimental program of compulsory education curriculum in schools for the deaf(Draft) to change the current curriculum in schools for the deaf. Our school started the new curriculum reform and made corresponding adjustments. However, there has been a dilemma in the teaching for the deaf since then---- no new curriculum standards and textbooks.In recent years, most of the students enrolled in schools for the deaf are extremely severe hearing impairment. More and more students have multiple barriers. They are basically "zero point" in pre-school rehabilitation training, family education and reading education. Moreover, because of the cognitive and language development and psychological characteristics of the deaf students and their language learning limitations which caused by sign language, they are extremely difficult to learn.By studying the literacy stage aims in the existing curriculum standards for the Deaf(2004) and the general school curriculum standards(2011), and combining teaching practice, I initially proposed the literacy stage aims for the deaf to guide the teaching, in order to make the literacy teaching in schools for the deaf more directional and guidance.In order to coordinate the literacy stage aims, our school made the textbook selection as follow. Chinese for Grade one(book 1)(school based) is used in the first semester of Grade one. Full-time experimental textbook for Grade one(book 1&2)(Schools for the deaf based) is used in the second semester of Grade one. Chinese for Grade one(book 1)(PEP) is used in the first semester of Grade two. Chinese for Grade one(book 2)(PEP) is used in the second semester of Grade two. Chinese for Grade two(book 1&2)(PEP) are used in Grade three. However, teachers encountered many difficulties in teaching such as lack of understanding of teaching concept, no significant changes in teaching methods and so on.Improving the literacy levels of low-grade deaf students is our ultimate goal of literacy teaching in schools for the deaf. We should not only learn literacy teaching strategies used in low-grade teaching in general school, but also merge the excellent and feasible strategies and experiences in literacy teaching in schools for the deaf, so that we can teach more pragmatically and innovatively. Especially the strategy of creating visual environment by word cards helps the deaf students to learn words by watching rather than listening which make literacy teaching more effective.